Peru recalled its ambassador to June 16 after President Evo Morales described the recent killings of indigenous protesters in the Peruvian Amazon as “genocide.” Ambassador Fernando Rojas said Morales’ comments were a “totally false assessment.” Peruvian Foreign Minister José García Belaunde said the measure was “a redress manifestation for the continued intromissions of the Bolivian government on internal issues of the country.” He added that he considered Morales an “enemy of Peru.”
Morales said June 13: “What is happening in Peru, I’m convinced is the genocide of the indigenous people through the FTA [free trade agreement]; privatization; the handing over of South America’s Amazonian jungles to transnational corporations.”
Echoing earlier comments by Peruvian officials, García Belaunde also accused Morales of a hand in the Amazon unrest, telling reporters in Lima: “President Evo Morales not only expressed his solidarity with the rights of indigenous peoples; he went a step further, because he actually made a call to resist, to rebel and to make a revolution.” (Living in Peru, BBC News, June 17; Press TV, Iran, June 16)
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