Ashaninka people in Peru face constant threats to homelands
Posted: Thursday, October 10, 2013
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Ashaninka people in Peru have faced continued threats to their homelands over the past three decades.
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Shining Path rebels took over Ashaninka lands and carried out massacres in tribal villages. The movement was put down in 2000 but some holdouts remain and they are now involved in protecting drug traffickers in the region, the Associated Press reported.
Illegal logging is a major threat too. The tribe makes its home in the Amazon along Peru's border with Brazil, where forestlands are often targeted.
The Peruvian government is promising more assistance -- in the form of military bases. Some 11 new facilities are going up this year alone, the AP said.
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Life not easy and rarely peaceful for Peru’s largest Amazon indigenous group
(AP 10/10)
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