Tienes reportajes guardados
Segundo Pino Bolivar, leader of the Kakataibo indigenous people, has commanded the Guardia Indígena del Pueblo Kakataibo del Perú (Gipkap) since 2023, an organization born in the face of the spread of drug trafficking, illegal logging and land trafficking in the province of Padre Abad, Ucayali region.
“We created our guard because, for years, we have seen the inaction of regional and national governments. We defend our territory against the increasing insecurity in the communities,” says the indigenous leader.
The indigenous guards are form of community organization for the surveillance and defense of the territory, promoted by the Amazonian peoples. This approach arises from the absence of the state in providing security in large areas of the Amazon, says Jacopo Tosi, anthropologist and author of Las guardias indígenas amazónicas (The Amazonian Indigenous Guards). In addition to resolving conflicts between the inhabitants of their territory, their work focuses on protecting the environment from harmful practices.
They are not regulated by a specific law, but are protected by the indigenous jurisdiction recognized in the constitution and international human rights treaties, such as Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on indigenous and tribal peoples.
Neither the Peruvian state nor the largest national Indigenous organization (Aidesep) holds a precise record of the number of Indigenous organizations and peoples that have formed their own guards.
Given this lack of information, OjoPúblico has compiled a database —based on interviews with indigenous leaders, academic work and government information— that identifies seven self-defense groups —with approximately 2.500 members— in Huánuco, Pasco, Junín, Ucayali, Loreto, San Martín and Amazonas. Four of these groups have emerged in the last four years.
The rise of the Amazonian guards
Unlike the peasant patrols and the Self-Defense Committees (CADs, by its initials in Spanish), which emerged in the 1970s and late 1980s, the structured organization of Amazonian guards —backed by indigenous organizations— is a recent phenomenon, says Jacopo Tosi.
This emergence, says Tosi, is a response to the constant pressure on their territories, where the State has shown greater interest in facilitating access by large companies to resources such as timber, oil or minerals, rather than guaranteeing the titling of indigenous lands.
In Ucayali and Huánuco, the Indigenous Guard of the Kakataibo People (Gipkap), led by Pino Bolívar, is made up of more than 160 members distributed among a dozen communities.
Also in Ucayali and in Loreto, the Regional Indigenous Guard Organization (ORGI), made up of the Shipibo-Konibo people, groups 23 community bases and has an estimated number of between 500 and 600 members, according to indigenous leaders and the NGO Forest Peoples Programme. Each community has about 20 members in the guard, although there is not yet an official consolidated registry.
In Amazonas, the Wampis people promoted, in 2024, the Charip environmental control system, made up of some 35 members, who are responsible for monitoring critical areas. That same year, in the Awajún territories of Amazonas and Loreto, the Awajún Communal Police was created, which operates in coordination with the National Police. The main challenge of its approximately 100 members is to stop the expansion of illegal mining in the Comaina and Cenepa rivers.
In Loreto, the forest guards of the Chapra Nation were formed in parallel to their autonomous territorial government, in 2016. Since then, they have taken an active role in patrolling their territory, located in the Pastaza Morona basin.
The Yanesha guards, grouped under the name of an Indigenous Security Yánesha (SIYA), operate in 40 communities in Huánuco, Pasco, Junín, and Ucayali. Each group is made up of between 10 and 25 people, who take turns carrying out periodic patrols.
Finally, in the central jungle, the Asháninka Army, now known as Indigenous Amazonian security (SIA), has a long history. In the 1990s, during the internal armed conflict, it had some 2,000 members. This year, 600 members participated in the meetings of the comandos, as the subgroups of the SIA are called.
Those who lead these indigenous guards assume a high-risk role: since 2013, at least 36 territorial defenders have been killed in Peru, according to Aidesep statistics.
An emblematic case is that of Pino Bolivar, a 48-year-old Kakataibo commander and former military officer, who receives constant threats from coca producers. They not only grow illicit coca leaf in the area, but also process it with chemical agents in maceration ponds, and build clandestine airstrips to transport the drugs.
For this reason, he is registered as an environmental defender with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Before being elected commander by the community leaders of the Indigenous Federation of Kakataibo Peoples (Fenacoka), he was president of this organization.
Since 2013, at least 36 environmental defenders have been killed in Peru, according to Aidesep.
The Shipibo-Konibo Guard (ORGI) is facing the occupation of their lands by Mennonite settlers in the province of Coronel Portillo, Ucayali region. The Mennonites cut down their primary forests, open roads and carry out agriculture that puts their territories at risk, they say.
In June and July 2024, the guard of the Caimito indigenous community evicted several Mennonite families from the houses they had built on their territory, without permission from the local indigenous authorities.
ORGI is the largest indigenous guard in Peru, in terms of number of members and geographic extension, that has been established in recent years. According to the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo council (Coshicox), their ancestral territory covers 3 million hectares in Ucayali and Loreto.
Cooperation and training
The Amazonian indigenous guards are strengthening their work through training spaces. For example, ORGI of the Shipibo-Konibo carries out an itinerant school in communities in Ucayali and Loreto, in which members of the Kakataibo guard (Gipkap) also participate.
