COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION CONSIDERS REPORT OF PERU
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has considered the combined fourteenth to seventeenth periodic report of Peru on its implementation of the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Presenting the report, Aurelio Pastor Valdivieso, Minister of Justice of Peru, said that since the end of the year 2000, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms was greater than ever. It was true that the road ahead was still long, but Peru had taken all possible measures to establish full democracy. Peru was now a country in which all freedoms were promoted, especially the freedom of expression. Considerable growth and economic development had allowed Peru to substantially reduce poverty. Development was brought to rural areas through a number of measures, for example, through social programmes that had provided 6 million Peruvians with access to clean water. Over three years, poverty had fallen from 48 to 36 per cent, which meant that 3 million Peruvians had been able to move out of poverty during 1,000 days of the new Government. Peru was today the country with the highest growth rate in Latin America and which also had the lowest rate of inflation.
Regarding indigenous peoples, the Andean and Amazonian peoples constituted 40 per cent of the total population. The distribution and localization of indigenous peoples in the Andean region as well as in the Amazonian region coincided with the poorest regions of the country, which were rural areas that were difficult to access. The education level of the 300,000 people living in the Amazon differed greatly from the Peruvian average. The extreme poverty in which each of those native communities lived was reflected in low educational levels, especially in the high illiteracy rates among women. Peru had understood that it was impossible to vanquish poverty without education. The President had been very concerned to stimulate foreign investment to finance infrastructure in rural areas. Thanks to these efforts Peru had been able to reduce its debt, both domestic and external. The legislative decrees that were being challenged by some native communities were part of a trade agreement with the United States, which aimed a promoting a more modern State so as to promote better efficiency with respect to the natural resources for which it was necessary to create and modify existing structures. That was done without infringing on the rights or the private property of the communities. Violent uprisings during the last few days in the jungle town of Bagua had led to several deaths among the police and the civilians that had installed roadblocks. The events would be investigated with the means of democracy, Mr. Pastor declared.
Jose Francisco Cali Tzay, Committee Expert and Special Rapporteur on Peru, in preliminary concluding observations, said that some questions of the Committee had not been answered. Among the concerns of the Committee were water issues, as some communities were reopening wells that had been closed which was causing draught in other communities. There was also concern on the low number of complaints about discrimination. That did not mean that there was no discrimination; to the contrary, there might be no complaints because of fear. There had also been a fall in the percentage of speakers using their mother tongues and Peru was asked for the reasons for that decrease. In Latin America, the development discourse was often used as assimilation policy and the Committee hoped that this was not the case in Peru.
During the discussion, Experts raised various issues mostly pertaining to the treatment of indigenous peoples and communities. They deplored the fact that indigenous peoples had not been consulted prior to the elaboration of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. In that context, it was noted that indigenous peoples were not benefiting from the important economic growth that Peru was enjoying despite the global economic crisis. Experts stated that a racial hierarchy based on skin colour existed in Peru. Further questions were asked regarding discrimination against Afro-Peruvians; activities of the organization of the Shining Path; a recent violent conflict that was called genocide of indigenous peoples by some media; and State measures to assist victims of a recent earthquake.
The delegation of Peru also included representatives from the Permanent Mission of Peru to the United Nations at Geneva; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Energy and Mining; and the Ministry of Women and Social Development.
When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m. today it will begin consideration of the combined twelfth to sixteenth periodic reports of the United Arab Emirates (CERD/C/ARE/12-17).
Report of Peru
The combined fourteenth to seventeenth report of Peru (CERD/C/PER/14-17) is currently available in Spanish only.
Presentation of the report
AURELIO PASTOR VALDIVIESO, Minister of Justice of Peru, presenting the report, said that although there was no public institution to act as a focal point against discrimination, since the accession of Peru to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination, various measures had been adopted by Peru. Since the end of the year 2000, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms was greater than ever. It was true that the road ahead was still long, but Peru had taken all possible measures to establish full democracy. Peru was now a country in which all freedoms were promoted, especially the freedom of expression.
