Olivia Arévalo Lomas, Source: Cosecha Roja. All Rights Reserved.

The
leader, practitioner of traditional medicine and defender of the Peruvian
Amazon, Olivia Arévalo Lomas, of Shipibo-konibo ethnicity, was 81 years old
when she was murdered last Thursday by two 380 calibre shots to the chest.

The
main suspect, Canadian Paul Woodroffe died shortly after: a group of community
members dragged him through the streets and beat him to death.

Olivia
was a known shaman of Victoria Gracia, an intercultural settlement in the
district of Yarinacocha. “Her death is an aggression against the entire Shipibo
community.

She was the living memory of her people” explained Juan Carlos Ruíz
Molleda, coordinator of the department of indigenous communities and
constitutional litigation of the NGO Institute of Legal Defence.

The day that they murdered Olivia, another woman from the Shipibo community, Magdalena Flores Agustín, received an anonymous envelope at her home. Inside there were two bullets and a letter directed to her and her husband.

It was
not only members of her own Shipibo community, a village of more than 35,000
people that inhabit the amazon rainforest of Peru that turned to the guardian.
She also attended to dozens of tourists who sailed for more than 15 hours down
the river Ucayali to cure themselves of illnesses and to treat addictions.

“She was
a grandmother who worked with medicinal plants”, Wilder Muñoz Díaz told Cosecha
Roja, a traditional Shipibo doctor from a nearby community that shared healing
ceremonies with Olivia. “It was very painful for us finding about her death”,
he added.

Despite
the main leads regarding the crime having discarded the possibility it might
have been a political crime, indigenous communities have remained on alert.

The
murder of the Amazonian guardian occurred in a context of territorial conflict
between the Shipibo community and companies that desire to take over their land
to cultivate palm oil.

The
exploitation of the Peruvian amazon “affects the subsistence” of every
community within the region explains Ruíz Molleda. They contaminate rivers
where people wash themselves and fish, and they destroy the land in which the
animals they hunt live.

In the past few years, around 6000 hectares of
rainforest were deforested by companies who were operating illegally.

“The
communities don’t want to sell their lands and that’s when hitmen start
appearing”, according to Ruíz Molleda. In 2013 Mauro Pío Peña, historic leader
of the Ashaninka community, was murdered by two hitmen.

The following year,
Edwin Chota Valera, Leoncio Quintisima Meléndez, Francisco Pinedo Ramírez and
Jorge Ríos Pérez, leaders from the Ashaninka community, were also murdered.

The
suspicions point to wood extraction entrepreneurs that illegally exploit the
amazon rainforest and drug traffickers who had threatened them. In 2015, other
leaders and members of the Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya were
threatened.

The day
that they murdered Olivia, another woman from the Shipibo community, Magdalena
Flores Agustín, received an anonymous envelope at her home. Inside there were
two bullets and a letter directed to her and her husband: “you have 48 hours to
leave here. One bullet for each of you”.

The investigators of the crime are
following two leads: according to the first version, on the 19th of
April the Canadian Woodroffe arrived at Olivia’s house by motorbike. When she
left to go to the shops he shot her twice in the chest.

Two days later the police found the body of the Canadian buried on their
terrain. They arrived there after discovering a video on social media in which
several men can be seen lynching Woodroffe. 

The
investigators suspect that the neighbours of the leader caught him when he
tried to escape and they dragged him with a rope around his neck whilst they
beat him. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Justice of Ucayali ordered the
capture of the two men who appear in the video. 

“What
happened with the supposed suspect of the murder of Olivia Arévalo is not
indigenous justice and it has nothing to do with it” explained Ruíz Molleda.

The Peruvian constitution establishes that the authorities within indigenous
and rural communities may carry out justice in their own territory according to
their customs. “But always with respect for human rights”, explained the lawyer
of the NGO Legal Defence. 

The Shipibo Konibo Xetebo Council (Coshicox), the
highest authority within the Shipibo – Konibo – Xetebo community, condemned the
crime and declared that justice is compatible with indigenous culture.

The
Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali and Alfluentes (Feconau) also asked
the state to provide guarantees to other indigenous leaders that receive death
threats and harassment. 

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This article was published in the framework of our partnership with Cosecha Roja . The original can be read here.