- In September, six people were murdered in Bajo Rayal, Peru.
- A conflict over the possession of 450 hectares of forest appears to be the motive behind the killings.
- Mongabay Latam went to Bajo Rayal to investigate, and discovered around 300,000 hectares of forest in the region are under dispute and being considered for agricultural conversion.
NUEVA REQUENA DISTRICT, Peru — “We are going to let you pass through these lands,” was the message Segundo Gamarra Alvarado said he was told two months ago by representatives from the Agriculture and Forestry Association of Campo Verde. They have reclaimed 450 acres of land that Gamarra has occupied for more than 10 years in the municipality of Bajo Rayal in the Nueva Requena district of Ucayali, Peru.
Gamarra considered their response a threat, since it was given after he had been called on to help resolve the conflict over the possession of the territory, and after he asked for 30,000 Peruvian soles (about $9,180) as payment for abandoning the land he considered his. After that conversation, he was convinced that there wouldn’t be any negotiation and that his life was also being threatened.
The disputed land forms part of the more than 7,600 hectares that have been reclaimed for the state by 125 members of the Association of Agroforestry Producers of El Encanto de Santa Rosa. The land is located in an area of permanent production forests (BPP in Spanish), near Cordillera Azul National Park.
According to Peru’s Forests and Wildlife Law, approved in July 2011, permanent production forests are set aside for the “permanent production of wood and other forestry products aside from wood, as well as wildlife and the provision of ecosystem services.” Therefore, these forests can’t be used for agricultural means since changing their usage is prohibited. Additionally, the law prohibits the “granting of property titles, certificates, or certificates of possession for any lands in the public domain that are capable of forestry use, or of protection with or without forest cover.” This law is outlined in the report “Deforestation for agroindustrial crops of palm oil and cocoa. Between the illegality and the inefficiency of the State,” published by the Office of the Public Defender of Peru in June 2017.
In a phone interview with Mongabay Latam, Gamarra claimed that the land he is now disputing was sold while he was being held in prison for a land invasion problem in Pucallpa. “My neighbors sold my land to the rice farmers without my consent. Now I am trying to recover the land, and I’ve handed over part of my land to my friends so that they can use it.”
To take possession of the land, Gamarra turned to 45 people —his friends, he says— each of whom he gave between 20 and 40 hectares of land. These people, who mostly came from other regions, also formed a farming association in the area along with Gamarra.
Six of them were murdered on September 1.
“That day, they were lining the ground to build the annex; they were building the communal house. They were killed there. They’ve fulfilled their threat, everything was planned, and they came to kill,” he said. It took place in the Motelillo sector of the area El Encanto de Santa Rosa, in Bajo Rayal, in the Nueva Requena district of the Coronel Portillo province of Ucayali, Peru.
As the rules dictate that disputed land cannot be entrusted under any method of possession; however, those who reclaim areas categorized as permanent production forests are convinced that the region’s authorities will change the law so that they can keep their land.
What happened on September 1?
In an incident that appears to have been an organized crime, six people were killed: Elías Gamonal Mozombite, Jorge Calderón Campos, Orlando Murillo Mendoza, Feliciano Córdova Abad, Alcides Córdova López, and José Edil Córdova López. They were reportedly tortured and then killed with a shotgun. They weren’t the only ones in the area that day, but they were the only ones who stayed after their workday in the disputed territory.
On Thursday, September 14, two weeks after the murders, Edgar Royser Tineo Sánchez spoke of what happened on September 1 while at a restaurant located on the entrance road to Campo Verde, about 40 minutes from the municipality of Pucallpa.
He recalled how he escaped death that day. With a gunshot wound to the thigh and another to his arm, he ran for cover from his pursuers and hid between the bushes. He said he hid for hours, from 7 p.m. in the evening until the sun began to rise.
“They followed me for about two kilometers. There was moonlight and I’ve run before; I know how to run through the forest,” he said.
“We were working, it was about 5:30 in the afternoon and [those who were killed] had to return to their campsite on the river. The rest of us left toward Campo Verde when we heard gunshots; then, I sent two people so they could see what was happening. Peña came back and told us: they have killed [them].” Royser said around 13 armed people were responsible for the shooting.
Royser, along with another day laborer, decided to return in order to help the injured. They waited until 7:30 in the evening before getting close to the campsite.
“On the boundary there’s a curve,” Royser said. “There were people —‘How are the people?’ they asked me. I keep going and with a ‘pum,’ they put the gun to my head. I push it and run; then they shot me, they shot me in the head, everywhere.” His companion was not able to escape and ultimately became one of the six killed.