Considerable growth and economic development had allowed Peru to substantially reduce poverty, Mr. Pastor noted. Development was brought to rural areas through a number of measures, for example, through social programmes that had provided 6 million Peruvians with access to clean water. Two million Peruvians had become owners of land with their land titles registered. Over three years, poverty had fallen from 48 to 36 per cent, which meant that 3 million Peruvians had been able to move out of poverty during 1,000 days of the new Government. Peru was today the country with the highest growth rate in Latin America and which also had the lowest rate of inflation.
Regarding indigenous peoples, the Andean and Amazonian peoples constituted 40 per cent of the total population, Mr. Pastor said. Spanish was the first language of over 80 per cent of the population, while 13 per cent had learned Quechua and 2 per cent had learned Aymara as their first language. The cultural and linguistic reality of Peru was rich, heterogeneous, pluricultural and multilingual.
The distribution and localization of indigenous peoples in the Andean region as well as in the Amazonian region coincided with the poorest regions of the country, which were rural areas that were difficult to access. The education level of the 300,000 people living in the Amazon differed greatly from the Peruvian average. The extreme poverty in which each of those native communities lived was reflected in low educational level, especially high illiteracy rates among women. Concerning the Afro-Peruvian communities that were living in the North and South of the Peruvian Coast, their education levels were similar to the Peruvian average, he added.
In 1,000 days of Government, remarkable progress had been achieved in the fight against poverty. One means was to provide education programmes to indigenous peoples. Peru had understood that it was impossible to vanquish poverty without education. Sewerage systems and access to electricity – and thus also to Internet – were now being installed. The entire process needed investment. The President had been very concerned to stimulate foreign investment to finance infrastructure in rural areas. Thanks to these efforts Peru had been able to reduce its debt, both domestic and external. Not only were they winning against poverty, but Peru was also converting into a stable country from an economic point of view, Mr. Pastor underscored.
The Peruvian Constitution recognized each Peruvian’s right to his ethno-linguistic identity. In order to comply with that constitutional mandate, an ethnolinguistic map had been drawn up in 2009, showing 76 ethnic groups, grouped into 15 ethnolinguistic groups. Further, 67 languages had been identified, 58 of them in the Amazon, 8 in the Andean region and 1 on the Coast.
Mr. Pastor referred to various information campaigns established to prevent and combat racial discrimination. Courses had also been provided to members of the judiciary and to law enforcement officials on human rights.
The legislative decrees that were being challenged by some native communities had been adopted in the framework of the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, which aimed a promoting a more modern State so as to promote better efficiency with respect to the natural resources for which it was necessary to create and modify existing structures. That was done without infringing on the rights or the private property of the communities. Violent uprisings during the last few days in the jungle town of Bagua had led to the deaths of 23 policemen, 5 civilians from Bagua and 5 indigenous people. In addition, people from outside the communities had started to instigate violence. It was falsely stated by local media that indigenous peoples had been massacred. Although the police had had firearms, it had preferred to seek dialogue with the native communities, during which they had then been attacked. During those outbreaks of violence, police officers had been tortured and killed in the most atrocious manner. The events would be investigated with the means of democracy. The judiciary was autonomous and the executive could not interfere with the investigation, as had been requested by some.
Questions by Experts
JOSE FRANCISCO CALI TZAY, Committee Expert and Rapporteur on the report of Peru, said that it was not the Committee’s intention to distort information and that the Committee was not a tribunal and did not intend to judge Peru. However, information had been received by various Peruvian non-governmental organizations. It was necessary to talk about the events on 5 June 2009, which had been described by some journalists as genocide – although it should be noted that the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, who had visited Peru in June 2009, had found no evidence to legally support such a claim.
Mr. Cali Tzay was concerned that there was no focal point on the fight against discrimination in Peru. Also, the Government did not provide enough training so as to be able to combat discrimination against indigenous peoples. For the long path ahead in developing policies to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples there were many sources that should be studied, including the Vienna, Durban and Stockholm treaties.
In addition to the protection of cultural diversity, it was important that it was not enough to have legislative provisions, Mr. Cali Tzay underlined. As to the establishment of the National Institution of the Andean and Amazonian People, that would be a very important means in the promotion of the rights of the indigenous peoples. As the Minister had called the Afro-Peruvians a people, he wondered whether they benefited from the provisions of the relevant International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention (No. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries).
