British Tourists Held Hostage By Peruvians Who Mistook Them For Mine Surveyors / American Tourists
Oops: A group of villagers attacked a tourist bus in Pumaorcco, mistaking the British “holidaymakers” for surveyors:
Screaming threats, the villagers pelted the bus with rocks before forcing the terrified holidaymakers - men and women aged from 22 to 65 - from the bus.
Angry villagers forced the tour group from the bus and attacked the Peruvian driver and two other Peruvians on the bus with sticks.
The villagers accused the holidaymakers, whose two-week tour cost about £2,000, of being thieves who had come to steal the area’s natural resources.
After a five-hour standoff, however, the villagers realised that they had captured the wrong people.
Oh man. This is a lot like the basic plot of Turistas, minus harvesting the organs of tourists. Anyway. There are a lot of interesting little questions brought up in this story:
Are tourists, in effect, using villagers’ homes and lives as a sort of attraction, like some sort of ride in Epcot?
Do the villagers rely on money from these tourists to thrive, or are their villages self-sufficient? Does tourism money keep them from self-sufficiency? Do they even receive any money from these tour groups?
Will the focus of this story, as it continues to be reported and read, be on the “craziness” of the villagers and their funny, rustic ways, or on the fact that they’ve grown so desperate at the prospect of having their land stripped by surveyors that they’re willing to take extreme measures to protect it?
British holidaymakers captured by axe-wielding Peruvian villagers [Telegraph]
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It just takes ONE village of crazy, fed up people to make the rest of us look bad. Or fed up.
Also, aren’t British tourists supposed to be the rudest and most obnoxious according to some report? Maybe the “oh we thought they were surveyors!” thing was a lie.
Posted by La Linda | September 18, 2008
I lived for years in the Andes, in hamlets, villages and sometimes in a small town. To the point that most Peruvians thought that I was a Chalaco (born in Callao). In general, locals are a lot more aware of what is going on in the world than the average person in North America and Europe.
They know from hundreds of years of past experience that the “powers” will only pay attention to them, i.e. repair the road or the school or the powerline, or give them real jobs when they blackmail them. There were periods of good governance, such as under Fujimori, but that was an exception. Hence if you know that a mining company has some claims in the area, take their employees hostage to force the company to pay its “tax” to you.
Chances are that this company forgot to play by the rule first, which states clearly in Peru, that you have to come up with an agreement with the local Citizen Committee first. Most companies do, but a few only understands the type of things that these guys did. A disgrace to the rest of the mining indusrty.
Real politik.
Popeye
Posted by Popeye | September 23, 2008
“There were periods of good governance, such as under Fujimori,”
What are you talking about Popeye? Oh yeah the human rights violations and corruption. God he was a good man wasn’t he!
While you are at it why don’t you talk about the amazing legacy that Bush is leaving behind.
Posted by james | November 28, 2008