LIMA, PERU — Peru's Congress voted Thursday to revoke two laws enacted last year to open the Amazon to mining, oil and timber development, measures that enraged many indigenous groups and led to a bloody confrontation this month.
Legislators acted at the behest of President Alan Garcia, who went on national television Wednesday to acknowledge that he had committed a "series of errors and exaggerations" in pushing economic policies that spawned a wave of protests by indigenous groups, including road blockades and takeovers of two airports.
A government attempt on June 5 to clear one of the blocked roads in the northeastern Amazonian town of Bagua led to a violent confrontation. Officials said 10 civilians and 23 police officers were killed, with one officer missing and presumed dead.
After the vote, Daisy Zapata, president of the umbrella indigenous rights group known as AIDESEP, called on member groups to immediately lift all roadblocks. It was not clear late Thursday whether they had done so.
"We have shown Peru and the world that we are capable of dialogue, of unity, of observing human rights," said Lidia Rengifo, an indigenous leader. "We want an end to blood baths."
Garcia has moderated his rhetoric since the violence, which he had blamed on indigenous residents and foreign agitators. Shortly after the clash, he issued an arrest warrant for Indian leader Alberto Pizango, who said he was being made a scapegoat and has since been granted political asylum in Nicaragua.
Garcia said Wednesday night that he preferred "correction to stubborn obstinacy to see who wins."
Legislators voted 82 to 14 to repeal the two decrees, which were among 90 measures Garcia signed into law last year using temporary power granted by Congress to meet preconditions for a trade agreement. The U.S.-Peru free trade agreement went into effect this year.
Garcia framed the laws as measures that would bring formality and order to rampant illegal logging and mining in the Amazon. They were consistent with his view that opening the country to foreign investment is key to economic growth.
But indigenous groups said the laws sanctioned land grabs, abrogated their territorial rights and were promulgated with no consultation.
The Bagua incident pitched the government into its worst crisis, hurt Peru's image abroad and raised fears that the Amazonian indigenous communities, with a total population of about 400,000, could become radicalized.
