Above photo: One of the victims is Edwin Chota, chief of the tribe Alto Tamaya-Saweto and became famous for winning many battles to protect the Amazon and its community from illegal logging and the construction of hydroelectric power plants. Photo in Lifegate.it.
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The Peruvian authorities must ensure that all those suspected of their murders must be brought to Justice. They must also extend protection to the remaining Indigenous People who are being intimidated and exploited by illegal loggers operating on their lands.
The four people murdered were leaders of the Ashéninka people of the Peruvian Amazon. Among them was Edwin Chota a prominent anti-logging campaigner who had fought for his people’s right to gain titles to their land and expel illegal loggers who raided their forests on the Brazilian border. At the time of the murders they were preparing to bring their community’s case and a complaint against illegal loggers to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
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It was widely known that Edwin Chota and other leaders from the Alto Tamaya-Saweto community were asking for protection from the Peruvian authorities because they were receiving death threats from the illegal loggers operating in their area. Locals say that the loggers were taking revenge after having been reported to the authorities.
Pervasive corruption allows the loggers to operate with impunity, stripping the Amazon region’s river basins of prized hardwoods. A 2012 World Bank report estimates that 80% of Peruvian timber export stems from illegal logging.