Murdered defender's family still in danger
Since 2011, the Tambopata Reserve Management Committee works to end illegal mining and its negative effects on the environment. The threats and attacks against their members and other human rights defenders in the area began in 2012.
On 19 November 2015, environmental defender Alfredo Ernesto Vracko Neuenschwander was killed, after receiving several death threats for a complaint against illegal mining in the La Pampa area, in the Madre de Dios region. According to local human rights organizations, even though the victim’s family identified those allegedly responsible, there is no progress on the investigations.
Demetrio Pacheco told Amnesty that his son Roberto Carlos Pacheco suffered three incidents of attacks and death threats in 2017. In March 2017, unknown attackers beat and threatened him at gunpoint and a knife. Later that month, unknown individuals threatened him with a gun to his mouth and destroyed some of his personal property. Later that year, someone left a bullet on his dining room table. All these threats were reported to the authorities. Since then, he faced at least several other serious incidents.
Roberto Carlos Pacheco was shot dead on 10 September 2020. His body was found near the San Juan community, in the Madre de Dios Region.
On 3 October, the Police detained three of the five persons allegedly responsible for his murder. Between 9 and 10 October, the judge ordered their release pending trial and postponed the hearing meant to determine their pre-trial detention. This decision was criticized by the Prosecutor’s Office, the Police, and the victim’s family. On 12 October, the suspects did not assist to a hearing in the court, and the authorities have not been able to locate them since then.
On 11 October, a media outlet made public new evidence gathered by the prosecution, which led to the identification of those suspected of both material and intellectual responsibility for the murder.
In recent years, the Madre de Dios region, in the Peruvian Amazon, has been the center of social and environmental conflicts caused by the growth of illegal mining, illegal logging and contamination by toxic metals. In January 2020, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders met with representatives of the Tambopata Reserve Management Committee and publicly expressed concern regarding their situation of risk.