Disappearing forests
The motives behind the murders – dubbed the “Massacre of Motelillo” – appear linked to the tangled web of Amazon land trafficking. Conflicts over the possession of land have multiplied in Ucayali, with claims of double sales and misappropriation of land commonplace, as well as invasions of primary and secondary forests and indigenous territories and reserved areas.
“Here there’s a lot of land trafficking,” and “the authorities are corrupt” are phrases that were often heard when Mongabay Latam interviewed local residents about territorial conflicts.
September’s muders have also been linked to land trafficking. But this time the scheme points to corporate associations and front companies that are formed in order to acquire land, according to the District Attorney of the Environment and regional authorities.
This issue is repeating in the dispute between Gamarra and the Agriculture and Forestry Association of Campo Verde over the possession of 450 hectares of land. However, because it is located within a permanent production forest, the land in question cannot be bought or sold, even using a proof of possession. Certificates of possession are often used in invaded or deforested land in Ucayali and elsewhere in the Peruvian Amazon region.
Gamarra doesn’t have documents that prove him as the owner or holder of the land; therefore, he can’t sell it. The agroforestry company that wants to claim the land also doesn’t have a way of accessing a title or certificate of possession that confirms its acquisition. Neither of the parties involved in the dispute is able to access documents confirming ownership because zoning regulations prohibit the sale or transfer of this particular piece of land to private entities. Regional Director of Agriculture Isaac Huamán Pérez confirmed to Mongabay Latam that “they knew that this land is prohibited from agricultural uses.”
However, the Agriculture and Forestry Association of Campo Verde was able to obtain a certificate of possession by turning to the Courts of Peace in Nueva Requena district to legalize possession of the land. On February 20, 2017, Justice of the Peace Víctor Rojas Maldonado signed the “Certificate of possession of Land in Motelillo, Nuevo Edén Hamlet, Nueva Requena District,” according to a figure in a document obtained by Mongabay Latam.
Peru’s Forests and Wildlife Law “prohibits the granting of property titles, certificates, or certificates of possession for any lands in the public domain that are capable of forestry use or of protection with or without forest cover.” Yet, it appears an agroforestry company was able to obtain a certificate of possession to the disputed land.
The certificate of possession lists much more than the 450 hectares that Gamarra reclaimed as his own, and which were at the center of the dispute that ended in the massacre. In total, the Justice of the Peace handed over a certificate of possession for 2,498 hectares in the Motelillo sector. This land included the 450 hectares that Gamarra reclaimed plus another 2,000 adjacent hectares in the Nuevo Edén hamlet. Clearing has begun in almost 3,000 hectares of permanent production forest.
Peru’s Rural Property Registry law mandates that certificates of possession must be turned in by the regional departments of the Ministry of Agriculture, which are the decentralized agencies of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture.
Justice of the Peace Víctor Rojas Maldonado told Mongabay Latam that he was surprised by the association’s representative and said he had made a mistake. In a subsequent interview, he added that he had issued a resolution to cancel the proof of possession.
“This man, José Zapata Picón, came with notarized documents and his association was enrolled in public registries. But the land was in an intangible place, in a national forest that can’t be entered just like that,” Rojas Maldonado said.
According to Peru’s Justice of the Peace Law, Justices of the Peace are authorized to complete notarial functions in populated areas that have no other notary public. Under that role, they can issue “proofs of possession, domicile or cohabitation, and others that the population requires and that the Justice of the Peace can personally verify.” However, this guideline does not authorize them to make permanent production forests available for use. “I was surprised, and I made a mistake,” Rojas Maldonado said.
According to the registration record of the Agriculture and Forestry Association of Campo Verde in the National Superintendent of Public Registries, dated June 2, 2016, the association is dedicated to “promoting the production and commercialization of rice, as well as that of cereals.” Other parts of the document indicate that it will also be dedicated “to the cultivation of palm oil, livestock, agroforestry, social, sporting, cultural, and agroindustrial or other related activities.” In other words, the forests could be converted into large expanses of rice or oil palm plantations.
Mongabay Latam tried to contact Lucas Quiliche Durán, Vice President of Peru’s National Superintendent of Public Registries (SUNARP), but calls were not returned.
An interview also also requested with the National Forest and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) to discuss the invasion and deforestation of permanent production forests in the Ucayali region, but those requests had not been answered by press time.
Promised land
The family of Orlando Murillo Mendoza, one of the victims of the September first killings, arrived from San Martín. They invited me to a house in Pucallpa where I met his sisters, Euralia and Maruja, his widow, Amalia Peña, and his daughter, Estrella Murillo Peña. With them, I waited for Edgar Royser Tineo Sánchez, and Juan Carlos Ruiz Burillo — who had been settled into the conflict zone to take possession of Gamarra’s land— and Óscar Antonio Vásquez Vásquez, the latest District Coordinator of the group Rural Farmers in Nueva Requena.
