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Amazon’s ‘Tarzan’ exiled from Peru
RORY CARROLL, LIMA
July 4, 2010PERU has ordered the expulsion of a British missionary who was dubbed a ”Tarzan agitator” for helping Amazon tribes resist the incursion of oil, gas and mining companies into the rainforest.
The government has told Brother Paul McAuley, who runs a civil association in the jungle town of Iquitos and promotes indigenous rights, to leave Peru within seven days and never return.
The interior ministry revoked his resident’s permit on the grounds he had participated in political activities ”such as protest marches and other acts against the Peruvian state which constitute a breach of public order”.The expulsion would mark an abrupt end to the campaigning of a Briton revered by indigenous groups and reviled by the authorities and sections of Peru’s media, which in addition to ”Tarzan” has branded him a ”white terrorist” and ”incendiary gringo priest”.
Brother McAuley said he would fight the expulsion. ”I am heading to my office now to see if it’s possible to appeal. I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” he said on Friday. ”I received the order yesterday so I’ve got six days left.”One tribe offered to hide him in its forest village and a Peruvian woman offered to marry him so he could get a visa.
”The support has been extraordinary, but I’m going to fight this legally. I’m not going to stay if I’m not allowed,” said Brother McAuley.
The 62-year-old, a lay member of the Catholic De La Salle teaching order, is a high-profile opponent of government efforts to parcel up three-quarters of Peru’s rainforest for oil, gas and ethanol. Peru is home to 70 million hectares of Amazon, second only to Brazil. Deals worth billions of dollars have brought in helicopters, barges and pipelines and raised expectations of being a net oil exporter.”Peru’s government is clearly determined to brook no opposition to its plans to carve up the Amazon,” said David Hill, of the advocacy group Survival International. ”The government has already initiated a campaign of persecution against indigenous leaders. Now it appears to be going after their allies.”
GUARDIAN
Apparently that is what the good Brother will be doing in the future.
Alan Garcia’s government is forging ahead with the sale of oil and gas leases in the Amazon and the rest of Peru and the world be damned.
As far as he’s concerned it’s just a fuckin’ jungle and of little to no value outside the oil and gas.
The first time he was President he emptied the treasury, this time he’s going to leave a wasteland behind, as well as lining his pockets. And those of his cronies as well.
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