This article was published in the July 30, 2010, edition of the Catholic Herald. Brother Paul McAuley’s burnt body was discovered on April 2, 2019, in the Amazon city of Iquitos.
When the news of Brother Paul McAuley’s potential expulsion from Peru filtered through to the indigenous people, protests were held and an influx of support came through.
One letter, from Alberto Pizango, the leader of the indigenous people of the region where Brother Paul works, struck me forcefully.
It said: “Your spirit of solidarity places you on the side of the most abandoned, the most abused and that’s why you were with us in defending the forest and the natural resources, trying to nullify the legislative decrees that wanted to present our Amazon as merchandise up for sale to the best offer. They call you ‘foreigner’, but for us you are one of our own; for us, the foreigner is he who doesn’t love his territory and sells it.”
The letter made an impression on me as, from my time with Brother Paul in Peru, I knew it described his personal qualities perfectly. My interest in Brother Paul, who is from Hampshire, was first piqued when I was working an overnight shift at Sky News in 2005. I came across an Independent on Sunday article headlined: “English priest stops Amazon logging giants in their tracks.”
The article was somewhat scant in the specifics. I learned that he was born in Portsmouth, educated at Oxford University and had been awarded an MBE for his services to the Peruvian environment and education. He had been the first individual to take a government to court on an environmental issue and win, in this case regarding illegal logging.
The time wasn’t right to do a film on him then but in 2009 media interest in Brother Paul surged. The Peruvian government parcelled up over 70 per cent of the Peruvian Amazon to multinational oil corporations. The indigenous tribes that live in the Amazon went on strike. They blockaded rivers, oil installations and took over airports owned by oil companies. The Peruvian government sent the police in to break the blockade in a city called Bagua. This led to the bloodiest clashes in the history of the Amazon, with dozens of protestors and police dying.
I finally had the commission to go and meet Brother Paul. Before arriving I discovered more about him, from many telephone conversations with him and research. The adjective “fearless” does not really do him justice. To put this in context the Peruvian government is looking to go from being a net importer of oil to a net exporter. The crude oil lies in the Amazon where the indigenous population of Peru, two per cent of the population, lives.
The Peruvian government’s argument is: why should it deprive itself of resources that will benefit 28 million Peruvians for the sake of a couple of hundred thousand nativos?
Brother Paul doesn’t take that view and thinks it doesn’t address the larger issue: that the Peruvian people, indeed the world, need the Amazon and the environmental services it offers in good condition. So in many ways you could not only call him a people’s champion but an environmental champion, too.
Iquitos, where Brother Paul has been based these past 10 years, is located at the base of the Peruvian Amazon and is the largest city in the world only accessible by plane or boat. In some areas it is beautiful but over the years the money has rolled in from the oil companies and gambling joints have opened. Prostitution is thriving and cocaine is easily available on the street. Perhaps the most disturbing sight is just off the main docks: a sign that reminds visitors that underage sex is illegal.
I arrived at Brother Paul’s home near the city centre. There was a small garden out at the back, nothing luxurious, a very small kitchen, a dining room and his library, where I was to be staying during the filming. The library was very basic: a small single bed, shelves and shelves of dusty religious books (all in Spanish) and a little annexe for a shower. But something was missing: air conditioning. The humidity was stifling. When I say it was Brother Paul’s home I am, strictly speaking, being accurate, but he spent most of his time in his office, the Loretana Environmental Network (RAL, in its Spanish initials). When I asked him when he last had a day off he couldn’t remember. I think it is safe to say that Brother Paul is a workaholic.
I asked him to describe his typical day. His response: “Typical day for me? Get up. Pray 30 minutes. Try to reflect on how to apply the vision of the Gospel to what will be coming up in the day ahead. Breakfast and then out of the house to the office and the student campus. Go straight to the campus to see how things are, co-ordinate with them. Then to the computer, see the diary for the day: maybe talks in schools or a university or in a parish. Maybe a trip down the river to a community. I’m never sure what the real timetable will be because of the weather conditions.
“I receive the press almost every day to bring them up-todate with any developments. I receive community leaders or others who have come to Iquitos to denounce one or other abuse, oil spills or invasion from illegal loggers.
“I co-ordinate with the person in charge of the web page to edit the day’s page. I attend meetings in the town, in regional government, the ombudsman’s office.
“In the afternoon I meet members of the RAL to continue planning for future events or projects. I correspond with those who have been helping us with a project.
“In evening I finish co-ordinating or teaching some topic with the students. Then I go towards the town. I often take my break with a beer in a small shack overlooking the river. I write an article or do necessary reading of proposed new laws or norms affecting the jungle.”
Brother Paul is a member of the De La Salle Brothers, who devote themselves to the education of children, young people and others. This is what I observed during my time spent with him. Brother Paul is not, as you might think, a fan of Liberation Theology and did not incite people to go on strike in 2009. So why is the Peruvian government trying to deport him?
On my first day with him he was giving a talk to the main high school in Iquitos about the oil rush and its consequences. He set up a projector and proceeded lecture the students.
“This is what happened last year in Andoas,” he said.
He displayed some very graphic images of a dead body on the projector.
“He had been tortured,” he said. “His buttocks are burnt in a place where there is nothing that burns. This is the injury that killed him, 30cm into the leg. Someone stepped on his neck and look at the hands, they are not relaxed… He is the father of two children and was found by his son who is six years old.”
Brother Paul paused to look at the students.
“This is the price of a gallon of petrol,” he said. “This is what the oil industry brings: violence, tension, resentment.”
At the end of the lecture he was loudly applauded.
Brother Paul’s mission is to educate. To teach not just the students of Peru but also the indigenous population the value of their natural resources, to make sure they know their national and international rights and to then let them, the people who call the
Amazon their home, decide its future. To some people, giving such knowledge is dangerous and Brother Paul is aware of this.
Aweek later I travelled with Brother Paul up the Amazon for two days to a village of maybe 100 people. The indigenous community, including the tribal elders, gathered round. He was there to tell the community about International Work Organisation agreement 169.
“That’s why we are here today,” he explained, “to try and explain the local Ichua community their rights.”
He looked down at a piece of legislation and began to read: “…that governments have to consult the people through appropriate means before they consider new legislative matters, or administrative matters that could affect the communities”.
He then looked up at me: “The Peruvian government has never done that, has never consulted. They go to Houston. They go to Miami. They go to London. They sign the petrol licences with the foreign companies then they come back months later, come to a community like this and say: ‘We’ve got this new company coming in. They are going to work here but they are going to be very good’. But it’s not a consultative process. It’s simply an information process.”
You can see by this sort of work why Brother Paul has become a thorn in the side of the Peruvian government.
But he may be a thorn no longer. Earlier this month Peru anounced plans to expel the Englishman, the interior ministry revoking his residency permit on the grounds he has participated in political activities “such as protest marches and other acts against the Peruvian state which constitute a breach of public order”. What happens next depends on whether his supporters around the world prove more powerful with the government than the various interests trying to develop the region, and whether the Church has the strength to stand up for the weakest.
Last week Constante Diaz, Brother Paul’s lawyer, declared that the case against him was “a grave attack on the Church in the Amazon region”.
He said: “The Latin American Catholic Church has expressed its commitment to the care of the environment and particularly of the Amazon. What they are trying to do with this expulsion order is open up the way to expel other religious who have been working for many years with the natives and rural population who have been abandoned by the state.”
Special thanks to Brother Paul McAuley, Survival International and Amazon Watch for contributing to this article
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