During these days, participants receive training on the functioning of Peruvian state institutions, collective rights, ancestral history and current issues such as carbon markets. This is so that they can acquire tools to protect their territories and negotiate with companies interested in buying carbon certificates on forest plots in their territories.
In coordination with the NGO Institute of Legal Defense (IDL), ORGI and Gipkap have developed a guide to support the creation of new community guards, which combines traditional knowledge with technologies such as drones, GPS and cell phones.
In the community of Caimito, where the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous guard is active, the first international meeting of Amazonian indigenous guards in Peru was held in November 2022.
EXCHANGE. In 2022, indigenous guards from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru met for the first time in Ucayali.
Foto: Jacopo Tosi
Since then, the event has been held with the participation of guards from the Kakataibo, Shipibo-Konibo, Asháninka, as well as representatives of the Colombian indigenous guards of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), the Regional Indigenous Council of Caldas (CRIDEC), the Process of Black Communities (PCN) and the Association of Indigenous Councils of the North (Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte).
Women from the Cofán and Siekopai communities, from the Ecuadorian Amazon region, were also at the last meeting, held in Pucallpa, in 2024. “In Peru, this [the creation of indigenous guards in the Amazon region] is new. In Ecuador and Colombia, the groups are older. The exchange of experiences was good and helped us to organize ourselves better,” says Pino Bolivar.
The relationship with the police
The Charip environmental control system, created by the Wampis people in Amazonas, confronts illegal mining. With a fixed post on the banks of the Santiago River, the Charip carry out controls on boats to detect suspicious cargo or passengers.
A few weeks after starting their work, the Charip guards intercepted three agents of the Peruvian police, who were traveling on a boat carrying an engine suspected of being used for illegal mining.
“At the moment of the intervention, the policemen, armed with weapons and guns, pointed them at each of us,” says René Amuan Santiago Tí, president of the Charip and former member of the Peruvian army.
In the Amazon, not all indigenous guards report suspicious findings to the police. In the case of the Charip, of the Wampis Nation, the first point of contact is their own Autonomous Territorial Government (GTANW). Even so, in several interventions, they have handed over seized ammunition to the police as a sign of collaboration.
SELF DEFENSE. The indigenous guards of the Wampis people, the Charip, use spears to control suspicious boats on the Santiago River.
Foto: OjoPúblico / Renato Pajuelo
The relationship between the Amazonian guards and law enforcement varies from community to community. “We inform the authorities about our actions, but we don't ask for permission. We want to be autonomous in our territory,” says Pino Bolívar.
In contrast, the Awajún Communal Police, founded in 2024, maintains close collaboration with the National Police, which organizes training for its members. Even the ministry of the Interior has expressed interest in strengthening this model of joint work.
A common feature among several of these organizations is their link to indigenous self-government structures. The Charip, as well as the Awajún Communal Police and the forest guardians of the Chapra Nation, are part of autonomous governments, a figure that is not legally recognized in Peru.
We inform the authorities of our actions, but we do not ask for permission,” says Segundo Pino Bolivar, commander of the Gipkap.
Meanwhile, the Coshicox —the organization to which the Shipibo-Konibo guards belong— is also advancing in the consolidation of its own territorial government.
According to the Kakataibo and Shipibo manual, the indigenous guards are “part of the self-government processes” initiated by some Amazonians to “strengthen” their “political weight” and guarantee the protection of their lands, including forests, rivers and lagoons.
The legal basis
In addition to the seven self-defense groups identified by OjoPúblico in the Peruvian Amazon, there is one organization that is difficult to categorize: the indigenous Kichwa people of the San Martin region have formed, since 2020, a security group called ronda indígena (indigenous patrol).
Despite the name, it differs from the peasant patrols. Marisol García Apagüeño, leader of the federation of indigenous peoples Kechua Chazuta Amazonas (Fepikecha), makes this clear: “We are not part of the Cunarc [Central Única Nacional de Rondas Campesinas del Perú], because it represents the peasant patrols of the Andean zone. Our justice comes from much further back, before we had a constitution. The peasant patrols are from the Andes; we are Amazonian,” she says.
The Kichwa patrol is not the only one in the Peruvian Amazon. According to the National Public Registries (Sunarp, by its initials in Spanish), there are at least six with the same denomination. Four are in the Amazon region, one in San Martin, and another in Loreto.
The peasant patrols and the Amazonian indigenous guards have very different origins and contexts. The former emerged as a community response to a power vacuum following the agrarian reform of general Juan Velasco Alvarado. “The rondas were born in a context of social restructuring, especially for the defense of private property and livestock,” explains anthropologist Jacopo Tosi.
According to Sunarp, as of April 14, 2025, there were 3,388 registered peasant patrols in Peru. More than half of them (1.842) were present in three northern states: Piura (837), Cajamarca (565) and La Libertad (440). Although peasant patrol groups operate in Moquegua, Tacna, and Huancavelica, they remain absent from official registries.