The problems that indigenous peoples were facing stemmed from the fact that they had not been consulted on decisions directly affecting their livelihoods, Mr. Cali Tzay noted. The obligation to carry out consultations in such matters was explicitly stated in the ILO Convention. Free and full informed consent had to be given by the communities through their representatives without any pressure. To obtain such approval, there should be full understanding of potential negative consequences for the native communities. The collective rights of those indigenous peoples’ communities had to be respected. The content of legislative decrees regarding the free trade agreement between the United States and Peru violated human rights because their contents related directly to indigenous peoples, who were not informed about their contents.
For example, the goal of one of those decrees was to change the legal status of the lands belonging to peasant communities. The traditional chiefs of the region St. Martin had recently submitted 100,000 signatures to declare the unconstitutionality of 10 decrees which all had to do with a lack of consultation. There was a lack of knowledge on human rights and human rights instruments in general. The idea of prior consent gave rise to inevitable problems, including the violations of sacred lands and the denial of means of subsistence.
Mr. Cali Tzay said that the Afro-Peruvians were even more vulnerable than the indigenous peoples because they were not recognized in the Constitution. They were mainly living in urban areas where the rate of drug addiction was high. Afro-Peruvians were stigmatized as delinquents; were overrepresented in prisons; and had serious problems in getting access to justice. He also recalled that forced sterilization of indigenous peoples were terrible acts. Birth prevention measures taken in some groups could be problematic in that regard as they were discriminatory.
Other Experts noted that Peru had accepted the need for special measures regarding its indigenous peoples, as the establishment of quota for political participation showed. Taking into account decentralization efforts, how did the Government ensure that the law of racial discrimination was the same in all parts of the country? Was there a difference between native and indigenous peoples? How did the category of peasants relate to the other two definitions?
Concerning languages, Experts noted that more than 40 per cent of the population was Amazonian, but that was not reflected in the breakdown on languages, where data showed that only 16 per cent of people spoke indigenous languages. In that regard, Experts also asked questions pertaining to bilingual education and declining numbers of speakers of Aymara and Quechua. The delegation had mentioned that there was a link between education levels and fertility rates and Experts requested more information on that question. An Expert cautioned that lack of education could also lead to discrimination and to multiple ensuing handicaps. Experts were especially concerned about school attendance by Afro-Peruvians, as only one in four completed primary schools. What measures did the State undertake to ensure education for that group? From another point of view, an Expert added that if education was part of the answer to prevent discrimination, so was the curtailing of hate speech.
As to protecting the indigenous peoples’ right to their land, Experts said that there was information on conflicts between indigenous peoples and oil operations. In that connection, they asked what mechanisms existed to reconcile inconsistencies between international agreements and the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Experts also wondered why there were so many disputes erupting right now concerning water, mining and related issues. Attention was drawn to the fact that all over the world ethnicity and poverty were closely linked and that indigenous peoples did not seem to benefit from the economic growth of which Peru was so proud.
Experts asked questions regarding the use of traditional mechanisms and customary law to solve legal differences; spreading of economic benefits to rural areas; legislation on the death penalty, although a de facto moratorium was in place; the existence of the organization Shining Path; surprisingly low numbers of complaints regarding racial discrimination; the current situation of self-defence units of indigenous peoples; and whether forced sterilization of indigenous peoples or was a widespread phenomenon.
Experts also drew attention to the sharp social disparities between indigenous peoples living in the rural areas and the urban population. In everyday Peruvian mainstream society, racial discrimination manifested itself in various forms: for example, when job offers required buena presencia, that was a code word against indigenous features. In a poll among students in Lima in 2004, over 90 per cent had responded that racism existed in Peru and was often based on facial features. Experts wanted to know whether the delegation was aware of such discrimination. In the context of discrimination, one should not forget that in the South of Peru, Indians were living in a very cold climate. They constituted about 10 per cent of the population and were often forgotten.
Experts asked whether the victims of the latest earthquake had received aid, including international aid. Thanks to its economic growth, although it was also affected by the economic crisis, Peru was in a situation to provide assistance to vulnerable peoples.
