Ayacucho’s voice in Peru’s Amazon conflict
13 June 2009 at 06:12 Suzy Marinkovich 11 comments
¡La selva no se vende, la selva se defiende!
“The forest is not for sale, The forest we defend!” shouted the community of Ayacucho while pumping their fists in the air. Sweat dripped down their foreheads in the midday sun and not a soul was dressed for a day at the office. The spirit of the crowd was overwhelming, as if every person had their heart invested in the political crisis unfolding in Peru, no matter its geographic distance from here.
Hours after my arrival in Ayacucho on Tuesday, while I was still entranced by the cultural beauty of the place and struggling for air due to altitude, I was told the roads into the town were to be closed at midnight, and water and electricity might be shut off. The other volunteers at my MFI and I joked that the Peruvians were hazing me – the newest guerita in town.
In the Bagua region of Peru, an area where life is sustained by the Amazon’s great forest, live many indigenous people who have subsided on local hunting for generations. Far away in the urban metropolis of Lima, Peruvian President Alan Garcia has been coming up with a plan for Peru to have freer trade and more room for foreign corporations, at the request of the U.S. Two bills were created that would allow thousands of square miles in a formerly protected area of the Amazon rain forest to be for sale – which could indicate logging and/or a foreign oil company.
The indigenous have been rioting. They feel that their rights are being ignored, as this is an area they consider their own. The other side, including many urban dwellers, see the indigenous as unfairly resistant to change and purposefully difficult to negotiate with.
Another chant begins.
“Pueblo Amazona, Ayacucho esta contigo!”
Amazon region, Ayacucho supports you. Ayacucho can relate to the plight of rural farmers and indigenous communities often ignored and forgotten by the national government. And once they heard of the violence from the conflict last Friday – over 30 indigenous killed and hundreds more missing – it became a personal call to action. Further fanning the flame is a rampant rumor that the missing indigenous were killed and thrown into the nearby river by the police in order to cover up their deaths.
Two decades ago, the socialist terrorist group Sendero Luminoso ruled the region and city of Ayacucho. If you went out past 8pm, you would be killed by either the military or the terrorist group, as they assumed that by being out late you must have been doing something for the other side. Over 40,000 people disappeared in this area. Virtually every single FINCA Peru borrower in this area lost a loved one. Wives awoke in the middle of the night to their husbands being taken, never to be seen again. Many teenagers here do not have fathers.
Ayacucho’s heart is invested in Peru’s indigenous in the Amazon region: they’ve closed their markets and businesses the past two days, and those that had to work protested by wearing civilian clothes – even at FINCA. The streets have felt barren and boarded up.
Yet the most entrancing moment of the protest was watching a Peruvian woman climb up to the megaphone and tell the story of the day she never saw her husband again. She spoke in Quechua with power and a strength that simply transcended the language barrier.
This tiny little town’s protest might not make the national Peruvian news, nor is this crisis in general making headlines internationally without hunting through websites to find news pertaining to South America. As I watched the crowd overcome with emotion, I became overwhelmed and encouraged that Kiva allows its Fellows to share the resilient life stories of our Kiva borrowers on this blog.
It brings tears to my eyes to see an elderly woman, with four grown children, get excited about her next loan – twenty years after her husband’s life was taken. It brings tears to my eyes that her daughter sits next to her, breastfeeding her newborn, and counting out their next loan payment, literally juggling everything in her hands.
My heart has been pounding to get this story out.
Thank you, Kiva, on behalf of the rural campesinos in Ayacucho and in Peru’s Amazon, who’ve lived through the unimaginable, for letting me tell their story.
Because “justice is what love looks like… in public.” –Dr. Cornel West
Click here to make a loan to a borrower at FINCA Peru.
Suzy Marinkovich is a Kiva Fellow at FINCA Peru in Ayacucho, the first of her three placements. She has a wholehearted passion for microfinance, social justice, and poverty alleviation. Suzy is most excited to listen to the incredible stories of Kiva borrowers in South America and let them know how much they continually inspire us all.
Entry filed under: Americas, blogsherpa, FINCA Peru, KF8 (Kiva Fellows 8th Class), Peru. Tags: Amazon conflict, Ayacucho, blogsherpa, FINCA Peru, KF8, Kiva, Kiva Fellows, Peru, Politics, Suzy Marinkovich.
1. Suzy Marinkovich | 17 August 2009 at 07:29
To the authors of a few previous comments,
I appreciate your honest feedback. For clarification, this blog post and blog in general is meant to convey the stories of the Kiva Fellows as well as the communities in which we and our MFIs work in. Thus, this post only seeks to convey the local opinion of, namely, Ayacuchan citizens and FINCA borrowers, and how the situation affects them.
