Satipo. Santiago Contoricón Antúnez, chairman of the self-defense committee of the Puerto Ocopa (Satipo) indigenous community, was killed in front of his daughter the night before last on Saturday. Police believe the crime was committed by drug dealers. With Contoricón, 20 indigenous leaders and defenders of the Amazon have been assassinated since 2020 by criminals linked to drug trafficking, illegal mining, illegal logging and land trafficking.
Contoricón and his self-defense committee regularly assisted local law enforcement officers in confiscating drug shipments and identifying drug dealers. According to a committee member, Contoricón was also involved in the seizure of a shipment of drugs on April 8, the day he was killed.
Puerto Ocopa, the community where Contoricón was killed, is a transit area for boats carrying drugs up the Tambo River to Atalaya in the Ucayali region. From there, the goods are transported by plane to Brazil and Bolivia. Río Tambo is also one of the 24 districts that form the valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro (Vraem) rivers. According to the National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs (Devida), this district accounted for 40 percent of the country’s coca-growing area in 2021.
Fabián Antúnez Camacho, President of the indigenous umbrella organization Cart (Central Asháninka de Río Tambo), is certain: the government’s inaction was decisive for the assassination of the respected leader. Antúnez only traveled to Lima on March 24 to draw attention to the acute threat in his communities at the Ministry of the Interior. But nothing happened after that.
At a meeting in early April, he also asked Prime Minister Alberto Otárola Peñaranda for help. “I turned to him and said: ‘Mr. Otárola, we want to speak to you directly about the issue of security, we are threatened by drug dealers’. He told me that he wanted to speak to us, that he and President Boluarte raised the issue on heart. He gave me his secretary’s phone number. I called him but he didn’t answer. The next day I called him again but he didn’t answer either. I left him messages but nothing. We have that Feeling that we are being made fun of. This death could have been avoided. The government is responsible for what happened. We have been warning of the threats we are receiving from drug dealers since 2019,” Antúnez complained to the weekly Hildebrandt .
In a communiqué, Cart warned that illegal coca cultivation had swamped indigenous communities’ lands in recent years. “Our rivers and soil are being polluted with thousands of tons of chemicals used by drug traffickers,” the statement said. The organization has also called an indefinite strike in the region until those involved in the contract killing are arrested. All land and river crossings on the Rio Tambo were then blocked by community members.
Santiago Contoricón became known for his leading role in the early 2000s in the resistance organization of his community Puerto Ocopa against the guerrilla organization Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso). The information collected by Contoricón was crucial in enabling the police to free 24 Asháninka kidnapped by the Shining Path. Contoricón himself was mayor of the Río Tambo district at the time.