Foto: FECONAUSTATEMENT FROM DEFENCE FRONT FOR THE INTERESTS OF SANTA CLARA DE UCHUNYA: WE CONDEMN ONCE AGAIN THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN OF THE COMPANY OCHO SUR AND DEMAND ITS WITHDRAWAL FROM OUR ANCESTRAL TERRITORY.
We address ourselves as COMMUNITY MEMBERS OF THE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY SANTA CLARA DE UCHUNYA, located in the District of Nueva Requena, as well as Representatives of part of the Board of Directors of the Community registered in the Peruvian public registers with Electronic Record 11155570 and legitimate Representatives of the FRONT FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE INTERESTS OF THE NATIVE COMMUNITY SANTA CLARA DE UCHUNYA, made up of 26 community members, in order to INFORM THE PUBLIC OPINION OF THE FOLLOWING:
The INFORMATION PUBLISHED by the newspapers and outlets Agro Perú (11 March 2024), EXPRESO (14 March 2024), PERU21 and LAMPADIA (15 March 2024), are MISINFORMATION, biased and incomplete, with the headlines and contents:
- Agro Perú publishes the article "Comunidad indígena denuncia en Lima a ONG IDL y FPP por violación de derechos humanos" (“Indigenous community denounces NGOs IDL and FPP in Lima for human rights violations”),
- Expreso publishes the article “Nativos denuncian a ONG IDL de Gustavo Gorriti” ("Natives denounce Gustavo Gorriti's NGO IDL"),
- Perú21 publishes the article "Comunidad indígena denuncia a la ONG IDL y FPP por violación de derechos humanos" (“Indigenous community denounces NGO IDL and FPP for human rights violations”),
- Lampadia publishes "El IDL en acción ONGs contra comunidades nativas" (“IDL in action. NGOs against native communities").
As community members of Uchunya, as members of the current board of directors and as members of the community's Defence Front, we reiterate that this information is FALSE.
The Santa Clara de Uchunya native community is made up of SHIPIBO community members who have lived there since our birth, and other Shipibo brothers and sisters who have been living in our community since before 2010.
In 2012 we began our struggle for the defence of our ancestral territory, and only in 2020 did we achieve a land title extension covering only 1,500 hectares, which are adjacent to what is now the company OCHO SUR P SAC.
The struggle that we began in 2012 against the palm oil company Plantaciones Pucallpa, later transferred to the company Ocho Sur P SAC, has not diminished in any way our disagreement with the company, nor its actions and strategies to divide us as a people for the benefit of its interests in laundering its image and making money.
Ocho Sur P SAC took advantage of the pandemic and the absenteeism of the Peruvian State and entered with gifts, which later became CONDITIONING factors for a group of community members who received food supplies to end up supporting the company. This happens in Nueva Requena, in Loreto, in Brazil and everywhere.
Sadly, the fact of receiving a few kilos of rice and sugar, a few bottles of oil, among other provisions, and added to the need of our humble community and its shortages, made some members of the community to be in favour of the company. Who can be such a viper to play with the hunger of the people to wash their image? Is this respect for human rights on the part of the company?
The way to divide our community has been like this, with gifts and presents, with football shirts and coloured balls, with visits from former Peruvian national football team players, and all those who were in the struggle are now, one day, no longer in the struggle. And that hurts us a lot.
Because whilst the company gives away a little bit of food to alleviate someone's hunger for a week, it steals their conviction and the path towards recovering something that is ours, our own, collective, which is invaluable.
But it is our history and the waters of the Aguaytía are and will be witnesses to this fracture. We do not deny it and on the contrary, we shout it even louder: We are a community divided because of the company!
But we will resist.
And what our brothers and sisters who support Ocho Sur do not know is that Ocho Sur has another intention: to win over our community members, to manipulate them so that they do not oppose their plans to continue expanding oil palm cultivation. And proof of this is that they intend to turn 1,200 hectares of our communal forests into conservation forests, and the remaining 300 hectares of our titled lands could be used for more oil palm plantations.
Look at what Ocho Sur has done with our neighbouring brothers and sisters of Shambo Porvenir! Is it so easy to deforest in one place and then try to compensate in another? Is it so easy to say that they have not expanded a single hectare on the property they stole from us, but they promote the planting of oil palm in other locations that would feed their expanding oil processing plant?
To Public Opinion. It is simple. Ocho Sur pays for misleading publications and pays the expenses and travel expenses of our brothers and sisters out of the company's interest in discrediting organisations that have been in this territorial struggle supporting us in solidarity for many years.
FOR ALL THESE REASONS, AS MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY, OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND OF THE DEFENCE FRONT FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY, WE CATEGORICALLY REJECT THESE PUBLICATIONS BY OCHO SUR AND THEIR REPRODUCTIONS IN NEWSPAPERS AND OUTLETS THAT LACK TRUTH AND WE ARE SADDENED THAT THE STATE ENTITIES, SUCH AS THE NOW DEFUNCT OMBUDSMAN'S OFFICE, HAVE ATTENDED TO THEM IN A BIASED AND PARTIAL MANNER, SHOWING THE POWER AND INFLUENCE THAT THE COMPANY OCHO SUR P SAC HAS.
WE ALERT ALL THE PRESS, THE COMMUNITY OF PUCALLPA, NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY, OF THIS SITUATION OF DISCREDITING AND OF WANTING TO SILENCE OUR VOICES IN OUR DEMANDS FOR A JUST STRUGGLE.
WE ONLY WANT OUR TERRITORIAL STRUGGLE WITH OCHO SUR TO BE RESPECTED AND NOT TO HAVE FALSE STORIES IMPOSED ON US IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE COMPANY!
AND WE DEMAND THAT THEY WITHDRAW FROM OUR ANCESTRAL TERRITORY ONCE AND FOR ALL!
Links
AIDESEP
- https://aidesep.org.pe/noticias/ucayali-comuneros-de-santa-clara-de-uchunya-condenan-campana-de-desprestigio-de-empresa-ocho-sur-y-exigen-su-retiro-inmediato-de-su-territorio-ancestral/
- https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=398313839487008&id=100079251841769&mibextid=oFDknk
FECONAU
IDL
