In protection of indigenous peoples, women and youth, who are part of the national and international indigenous movement that fights for the recognition and respect of individual and collective rights, and given the serious crisis that our country is going through, CHIRAPAQ, Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru expresses:

To Congress and government:

1. Exhort the Congress and the government to demonstrate social legitimacy, setting aside particular interests and avoiding instigation of social conflict
2. Orient actions mainly to address the health emergency and facilitate the economic recovery of families.
3. Guarantee compliance with the electoral calendar and democratic continuity.
4. Refrain from appointing the new members of the Constitutional Court.
5. Guarantee the right to social protest and unrestricted respect for human rights.

To social organizations:

6. Self-demand the construction of a civil counterpart, surveillance and political counterweight, which allows channeling the demand and proposal of the organized population, such as the National Agreement.
7. Strengthen the work of the Ombudsman’s Office, as the only instance in the current circumstances, which guarantees and watches over the imprescriptibility and exercise of human rights.
8. Build new ways of doing politics and promoting political participation that allow us to exercise power and representation of the cultural and social diversity of our country, and of all forms of organization and articulation, through which the population of our country is organized and represented for the full exercise of our rights.
9. Establish the mechanisms and strategies towards a process that allows structural reforms and a new Constitution.

To indigenous organizations and peoples:

10. Consolidate an articulated an Andean Amazonian indigenous movement.
11. Build a clear and visible indigenous political participation since our political participation has been channelled through various means and through other actors, which have not contributed to strengthening an indigenous policy.
12. Strengthen vigilance in our communities and regions against measures that violate our rights or worsen the advance of the pandemic, and resorting to early warning and urgent action measures that allow the international instruments and mechanisms achieved by indigenous peoples and that States are obliged to respect.

Lima, November 12, 2020

Indigenous Peoples in the f… by Centro de Culturas Indígena…

Download statement here.

Photo: Uriel Montúfar Butrón.