Peru

Falken SA is a Spanish company specialising in "less lethal" weapons and other equipment used by the police and security forces in Spain, and countries in Latin America.

Xstrata, a UK-registered company part of Glencore plc (an Anglo–Swiss commodity trading and mining company) is in court in London accused of hiring the Peruvian National Police (PNP) to oppress environmental protesters who were demonstrating against the Tintaya copper mine in a remote region of the Andes in 2012.

Nick Buxton

For anyone concerned with militarism, news of the terrorist attacks in Brussels brought a familiar sense of dread. We ache as we hear the stories of more innocent lives lost, and we feel foreboding from the knowledge that the bombings will predictably fuel new cycles of violence and horror in targeted communities at home or abroad. It creates the binary world that neocons and terrorists seek: an era of permanent war in which all our attention and resources are absorbed – and the real crises of poverty, inequality, unemployment, social alienation and climate crisis ignored.

Militarism is guns, armored tanks and drones, but it’s also a state of mind. Militarised mentalities have permeated many police forces and amplified dramatically the force of police violence against our communities.

Cesar Padilla, Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Latin America, OCMAL

It is not news to say that extractivism in Latin America has been imposing an increasingly deeper model of extraction and export. The competition to be a destination of mining, oil-reserves, forestry or fishing investment is a characteristic of the majority of the countries in the region.

However, extractavism is receiving increasing criticism from broad sections of society including academia and social movements.

With global demand for natural resources increasing year on year, some of the world's poorest communities are having to fight hard to protect their environment and way of life. When protests and direct action do not work, many will try and get redress through the courts.

But when multinational companies decide that the costs of settling such cases are far less than the huge profits on offer, is justice being undermined?

Since April, indigenous communities have been protesting new laws passed by President García allowing for extensive oil drilling, logging, and the construction of hydroelectric dams in the Amazonian region of Peru. Tension grew this past weekend as police opened fire on peaceful protestors.

This is an - incomplete - list of groups in Latin America working on issues of conscientious objection and related areas.

26/05/1998 1 Conscription

conscription exists

The 1979 Political Constitution, amended in 1993, states in art. 270 that "National defence is permanent and integral. Every natural or legal person is obliged to participate in it, in accordance with the law." Military service is prescribed by the 8 November 1983 Law on Compulsory Military Service (D.L. 264) and the 16 November 1984 Regulation on Military Service (Supreme Decree 072-84-PCM). [4] [1]

The 12 November 1991 Law on National Mobilisation (D.L. 733) is thought still to apply.