Political Report # 1332 An Indigenous Student's View on Oil Contamination in the Peruvian Amazon

By Elisvan Greffa Yumbo, Chaikuni Institute through ThruthOut

In the Peruvian Amazon, over 40 years of irresponsible oil exploitation have affected countless indigenous communities. While scientists still do not know the long-term impacts of oil spills and water contamination, the links between indigenous rights violations, socio-environmental conflicts and the petroleum industry are becoming increasingly clearer. In this exclusive story, indigenous Kichwa student & Vice-President of indigenous student organization OEPIAP, Elisvan Greffa Yumbo, presents his observations following a research trip as part of our joint investigation with Lima's prestigious Pontifica Catholic University on the right to clean water in the region of Loreto. The cases documented in the investigation, focused on the communities of Vista Alegre in the Tigre River and Cuninico in the Maranon river, will be presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on May 7th 2018 with hopes to advance much-needed and overdue justice for Peru's Amazonian indigenous peoples. The right to water is a human right and as human beings we have the right to exercise it and to demand that the water we consume be treated, so that it is healthy to drink. We embarked on an 18-hour trip from the town of Nauta to the indigenous community of Vista Alegre, which is located in the district of Intuto in the province of Loreto, with the aim of collecting information on water contamination and its consequences on the human right to water, in particular around the Tigre river. During the tour of the Tigre River, I first observed the lack of birds that live on the banks of the river and feed on fish, such as the white heron, which can be seen in large numbers around the Marañón river. I couldn't hear the songs of the howler monkey which I usually hear around the Putumayo river, which is where I come from. When I arrived in the community I felt as I were arriving in my own community. All rural Amazonian populations have something in common, whether it's the way of building their houses along the banks of the river or their hospitality, amongst other things. I felt calm, at home and drank the typical drinks offered to visitors, and ate the fresh fish of the river - a common way of life in the community.

Abstract, Development in Southern Mexico: Empirical Verification of the “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”

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Development in Southern Mexico: Empirical Verification of the “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”
by Carlos Alberto Jiménez-Bandala


An analysis of underdevelopment and poverty in the Papaloapan Basin of southern Mexico shows that, despite the use of different development models in the neoliberal pattern of accumulation, structural conditions still promote a form of internal colonialism that enables the growth of one region at the expense of another. Recent public policies meant to support development in the region seem to be based on the dominant twentieth-century perspectives that Stavenhagen called “erroneous theses about Latin America.”

Book Review, Scars and Resistances in Latin American Cities

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Scars and Resistances in Latin American Cities

by María Mercedes Di Virgilio                     


The production logics of Latin American cities have not followed the same canons as those of American or European ones. Although in many cities we can recognize neighborhoods or areas that appear to conform to the “North Atlantic urban ideal,” these areas or neighborhoods—as expressions of the so-called formal city—clearly adjoin and interact with what has come to be known as the informal city. The two volumes reviewed here contribute to the vast literature on Latin American cities and to discussions regarding poverty and the scars that informality has stamped on these cities since their foundation (for an overview, see McTarnaghan et al., 2016).

Cities from Scratch: Poverty and Informality in Urban Latin America, edited by Brodwyn Fischer, Bryan McCann, and Javier Auyero, is another in the long list of works on urban informality, but it attempts to move beyond the truisms and paradoxes found in this type of analysis (1):

Abstract, Unsettling Times: Living with the Changing Horizons of the Peruvian Andes by Mattias Borg Rasmussen

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Unsettling Times: Living with the Changing Horizons of the Peruvian Andes 
by Mattias Borg Rasmussen

As in many other parts of the Peruvian Andes, the peasants of rural Recuay report receding glaciers, altered patterns of precipitation, and disappearing species of plants and wildlife among the many things that may unsettle the everyday. Susan Whyte’s concept of uncertainty highlights the fact that climate change emerges in different ways in particular situations. It informs water politics and local lives but is not a priori the most important part of the story. Rather than adapting to climate change, people adapt climate change to their social worlds.