Peru court sentences killers of Indigenous land defenders
Agence France-Presse
April 12, 2024 6:21AM ET
A Peruvian court on Thursday imposed near three-decade sentences on five men who were being retried for the murders of four Indigenous Amazon land defenders who had crossed swords with illegal loggers.
The four leaders of the Ashaninka people -- a group from a remote area along the border between Brazil and Peru -- were killed in front of members of their community on September 1, 2014.
Edwin Chota, Jorge Rios, Leoncio Quintisima and Francisco Pinedo were "murdered by presumed illegal loggers for defending their land," Peru'smain Indigenous organization, AIDESEP, said at the time. At least one of them -- well-known environmental activist Chota, had received threats for standing up to the intruders.
On Thursday, judge Karina Bedoya sentenced brothers Josimar and Segundo Atachi as well as Jose Carlos Estrada, Hugo Soria and Eurico Mapes to prison terms of 28 years and three months each as "coauthors of aggravated homicide."
. . .
According to the NGO Global Witness, at least 54 land and environmental defenders have been killed in Peru since 2012, of whom more than half belonged to Indigenous groups.
More:
https://www.rawstory.com/peru-court-sentences-killers-of-indigenous-land-defenders/
(Assassins representing wealthy interests murder indigenous or other villagers publicly to paralyze the others with terror to discourage any future resistance. )
~ ~ ~
From older article:
URCEOjo Público
February 25, 2020
This article is an edited version of one published by Ojo Público.
Five years after the murder in the heart of the Amazon of the Asheninka leaders Edwin Chota, Jorge Ríos Pérez, Leoncio Quintisima Meléndez, and Francisco Pinedo Ramírez, OjoPúblico traveled to Ucayali. Our examination of files, reports, and evidence reveals negligence and a string of irregularities involving several state officials responsible for investigating a 2008 complaint about illegal logging that later led to the ruthless 2014 killing of indigenous leaders: we reveal the strategies of the mafias behind the trafficking of timber between Peru and Brazil.
Today little has changed. The indigenous lands have at last been demarcated and registered. But the court cases for illegal logging, land invasion and murder are stalled, with charges against some dropped and verdicts unlikely until 2021.
Today little has changed. The indigenous lands have at last been demarcated and registered. But the court cases for illegal logging, land invasion and murder are stalled, with charges against some dropped and verdicts unlikely until 2021.
Main image: MURDER. Representation of the massacre of the leaders of Saweto elaborated by ashéninka painter Enrique Casanto Shingari
. . .
CONFRONTATION. Community members had been threatened on different occasions by loggers operating on the border of Peru and Brazil.
Illustration: Enrique Casanto Shingari.
VICTIMS. According to the Ashéninka worldview, the leaders killed today represent four warriors who died defending their land.
Illustration: Enrique Casanto Shingari.
. . .
GUILTY. Hugo Soria Flores, José Carlos Estrada Huayta, Eurico Mapes Gómez, Josimar Atachi Félix and Segundo Atachi Félix. (From left to right)
More:
https://lab.org.uk/saweto-the-violence-of-oblivion/