Answers by the Delegation
Concerning Peru’s vision of the future, Mr. Pastor said that Peru wanted to be a country with extensive infrastructure and emphasized the importance of roads, which had been built largely through private investments. First of all conditions had to be created to support agriculture. For example, coca-producing areas had been converted into palm oil and cocoa-producing areas. Most exports had dropped, except the agricultural exports. Peru continued to grow despite the economic crisis because it was expanding its domestic markets, which also included regions in which indigenous peoples lived. Peru had also doubled its reserve over the past two years, which showed that the economic model of the Government was working, and was able to make social investments.
Regarding the conflict in St. Martin discussed earlier, Mr. Pastor said that within the framework of the Peruvian Constitution, new laws could be challenged. That was how Peruvian democracy worked. There were enough mechanisms internally and externally for Peruvian people to challenge laws. Peru wanted to be a solid democracy. Representatives of the indigenous peoples were present in regional Governments since at least 15 per cent had to be allocated to the indigenous communities, even tough that percentage was higher than the actual indigenous population. Peru had 28 million inhabitants and only a small Parliament with 120 Parliamentarians. There were 8 political groups and getting an agreement was very difficult. During the last years, resistance had been developing to broadening representation. If that could be achieved against that resistance, representatives of the indigenous peoples could be directly integrated in the Parliament.
As to the definition of native and indigenous peoples, Mr. Pastor said that the terms rural and native peoples were used with the aim of guaranteeing the rights of those people not of restricting them. In the Institute for the Development of the Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, half of the Members of the Executive Council were members of indigenous peoples.
Peru would like to be a country, in which its people could assimilate through knowledge to each other and the world in general, Mr. Pastor stressed. It wanted to have an open economy, thriving through the export of mining products and energy. Peru also wanted to be an integrated country, with integration above all at the South-American level. One of the challenges that remained for Peru was water issues in the Amazonian. It was very important to take the native communities into account. There had to be respect for their land, which should be their property. However, there was also land that belonged to the State where private investment should be stimulated. Some 8 million hectares in the Amazonian had been deforested because of illegal logging and joint efforts were needed to save the forests for the world population at large through conservation efforts. Peru asked for the good faith of companies that invested in Peru for preserving the rights of the native communities.
In recent years, the majority of the people had opted for a democratic State. When conflicts occurred, they occurred because people wanted to restrict democracy and restrict foreign investment. On the one hand, there was the model of democracy, development and cultural diversity and, on the other, there was the model of authoritarianism, a closed economy and confrontation. The events in Bagua should never have happened in a democratic State like Peru. They had happened because people were told that the Government’s decree was aimed at destroying the environment in which people lived – which was not true. Efforts to hold a dialogue between indigenous peoples and the Government had not been successful because the representatives of the indigenous peoples had left the discussion. Confrontation had been encouraged from the outside and even some Members of the Catholic Church were involved in such activities as they thought they would defend the indigenous peoples.
Following the confrontation in Bagua, objectively, there had been 34 deaths, 24 of which were from the national police. When proclaiming that genocide had taken place, the world’s media had used false information given in bad faith. Peru had been making great progress in the economic sphere and now it suddenly had an image that it was systematically killing indigenous peoples. It was hard to imagine what efforts it would need to correct that completely false image, which had been confirmed as false by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Pastor urged the Committee to point out the harm done to Peru by those allegations.
As to the activities of the Shining Path, Mr. Pastor said that terrorism had been restricted to a few areas. However, only very recently on last Sunday five persons had been killed in the region were the group originally came from. The Shining Path was no longer a threat to Peru as whole, but it had now started working together with drug traffickers. The Shining Path were not only protecting them, but were also engaging in drug trafficking. The Shining Path had never been a group that wanted to avenge the wrongs done to vulnerable people, as had sometimes been portrayed; instead, it was simply a criminal organization.
Economic activities related to the export of oil and mining products sometimes gave rise to inconvenience in certain communities. That was often enforced by wrong information distributed to those communities. The State needed revenue, which came from exporting raw materials. That was a concept that was sometimes hard to explain to less educated people who believed that Congress could simply invent money. Unfortunately, Peru had not yet found the recipe to make money without work. However, those people that opposed the Government’s activities did not have any alternatives to the Government’s plans.
