Peruvian Indigenous Home Torn Down by Police and Mine Security as Conflict Intensifies

In the first week of February Peruvian national police and Yanacocha mine security guards tore down the foundations of a house Maxima Acuña de Chaupe and her family were building and then two days later the security guards threatened to build a guardhouse right in front of her property but were dissuaded by the presence of activists and reporters.

Local and international groups are filing requests to investigate the incidents and seeking further protections for the family that has faced other conflicts with armed police and security guards within the last month.

According to Acuña de Chaupe and others the first incident occurred on February 3 when 200 national police and some security personnel from the Yanacocha company arrived at the site where the family was beginning to construct a home. The officials proceeded to destroy the foundations of walls to the house despite, according to various sources, not presenting any official documents.

Yanacocha officials issued a press release that same day, asserting that the foundations were located on company property and that they did not threaten or assault anyone in the process. The Yanacocha statement also said that they contacted national police to have them enforce the company’s property rights.

Then on February 5, Yanacocha security guards arrived at the Acuña de Chaupe property with the intention of building a guardhouse. However, due to the presence of some activist allies and journalists from Lima, the family was able to convince the guards that they were on the family’s property. However, the guards then built the guardhouse just outside the family’s property lines as well as setting up a pen for 10 alpacas according to sources.

In response to these actions international and national organizations are seeking protection and justice for the Acuña de Chaupe family; an Amnesty International (AI) leader has asserted that the organization is very worried that the Peruvian Army is behaving like paramilitaries in attacking Acuña de Chaupe who had received an order of cautionary protection from the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2014; indigenous and human rights groups held a protest on Febraury 5 in front of the Yanacocha mine offices in Lima; and a women’s rights group filed an official request to the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations to formally investigate the “threats, harassment and attacks” against the family by members of the federal police.

“The biggest worry is first the use of security forces that are charged with and responsible for the protection of citizens and that are changed in a minute into a paramilitary group that protects the interests of these businesses and economic interests, when in reality they should be protecting the family, and on top of that there is a judicial order stating that the family is not violating any law,” asserted Erika Guevara-Rosas, an SI Director for the region.

Acuña de Chaupe however, is worried about their future safety.

“They put up their posts, some ten alpacas and now a guardhouse just in front of my house; and I feel very bad, very uncomfortable. I don’t know if they’re guarding the alpacas or they’re guarding me,” asserted Acuña de Chaupe.

“We don’t know what could happen to us,” she added.