Matsés massacre

1964 CE.

Shown on the map at -7.114°, -73.801°.

The Matsés massacre was a set of military bombings carried out by the state of Peru against Matsés (also known as 'Mayoruna') communities in the northeast of the country in 1964, during the first presidency of Fernando Belaúnde. The number of deaths and injuries is unknown. The northeastern jungle was already of interest to the Peruvian government. Belaúnde had published La conquista del Perú por los peruanos in 1959, in which he said that the natural resources of the Peruvian Amazonia must be exploited, especially wood, and that a highway must be built to connect the cities of the Amazon to the rest of the country. The massacre was part of the clash between the mixed-race, "civilized" western world and the Amazonian indigenous world. The Belaúnde administration justified the attack by claiming that the Matsés were forming communist militias.

Text from the Wikipedia article Matsés massacre, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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