Euralia told me that they came to Uchiza, in the San Martín Department, in search of land to work on. José Castillo interrupted her to explain that they were invited by Gamarra in order to help him recover the land that was taken from him. They said they came four months ago and settled into the conflict zone.
“We’ve entered a land reversion project,” explained José. “We are 19 associations reunited in a land reversion federation. The purpose is to revert the permanent production forests to use them in agriculture; this way, we can have certificates of possession or property titles,” claimed Castillo, who was referring to the Bello Paraíso Association, a group of 60 people who want to reclaim this part of the forest.
A few hours later, in his office, Isaac Huamán Pérez, Ucayali’s Regional Director of Agriculture, confirmed his plans to stop at least 300,000 hectares of Amazonian forests in Ucayali from being considered permanent production forests. He wants them to be declared suitable for agriculture, ranching, or agroforestry.
Huamán Pérez’s explanation is based on the fact that before the State defined which Amazonian territories had to be permanent production forests, parts of them were already occupied. In 2002, more than 3.5 million hectares of permanent production forests were delimited in Ucayali. Therefore, his proposal is that all permanent production forestland occupied before 2002 should be excluded from this category and transformed into land used for agriculture, ranching or agroforestry. Additionally, he proposes that the forests that have been occupied since 2002 should be delivered in the form of a concession for at least 40 years.
The goal of winning back forested land appears to be a coordinated one. The proposal for the reversion of forests on the part of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture of Ucayali (DRAU) has already been presented to the Regional Government of Ucayali, according to Huamán, and should be sent on to the Congress of the Republic.
Currently, 300,000 hectares of forest in the Ucayali region are at risk of deforestation, and sources say regional authorities are promoting the invasion of their forests.
“If this proposed law advances, the beneficiaries won’t be these pseudo-communities, but whoever wants to take control of the forests, either for palm or for rice or for whatever they want. That is the danger; they’re going to destroy our jungle,” said worried regional advisor Rómulo Javier Bonilla Pomachari.
Bonilla said that although the locals’ possession of the land is not legally recognized, they are protecting their forest under the assumption that they will someday own it or receive a concession that they can later use to negotiate in the lucrative business of land commercialization.
This scheme of land-grabbing is presented under the intention of favoring small farmers, but critics like Bonila say the main purpose would be the appropriation of large sections of forest for commodity companies.
“They are propelling the hoarding of lands for the multinational corporations. In the end, [the lands] will be in very few hands,” Bonilla said.
Between rice paddies and oil palm trees
Conflicts and complains over misappropriation and unequal acquisition of land have been occurring for many years. Some that date back to 2012 arise from two companies owned by American businessman Dennis Melka: Ocho Sur S.A.C. (formerly Ucayali Plantations S.A.C.) and Ocho Sur P.S.A.C. (formerly Pucallpa Plantations S.A.C.).
The companies charged with the cultivation of oil oil have found themselves involved in the deforestation of at least 13,000 hectares of Amazonian forests in Ucayali. They have also been involved in a series of judicial investigations surrounding alleged forest crimes, including the illegal trafficking of timber products.
“Dennis Melka’s companies had planned to plant 80,000 hectares in the region, but they have kept the plantations they own, although the land trafficking continues and single-crop farming keeps advancing,” said regional advisor Bonilla Pomachari. “There are lots of ghost associations. They form farming communities to obtain land, but the purpose is to sell it to the palm company.”
In the midst of these confrontations over Amazonian land, a new crop is rising: rice. However, many are concerned that it is a cover-up industry to allow palm oil expansion to continue in Peru.
District Attorney José Guzmán, the First District Attorney Specializing in the Environment of Pucallpa, pointed out that those who were in this territory agreed to an opportunity presented by the region’s agricultural authorities to be titleholders to the land.
“This office has confirmed that in Agriculture, in the cabinet, the forests are being parceled out,” José Guzmán said. “What is being investigated is if this is being linked with the palm business, because according to the locals, the areas are industrially transformed with machinery. Everything indicates that there is a ‘modus operandi’ in the palm business, since because they are primary forests and they’re not going to give a different use, they do these simulations with people who say that they do domestic agriculture.”
According to Regional Director of Agriculture Huamán Pérez, what happened in Motelillo “is a problem between two organized mafias with interests in a particular territory to put in a type of crop that is in vogue and is highly profitable: the cultivation of irrigated rice.”
