By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America  

LIMA, Peru – Survival International, an organization supporting tribal peoples worldwide, has warned the United Nations that a massive oil pipeline set to be constructed in Northern Peru will be very harmful to indigenous peoples living in that area. 

In a letter from Survival International to the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, James Anaya, the organization claims that “permitting companies to operate in this region of Peru flagrantly violates international law.” 

 The letter exhorts the Special Rapporteur to initiate an immediate investigation and to urge Peru’s government to prohibit the companies from working in the area.  The human rights NGO believes that if work on the pipeline proceeds, “some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens could be wiped out.”

Independent from the environmental concerns, there are significant fears that outsiders who enter the Indians’ land to work on the pipeline may introduce new diseases into the indigenous peoples’ population that their bodies are not prepared to fight.  Perenco, a Peruvian gas company, has recently admitted to transporting 50,000 tons of material into this region, the equivalent of ‘seven Eiffel towers.

While the pipeline has not yet been approved by the Peruvian government, there are signs that the pipeline will be given the go-ahead.  Survival’s appeal to the UN comes as the Peruvian government attempts to expel a British environmentalist, Paul McAuley, for speaking out against environmental and human rights abuses in northern Peru.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said, “[t]his is as serious as it gets for indigenous people anywhere in the world. Massive oil operations are planned which will destroy the rainforest and could decimate two tribes.”

The other companies interested in petroleum operations in that region are Spain’s Repsol-YPF and U.S.-based ConocoPhillips, which have applied to cut 282 miles of seismic lines in their bid to find oil.

For more information, please see:

Indymedia.org – UN Warned about Oil Pipeline in Peru – 15 October 2010

Latin American Herald Tribune – Group Says Peru Pipeline will Harm Indians – 15 October 2010

Domain-b.com – Survival International Warns US about Oil Pipeline in Peru -14 October 2010

Survival International – Letter to to the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people – 14 October 2010