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US Congress and 31 dead in Peru
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Peru courtesy Wikipedia
On June 5, 2009 the BBC News reported at least 31 people had died in a clash between the indigenous people of the Amazon, and the Peruvian security forces who are trying to clear the way for development.
BBC News states the protesters are:
opposed to plans by the government of President Alan Garcia to open up communal jungle lands for oil exploration, logging, mining and large-scale farming.
This is a result of H.R. 3688 United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act from 2007: House vote roll call, and Senate vote roll call.
Most Presidential candidates in the Senate did not vote on this bill, while Presidential candidates in the House Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich voted against H.R. 3688.
Senator Bernard Sanders who voted against H.R. 3688 featured a 2007 news article from the Boston Globe on his Senate web site titled The hidden costs of free trade (Boston Globe, Op-Ed):
We have already seen the devastating effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Massachusetts. According to conservative estimates, more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last decade alone. Nationally, at least 3 million jobs have been sent offshore, and the wage gap continues to expand.
Our trading partners have suffered, too - with huge increases in inequality and massive displacement. For example, at least 1.3 million Mexican farmers have lost their livelihood under NAFTA. As a result, the number of annual immigrants from Mexico to the United States surged from 332,000 in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, to 530,000 in 2000 - a 60 percent increase.
Many of the Mexican farmers who lost their land, lost it to large-scale farming operations like those of Smithfield Foods. Smithfield was the suspected source of the latest swine flu outbreak.
This is truly a case of history repeating it's self. The Peru Trade Promotion Agreement may cause illegal immigration from Peru to increase, although people from Peru have a much greater distance to travel.
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