Since 2004, the number of registered peasant patrols in the country has grown steadily. Unlike the indigenous guards, these organizations have a specific law that defines their role and regulates their registration.
The growth has been sustained: in the last two decades, Sunarp has registered an average of 160 new patrols each year. For Raquel Yrigoyen Fajardo, a lawyer at the International Institute of Law and Society (IIDS), this increase is linked to the work of the Direction of Peasant Patrols, created by the Ministry of the Interior in 2017.
“[That direction] serves them as an intelligence system to control the peasant patrols, but it has also deployed lawyers in various parts of the country to help the patrols register,” she says.
Since 2004, the number of peasant patrols registered in Peru has steadily increased.
Although the peasant patrols and the Amazonian guards have different histories and respond to the specific needs of their territories, both are based on a common legal basis: the special indigenous jurisdiction.
“Since the 1993 Constitution, the special indigenous jurisdiction and the authorities of the peasant and indigenous communities have been recognized. They can exercise judicial functions, that is, the same powers as judges, but in their own territory and under their own law. They are only prohibited from violating basic human rights,” says Yrigoyen Fajardo.
Neither the peasant patrols nor the Amazonian guards —as well as the state itself— can illegally deprive a person of his or her liberty, nor exercise torture or apply degrading punishments, even within their own territories.
According to the current legal framework, the peasant patrols have the same legal level as other state authorities, such as the police or a court, in the exercise of their executive functions, explains the lawyer.
In practice, however, this is not always the case. “It is very difficult to change the mental chip, because the police have always considered the ronderos as their assistants,” says Yrigoyen Fajardo.
The persistence of CADs
In some regions of the country, the history of armed community organization cannot be understood without reviewing the internal armed conflict. In areas such as the central jungle, where violence by the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) left deep traces, the line separating the indigenous guards from the Self-defense Committees (CADs) becomes blurred.
The CADs emerged during the most intense years of terrorism, as part of a counterinsurgency strategy promoted by Alberto Fujimori's government. Unlike the Amazonian indigenous guards —driven by the peoples themselves and focused on the defense of territory and cultural identity— the CADs have the explicit backing of the armed forces.
Currently, their existence is regulated by the Joint Command of the Armed Forces (CCFFAA, by its initials in Spanish), the entity that formally accredits these groups. As of February 2025, there were 781 CADs in Peru, according to the CCFFAA. The figure is 68% lower than what was recorded in 2014, when there were 2.475 committees.
All of them operate in the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro River Valley (Vraem), where remnants of terrorist groups dedicated to drug trafficking persist. Their role, defined by law, is to support the police in the control of internal order and in the fight against citizen insecurity in areas under a state of emergency.
HERITAGE. The Self-Defense Committees (CADs, by its initials in Spanish) emerged during the internal armed conflict and are still active in the Vraem region.
Foto: District Municipality of Pichari
Although the regulation defines them as organizations “of transitory existence”, in practice, many of their members assume their role as permanent. It is estimated that the current committees group 27.390 people, with an average of 35 members per committee.
They are armed mainly with 12-gauge Windsor shotguns, authorized by the Ministry of Defense. A law passed by Congress in 2022 also allows the CADs to acquire civilian weapons, either by purchase or donation from the state or private individuals.
The persistence of the CADs in the Vraem responds to a different logic than that of the Amazonian indigenous guards: while the latter claim territorial autonomy and customary justice as an expression of cultural sovereignty, the CADs are seen by the state as an extension of its security apparatus. A model of community defense inherited from the conflict, which survives in the context of a still fragile peace.
In search of a law
In 2022, the National Ombudsman's Office filed an unconstitutionality suit against the law that allowed CADs to acquire civilian weapons with state authorization.
Two years later, in September 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the appeal and declared the law unconstitutional. The decision left the CADs in an ambiguous situation: without a specific national norm to regulate their actions, except for Article 149 of the Constitution, which specifies the legal framework for the actions of indigenous self-defense mechanisms.
The same vacuum affects the Amazonian indigenous guards. To date, no specific law establishes their functioning, despite their growing role in areas marked by state neglect and pressure from drug trafficking, logging and illegal mining.
In response to this legal omission, organizations of the Asháninka people, as well as the Kakataibo (Gipkap) and Shipibo-Konibo (ORGI) guards, support a bill called Seguridad Indígena Amazónica (SIA), currently under analysis by the Andean Peoples Commission of the Congress.
According to Asháninka leaders, the proposal not only seeks to give legal recognition to the indigenous guards, but also to extend their coverage to the CADs, removing the condition of operating only under a state of emergency.
The project seeks that the defense of the Amazonian territory by its inhabitants be recognized as a legitimate form of autonomous organization. “In theory [the State] would have to see them [the indigenous guards] as something positive, propositive and even useful. Because it would imply a saving of resources, greater efficiency in the enforcement of laws in the Amazonian territory and, also, it would contribute to the fight against illegal economies,” says anthropologist Tosi.
Pino Bolivar, commander of the Gipkap, emphasizes that replacing the police or the state is not among the objectives of the indigenous guards, but they demand that the state recognize the decision of the native peoples to defend themselves on their own.