to our group website. Hopefully you will find any information you want about our group, but more importantly it will inspire you to take action. The best way to keep in touch with us is via our email newsletter. This generally goes out once a month. This is changing in format as we develop the blog and the newsletter will link to relevant actions or events, rather than being too detailed itself. The group meets every month except August at Moordown Community Centre. This is on the second Thursday, 7.30 to 9.00. This is a sort of business/planning meeting with some letter writing. If there is a speaker or any particular change to the format it will be flagged up in the newsletter. We have a Facebook page – please go and like us! Its another excellent way of keeping in touch and joining in with actions and campaigns.
SUMMARY
In this month’s newsletter we have new urgent actions on Colombia and Chile, an updated one on Venezuela, and a new report on the Peruvian government’s failure to provide adequate healthcare to indigenous communities whose water sources are contaminated. We have good news from Colombia about the ceasefire between the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrilla group and the government, and about the visit of a formerly imprisoned union leader to Amnesty UK’s office. In Brazil, reports emerged of the murder of members of an uncontacted indigenous tribe at the hands of illegal gold miners. Meanwhile in Venezuela, the detained former Defence Minister is once again being held incommunicado. During its annual Embassy crawl, the Lambeth Group delivered a letter to the Embassy of Chile expressing concerns about the safety of Rodrigo Mundaca. You can opt into working on his case.
PERU
In a new report, A Toxic State, Amnesty has revealed how the Peruvian government has failed to provide adequate healthcare for Indigenous communities in Cuninico and Espinar, in the country’s Amazonian and Andean regions respectively. Studies found that their only sources of fresh water were contaminated with toxic metals harmful to human health. Amnesty has launched an accompanying campaign about which we shall write to you separately.
Human Rights Watch have issued a report with new evidence that implicates former President Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) in atrocities during Peru’s armed conflict in the 1990s. The evidence also implicates Humala in the attempted cover-up of incriminating evidence when he ran for president in 2006. [click to continue…]