Widows: Probe into Peru activist killings stalled
Widows: Probe into Peru activist killings stalled
Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, November 17, 2014 at 8:43 p.m.
LIMA, Peru (AP) — The widows of four indigenous leaders allegedly slain by illegal loggers in Peru's remote Amazon complained Monday that the investigation into their husbands' September deaths is stalled.
Only two of the four bodies of the Ashaninka leaders have been recovered so far, including of village chief Edwin Chota.
Chota petitioned for more than a decade for title to the ancestral 300-square-mile (80,000-hectare) tract on the border with Brazil, resisting death threats from illegal loggers, several of whom have been arrested as suspects in the killings.
The widows complained on Monday in Lima that the investigation is stalled. They say authorities' claim a lack of funds to hire a helicopter to visit the remote village of Saweto.
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The nonprofit group Global Witness says Peru is the world's fourth most dangerous country for environmental activists after Brazil, Honduras and the Philippines, with 57 slain since 2002.
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http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20141118/API/311189962
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village chief Edwin Chota[/center]