Percy Summers of Conservation International doubts that these lands are destined to be rice crops.
“I’d find it difficult to do rice because it requires a lot of investment and it’s not going to be too profitable. I believe that palm is behind it. Currently, there is a lot of demand for palm in the world and it’s a very profitable crop — much more profitable than rice.”
Jorge Ulises Saldaña Bardales, spokesperson of the Ocho Sur companies, categorically denies a link between the companies and the violence over land acquisition in the area. Over the phone, he mentioned that the disputed area is located eight kilometers from one of the companies’ plantations, which he says is a very long distance in that area, and that the area is 40 kilometers away from the Ocho Sur companies’ other plantation.
Saldaña Bardales, who is also the former mayor of the Provincial Municipality of Coronel Portillo, claims that the companies he represents are not buying more land, that they have no plans for expansion, and that the disputed land can become flooded and therefore isn’t suitable for growing palm. During the interview, two things were commonly mentioned: that the people disputing the land are not from Ucayali but instead come mostly from San Martín, and that the land is destined to be used for rice crops.
On the entrance road from the Campo Verde district towards Bajo Rayal, rice crops could be seen on both sides of the highway, in areas adjacent to the river. There were also coca plantations.
Moreover, as I waited for a ferry in Nuevo Piura, at the shores of the Aguaytía River, the conversation turned to issues of land invasions. As I shopped in a store, the proprietors offered me 200 hectares of land – including an ownership title. When I called the person in charge of the sale, he mentioned that the price ranges from about $2,450 to $3,060 per hectare; in other words, the 200 hectares would be about $612,650. The person indicated that the land was “highly productive, suitable for the cultivation of irrigated rice and of cacao.” He added that unworked land is offered for about $1,835 per hectare.
This is the way things seem to be in Ucayali: land sales that can encourage confrontations, invasions and even death.
Land for everyone
Those who work in the area where the murders occurred as well as the families of the victims are migrants. They came from other regions, such as San Martín and Cajamarca. They are in Ucayali in search of land, they say, and have settled in the area in the hopes of being given forested land.
They mention that those responsible for the murders also did not live in Ucayali; they, too, came from other regions such as San Martín and the northern coast of Peru. Julio César Guzmán Mendoza, a public lawyer who specializes in environmental crimes, does not reject the idea that the recent events are linked to palm oil.
However, he said there may be other possibilities. The first is that there is a pseudo-association supposedly dedicated to cultivating rice, whose members know that the land corresponds to a strategic cultivation locations and that large monoculture companies could i buy the land from them. According to Guzmán Mendoza, “in that area they are paying [$1,531] per hectare.”
The second possibility suggested by Guzmán Mendoza is that Dennis Melka’s companies have organized this strategy of land appropriation, since he claims “it has been one of their methods in Asia.” He said the formation of associations is one of their tactics. “In Malaysia, Melka’s companies utilized various schemes: they would buy possessions or take people from their lands, bribe civil servants, get groups of possessors on paper, from people who didn’t even know they were listed there, and then make sales, one after another, to break the chain of responsibility. But they also formed armed groups that went to put pressure on people so they would give up their lands,” Guzmán Mendoza said.
He said that beyond the recent crime, no one seems to be very worried about the situation. “ ‘What is happening with the land?’ should be the question,” he says. “What happened, the murders, reveals a whole situation of crime around the lands of the Amazon and how the jungle is being taken. It’s a case of land trafficking in the Amazon. The investigations should come to find out if we are facing the rice farmers or not.”
The end of the road
During an improvised assembly, around 15 farmers and reforestation workers from Bajo Rayal tried not to bring up the murders. However, they confess that they’re afraid of losing their land, especially now that they know that part of their land is located within the borders of the permanent production forest.
“We don’t know what can happen if they take away our lands,” said one. What they are sure of is that they don’t want to sell their land or be associated with land traffickers.
On a motorcycle ride from Bajo Rayal back to Campo Verde, I once again see crops of oil palm, rice, coca, papaya and plantains. I cross a road that still has enormous trees on both sides, with a road into it that seems to have been opened up very recently, but no one knows anything about it.
There are almost no cars that use this route. There are just a few motorcycles, moto-taxis and people walking between the small farms. These places are difficult to access, without phone service or electric lights. That day, heavy rain fell on the muddy road for almost two hours. “The jungle is a paradise” is often said when people see photos of the Peruvian Amazon. But deep inside, between destroyed forests and conflicts over land, life in the jungle can be far from idyllic.
This story first appeared on Mongabay Latam on September 30, 2017.
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