Eggs Laid by Tigers

The Shawi indigenous people in northeastern Peru have many reasons for bitterness, Pizango, who is apu, or chief, of the group, said last week at a roadblock set up a few miles west of Yurimaguas to protest government policies.

"It's been a long trajectory of abuse," Pizango said. "We got tired of it."

He and others had blocked the main road leading to Peru's interior with tree stumps and rocks and set up makeshift tents with plastic sheeting along the highway shoulders. The surrounding terrain of Loreto province was a rolling green moonscape that long ago had been clear-cut by loggers.

Then, in a development celebrated as a victory for indigenous groups, Peru's Congress last week voted to revoke two laws enacted last year to further open the Amazon to mining, oil and timber development. The measures had enraged indigenous groups and led to a bloody confrontation June 5 in Bagua that officials said left 10 civilians and 23 police officers dead, with one officer missing and presumed dead.

Like Pizango's group, the indigenous people in Bagua were protesting decrees President Alan Garcia signed last year that gave foreign companies the right to take title to Amazonian land and facilitated their acquisition of road building rights of way. In addition to roadblocks, enraged tribes in the Amazon and in the Andean highlands closed an oil pipeline and took over two provincial airports after launching coordinated protests in early April.