As for the allegation of working for Marxist rebels, microfinance and Kiva are doing quite the opposite. It is about building capital and starting small businesses. Borrowers apply for the loans, they are not automatically given them.
Feel free to contact me with any more comments and questions, they are welcomed.
All the best.
2. Sucker | 9 August 2009 at 16:36
Ja, Ja, Ja, the Kiva program allows you to lend money to the poor. How generous of them. So you give your money and time to this program who allows you to give. You happen to volunteer for Marxist rebels, how quaint.
Don’t get me wrong, I have done numerous missionary trips and given plenty of money directly to schools and charities. Enough to know a scam when I see one.
Did it ever occur to you that if security and law was established in developing countries, that poverty would decline accordingly?
Did it ever occur to you that people who have lived in adobe housing up until our parents generation may be accustomed to squalid conditions and resistant to modernization and change?
This is an Al Gore type hoax. I feel sorry for this author.
http://www.kiva.org/about/what/
“Lending to the working poor through Kiva involves risk of principal loss. Kiva does not guarantee repayment nor do we offer a financial return on your loan.”
3. Paloma | 9 August 2009 at 16:19
The law of the jungle is still, Survival of the Fittest. There are so-called “leaders” in the jungle who are willing to kill for power and they easily take advantage of naive foreigners who’s Nightingale or Robin Hood complex easily decieves them.
People with big ego’s will always be taken advantage of. They are what Carl Marx wisely dubbed “usefull idiots”. There are always two sides to every story. Both need to be told and understood.
4. Jo | 17 July 2009 at 23:03
There is a need to tell the whole story. Did you know that those indigenous of the Amazon tortured and killed 10 unarmed police officers at a security station in Bagua? Why? Because local radios controlled by radical NGOs and communist groups were telling lies about police forces killing thousends of indigenous at a protest in another part of Bagua.
Did you know that when the dirigents of the indigenous were interviewed by the journalists that wanted to know the reason of their fight they didn’t even know what the laws they were fighting against were about? They only repeated the text told to them by the NGOs and members of the Nationalist Party (the one that is against everything: free economy, moderdization, the one that is paid by Chavez, the president of Venezuela in is intent to have yet another puppet president in Humala and a coup d’etat in Peru)
The lack of education has made many groups of the Andes and the Selva victimes of the NGOs and antisistem groups that tell them lies about the laws and the government like the water service is going to be privitize or the government is going to take away your land. Taking advantage of their ignorance and poverty using them to weaken the country and the economy.
It is true that there is much to be changed, that education is pending issue and there must to be done in the fight against poverty, that decissions should include the people’s opinion and that private investment should be responsible towards the local population and the nature. But also the actions fo these antisistem groups, NGOs and political parties should be know and how taking advantage of the poor they claim to fight for they want to drive the country into a crisis and weaken even more the democratic institutions.
5. Chris Ball: Microfinance in Ayacucho | Full-Linux.com | 26 June 2009 at 22:05
[...] Ayacucho’s voice in Peru’s Amazon conflict [...]
6. Unilove | 16 June 2009 at 08:05
Suzy, it is meant for you to be there. You bring everything you have been taught and you share what you know, and you learn the truths in the field. We Kiva lenders appreciate all you do, and all that Kiva supports. Stay strong and post often…
Unilove aka Lisa
7. Larisa | 16 June 2009 at 07:49
After I watched an interview with the author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, I see these things from a different perspective… http://bit.ly/B7nwD Please watch it, get the book; Paradigm shifting
8. Tina | 15 June 2009 at 15:45
Suzy,
It seems like you were just here at work and now you are like a world away, so to speak. My thoughts and prayers are with you and Matt.
Love Tina
9. Nilima | 15 June 2009 at 12:34
Suzy, that was an amazing post! You really conveyed the emotion and intensity of current events in Peru–your post made me feel like I was there more than just by reading the newspaper here in Bolivia. Good luck!
10. nickcain | 15 June 2009 at 04:56
Great post Suzy. I was in Bolivia last week working with a new MFI and all the newspapers had this story all over the front pages. Thanks for sharing the local, Kiva-based perspective. Good luck with your fellowship.
11. Jan & John | 13 June 2009 at 06:46
Thank you for sharing that experience Suzy, it sounds like you have a very open heart. Be careful for yourself, that you don’t get swallowed up and take on too much of the burden alone. We are thankful for people like you who are willing to open our eyes to the truths that are hidden so well in our world. The issues are so big but we take comfort in knowing that we can make a difference in even just one life through Kiva. be well, jan