Peru faces human rights court over protections for isolated Indigenous peoples

PARAMARIBO, Suriname -- PARAMARIBO, Suriname (AP) — Peru faced the final day of a landmark hearing before a regional human rights court Friday over allegations that it failed to protect Indigenous peoples living in isolation in the Amazon from logging and other activities encroaching on their territory.The two-day hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Montevideo, Uruguay, marks the first time the tribunal has considered a case involving Indigenous peoples living in isolation in Peru.The case centers on the Mashco Piro, Yora and Amahuaca peoples, who live in remote areas of the Peruvian Amazon. Indigenous organizations say logging concessions and other incursions have pushed outsiders deeper into forests used by the groups, increasing the risk of violent encounters and exposure to diseases to which isolated peoples may have little immunity.“Many of our brothers and sisters have already disappeared, and we don’t want the Mashco Piro to suffer the same fate,” Maglin Alvarado Vargas, a leader of the Yine Indigenous people from the Native Community of Monte Salvado, told the court. “It is in your hands whether they can survive."Peru has argued that it has adopted la...