Church leaders call for justice after murder in Peru's Amazon region

Published: 2008-04-25

PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru (CNS) -- The recent murder of a local government official who was killed when he helped stop a truckload of illegal timber has prompted church leaders to call for justice and better stewardship of Peru's southeastern Amazon region. In a statement issued after a pastoral meeting in mid-April, Bishop Francisco Gonzalez Hernandez of Puerto Maldonado, priests, sisters and lay church workers expressed their "repudiation and indignation for this crime, which cries out to heaven for justice." They called on the government to investigate the murder of Julio Garcia Agapito, "so this case does not go unpunished, like so many others." Garcia was shot eight times Feb. 26 as he sat in the office of the National Institute of Natural Resources in Alerta, a small town near the border with Bolivia. He had been called to help with the inspection of a truckload of timber that apparently had been brought into Peru illegally from Bolivia. During the inspection, the driver tried to escape with the truck. While police were chasing him, the gunman, whom witnesses identified as a relative of the driver, killed Garcia and fled. He still has not been arrested.

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