Peru president signs indigenous consultation law

Peru's President Ollanta Humala signed into law a measure requiring that indigenous people be consulted before any mining, timber or petroleum projects are begun on their traditional lands. "What we want to do with this law is have the voice of indigenous people be heard, and have them treated like citizens, not little children who are not consulted about anything," the leftist Humala on Tuesday said in Imacita, in the Amazon basin province of Bagua. In June 2009, under his predecessor Alan Garcia, massive protests by indigenous people over laws that gave free access to mining and oil firms led to a tense standoff. Clashes that ensued led to the deaths of 24 police and 10 indigenous people. Humala pushed for this Prior Consultation law, which he called "a step forward," hoping to reduce the chances of social tensions without derailing the mining and other resource development that have helped Peru become one of Latin America's fastest-growing economies. "People must be consulted" where investments are going to be made, said Humala, whose own family is indigenous. Indigenous people must voice their will "without letting themselves be run over roughshod by economic powers or less than true leaders," he stressed. Peru's economy has become one of the fastest-growing in the region thanks largely to a boom in commodities including minerals and oil. Humala, who took office in July as Peru's first elected leftist president, promised to raise taxes on the Andean country's mining sector to fund social spending, citing recent windfall profits from minerals. The mining sector represented some 60 percent of Peru's exports in 2010. The South American country -- which has large silver, copper, gold and tin reserves -- has seen record economic growth during the last decade and growth of 8.5 percent in the past 12 months. But development has lagged behind the increasing wealth, and Humala was elected in part on promises to address economic inequality. The home of the storied Inca sacred place Machu Picchu, Peru has two major indigenous cultures -- mostly Inca and Quechua -- and many other smaller ones. Only in 2001 did Peru have its first democratically elected indigenous president, Alejandro Toledo, also a US-educated economist. People of European and mixed European-indigenous descent dominated politics and power for centuries following Spanish colonial rule.