US Drug War Money Funded Peru Indigenous Massacre

[ensho]

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/us-drug-war-money-funded-peru-indigenous-massacre

US Government Trained the Police Department that Participated in the Operation and Invested "Heavily" in the Killer Helicopters


On June 5, the Peruvian National Police (PNP) massacred up to fifty unarmed Awajún and Wampi indigenous people in Bagua who had blockaded roads in protest of land reforms related to a recently implemented US-Peru free trade agreement. Witnesses report that the PNP shot live ammunition from the ground, rooftops, and police helicopters. Anywhere between 61-400 people are reported missing following the attack.

Narco News has discovered that US drug war money is all over the massacre. The US government has not only spent the past two decades funding the helicopters used in the massacre, it also trained the PNP in "riot control."

The Peruvian National Police

The Peruvian National Police is a militarized police force and Peru's only national police force, meaning that Peru lacks a civilian federal police force. For this reason, the militarized PNP carries out regular policing functions in Peru, such as maintaining the peace and providing public security. Furthermore, "Counternarcotics operations in Peru are implemented primarily through the Ministry of the Interior by the Peruvian National Police," according to the US Government Accounting Office (GOA, now known as the Government Accountability Office). For this reason, the PNP receives a significant chunk of US drug war aid to Peru.

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Of particular interest is the participation of the anti-drugs police force, known as DINANDRO in its Spanish abbreviation. Between 2002 and 2007, the United States spent over $79 million on the PNP. 2002-2004 funds were for "training and field exercises to enhance the capabilities of DIRANDRO to conduct basic road and riverine exercises, as well as to provide security for eradication teams in outlying areas. These enhanced law enforcement efforts will require additional vehicles, communications, field gear, emergency/safety reaction gear, and drug detector canines." In 2007, the US government's funding for the DIRANDRO was expanded to "enhance the capabilities of DIRANDRO to conduct advanced road interdiction, riot control, greater security for eradication teams, and interdiction in hard-core areas." . In 2007 the US government also debuted the first of at least four "Pre-Police Schools" for students that have completed secondary school education (that is, these schools are an alternative to high school). The "Pre-Police Schools" are free and designed to recruit and train young people to be members of the PNP.

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what a farce the drug war is - will Obama's team ever put an end to it?

or are the drug war Barons to powerful to touch?

[Joanne98]

1. I posted about this yesterday. A Tale of Two Protests

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5892135&mesg_id=5892135

[anonymous171]

2. Drug lords and politicians are getting rich off of this. It's not going to end without a fight. nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. As we have come to expect, this massacre by an American ally has been suppressed by corporate media,

and completely ignored, even though so many people who gathered to protest were fired upon by helicopters supplied by this country, from national police trained by this country, with this event directly resulting from the FTA which was initiated by George W. Bush, throwing open their ancestral homeland to rape and plunder, invasion, destruction by foreign interests.

What a goddamned pity. How easy it is for many US citizens to simply not give a ####. They're only "indians," after all. Racism can be so eagerly embraced by people who are in no way whatsoever superior.

American lives are so precious, apparently, to most of these happily ignorant monsters, and who cares about the people trying desperately to keep their only homes, very humble homes, in their ancient homeland in the eye of a murderous storm.

[Oldenuff]

4. or are the drug war Barons to powerful to touch?

They are when they are rich and powerful,and have friends in high places.