Another member of the delegation then gave an overview about Peru’s water management. Water was national heritage and the right to use water by indigenous peoples was specifically mentioned in a draft law, which had not yet been transformed into concrete regulations.
As to oil production, the delegation explained that legislation had been enacted beginning in the 1990s to protect the environment. In the Oriza Act of 2006, parties had agreed to set up commissions to monitor activities. There was a 10-year comprehensive health plan, including health monitoring in the population, food assistance programmes and workshops for indigenous mothers. Food had been distributed until April 2009. As to mining, civilians had been included at various stages in the process. There were 40 monitoring Committees on mining and 24 of those were now taxpaying entities. In the fuel sectors, guidelines were established to ensure civil participation. Emphasis was placed on the interests of the people that were directly concerned. The State promoted the full exercise of economic, social and cultural rights of the indigenous peoples during the whole participation process. The delegation pointed out that in the case of oil production, civil participation was already carried out before a company had even been chosen.
Concerning education, the delegation said that there was false information about the dismissal of teachers. Peru had a lot of private education institutions and public information was offered to the poor Peruvians. In this era of mass dissemination of knowledge, Peru wanted to raise the quality of teaching in public schools. Peru was a country with great progress, but also with great disparities. Those had to be combated by education. As to the use of native languages, the delegation said that the Government tried to foster recognition. It had to be noted that those languages were only oral languages.
As to the prevention of discrimination, the delegation said that Peru had taken comprehensive action, including the introduction of laws to fight discrimination. Various Government departments were working together in that regard. Concepts of human rights were now being mainstreamed into school curricula. Training courses in human rights were conducted in Quechua in areas that were still today disrupted by violence. In the process of transferring power to regional Governments, Peru included the transfer of funds so that the regional Government could undertake measures to promote human rights. Together with international organizations, educational projects had been run in the Quechua language in order to prevent discrimination. Traditional teaching methods had been altered that used to be authoritarian. A number of human rights publications had been made, for example, the Constitution was also available in Quechua. Peru was committed to disseminate human rights-related information in order to promote practices that would prevent discrimination.
Regarding forced sterilization, the delegation said that this was a matter of the last decade. Cases had been investigated and measures taken. National laws were applied in all regions, but regional decrees were tailored to the specific region. Native and rural communities could pursue execution of their laws, in conformity with international standards.
Regarding discrimination in job offers, the delegation said that it was rejected by public opinion. As to means to react to natural disasters, funds were provided for preventive measures to react to the El Niño phenomenon, which would hit Peru next summer. As to the death penalty, no one had been executed during the past 30 years. Although the Constitution allowed the death penalty in cases of treason against the State and terrorism, it was not applied and would never again be applied. Peru applied penalties commensurate with the crime committed.
Preliminary Concluding Observations by the Special Rapporteur
JOSE FRANCISCO CALI TZAY, Committee Expert and Special Rapporteur for the report of Peru, in preliminary concluding observations, noted that Peru was committed to complying with the Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination. However, many of the Committee’s questions and concerns had not been answered, starting with water issues. The Committee did not say that water was being polluted, but that some communities were reopening wells that had been closed which was causing droughts in other communities. In addition, the llamas, a main form of subsistence for indigenous peoples, were dying for lack of water.
There was also concern on the low number of complaints about discrimination. That did not mean that there was no discrimination; to the contrary, there might be no complaints because of fear. The Committee would also like more information on the Ombudsman. There was also great concern regarding structural discrimination and Mr. Cali Tzay wanted to know what measures the country was taking to counter that.
In Latin America, the development discourse was often used as an assimilation policy and the Committee hoped that that was not the case in Peru. Mr. Cali Tzay noted that there had been a fall in the percentage of speakers using their mother tongues. Were they ashamed of using their languages? Regarding discrimination against mestizos, the Committee would like more information, as that was an important issue that had not yet been addressed by the delegation. Information from non-governmental organizations stated that discrimination occurred mostly in public administration, which was especially worrisome. As to hate speech, the Committee would like to know more about how it was penalized.
For use of the information media; not an official record
CERD09016E