Land owners since time immemorial

The First Memorandum Presented to the Government by the Amuesha Congress 1969

from Ch. 16 The Land is Not for Sale

We, the undersigned, representatives of 20 communities (510 families) of the Amuesha tribe who met on 1-3 July in the Community of Miraflores (Oxapampa) to participate in the first Amuesha Leaders Conference, unanimously agreed to send this memorandum to the Government of Peru in order to bring to its attention the problems which afflict us.

The main points which were discussed were:

1. The insecurity of our landholdings due to the lack of titles which guarantee them. This has allowed invasions of our land by colonists and large landowners.

2. The groups which hold land have so little that, as a result, their socio-economic position is very precarious.

3. The total lack of legislation regarding forest tribes. It was pointed out that the last Agrarian Reform Law made no reference to our position but merely referred to problems of technical and social assistance.

During the course of the meeting the following resolutions were passed:

1. To demand that the Government fulfil its obligation to give titles to the lands which we presently hold for the following reasons:

a) We have been the owners of this land from time immemorial.

b) To protect us from the advance of the colonists who constantly threaten to take our land from us.

c) To enable us to take advantage of the programmes of Technical Assistance and Credit.

d) To allow us the security of permanent crops.

e) To permit us to form cooperatives for production and commercialisation as a means of incorporating ourselves into the national system of production.

f) To request the creation and construction of schools.

2.  To request that more land be ceded to us and that the amount should be in a just proportion to the number of people who live on it. In deciding on the quantity of land that shall be awarded to us, the government should take into account the following factors:

a) The poor quality of the soils which demands that a large amount of land be granted in order that future generations are not faced with the problem of its infertility.

b) The population's decision to concentrate on the raising of livestock which needs a greater area.

c) The lack of money amongst the Amuesha and the distance of their reserves which means they must have guaranteed areas reserved for hunting and fishing.

3.  To make known our wish that land be granted to us in the form of communal reserves and not in individual plots.

4.  To make known the need for technical assistance and credit to develop the land which we are requesting.

5.  To request the help of State institutions in the founding and building of schools in the communities which need them.

6.  To ask that the legal procedures for obtaining personal documents be made more accessible and that we be excused the fines as it is only recently that we have learnt of the need for these documents.

Since about 1958 we have sent requests to the Delegation of Forest regions and the Agrarian Reform office in attempts to legalise our possession of our land. Unfortunately, up until the present time we have had no success. The present memorandum is a united effort on the part of the Amuesha to expose the problem and to draw the government' s attention to it so that it can take the necessary measures in accordance with its just and effective agrarian policy.

We hope that you will attend to this matter with the urgency that it requires, given that we are the legitimate owners of these lands from time immemorial.

Miraflores; (Oxapampa), 3 July 1969.

Source: Moody, Roger ed. The Indigenous Voice: Visions and Realities. 2nd Edition. Utrecht: International Books, 1988. p.375-377. Taken from Stephen Corry: unpublished MSS, Survival International, London.