The crime is attributed to drug traffickers, as the murdered leader was a known opponent of coca crops.
An indigenous leader fighting against coca crops has been killed in the central part of the Peruvian jungle, the government announced Sunday.
The authorities “condemn the killing of the indigenous leader of the region and province of Satipo, in the prefecture of Hunin, Santiago Condoricón Andouñez, and express their solidarity with his relatives and the Asaninca indigenous tribe.”
According to local media in Hunin Prefecture, the man was killed by an unknown person who shot him in the head on the night of Saturday to Sunday inside his home in the small town of Puerto Ocopa.
“Last night, drug traffickers murdered Santiago Condoricon,” former Interior Secretary and counter-narcotics expert Ruben Vargas said on Twitter.
Puerto Ocopa is located in the valley of the Apurimac, Ene and Madaro Rivers (VRAEM), the region of the country where the largest quantities of coca are produced.
The murdered Asaninka indigenous leader was in the 1990s the head of defense committees against the Shining Path Maoist rebels. The rebels were responsible for the killings of more than 400 members of the Asaninca tribe when Peru’s civil war raged, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In December, another indigenous leader, fighting against the usurpation of the Amazon, was also assassinated in the central part of the Peruvian jungle.
The Asaninca, who live in central and southeastern Peru, are the largest of the Andean country’s 65 indigenous tribes.
Source :Skai
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