‘Cover-up’ storm over uncontacted tribes

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An article in today’s Guardian newspaper alleges that a consultancy firm working for Anglo-French oil company Perenco ‘edited out’ evidence showing that uncontacted Indians are living in the area of the company’s project. The company has claimed that the tribes do not exist.

‘Certain nomadic groups are there,’ said one of the lead authors of the report.

‘There is no doubt in my mind that there are uncontacted groups there,’ said another consultant. ‘I was really upset when I saw the final report.’

The Guardian also quotes a forestry engineer who has investigated the impacts of seismic tests for oil exploration in the region where Perenco is working. ‘They said there were no uncontacted groups. But there were footprints, signs of dwellings.’

The Guardian article is available here.There is also a Guardian film.

Survival has also published a video in which eyewitnesses to the recent violence in Peru’s Amazon give a dramatic account of what happened. A PDF report of the eyewitness account is also available. The massive boom in oil exploration in the Amazon was one of the key concerns of the Indigenous protests.