An indigenous leader, who led a fight against the coca fields, has been assassinated in the center of the Peruvian jungle, the government announced on Sunday. The authorities “condemn the assassination of the indigenous leader of the district and province of Satipo, in the region of Junin, Santiago Contoricon Antunez, and express their solidarity with his relatives and the indigenous Ashaninka people”, they tweeted.
According to media in the Junin region, Santiago Contoricon Contoricon was shot several times in the head by a man overnight from Saturday to Sunday at his home in the small town of Puerto Ocopa. “Last night, drug traffickers murdered Santiago Contoricon,” former interior minister and anti-drug policy expert Ruben Vargas tweeted.
A leader already killed a few months ago
Puerto Ocopa is located in the Valley of the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro (Vraem) rivers, the largest coca producing region in the country. The native chief was a figure of the Ashaninka people. In the 1990s, he led the resistance against the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas, responsible for the murder of more than 400 Ashaninka Amerindians during the Years of Lead in Peru, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Last December, another indigenous leader who was fighting depredation in the Amazon was also gunned down in Peru’s central jungle. The Ashaninka, who live in central and southeastern Peru, are the largest of the country’s 65 ethnic groups.