LIMA – The Peruvian government on Saturday authorized the armed forces to support the police in some Amazon areas of northern and eastern Peru, where indigenous groups have carried out protests since April 9.

According to two resolutions published Saturday in the official gazette, the deployment of the military is aimed at ensuring that “essential public services continue to function and safeguarding critical points for the normal development of people’s activities.”

That includes ensuring that services like water, electricity, airports and access roads to affected areas are functioning normally.

The goal is for the military to provide support so that the National Police can focus its efforts on ensuring public order.

The districts where the resolution will be in effect are Aramango, Milagro, Bagua, Cenepa and Santa Maria del Nieva, in the Amazonas region; the Morales district of the San Martin region; the Maynas and Atalaya districts of the Ucayali region; the Echarate district of the Cusco region; and the Andoas district of the Loreto region.

The resolution, which was approved by President Alan Garcia and the ministers of defense and the interior, Antero Flores-Araoz and Mercedes Cabanillas, respectively, will be in effect until June 14.

The Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle, or Aidesep, the biggest group representing indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon, has led a series of protests since April 9 including blockades of highways, rivers and even provincial airports, as well as operations against oil and gas companies that have required the intervention of security forces.

The protests have been sparked by the government’s refusal to give Indians decision-making power over the granting of licenses to explore and extract oil and natural gas, with the argument that the subsoil belongs to the state and to all Peruvians and not only to the communities that live there.

Aidesep President Alberto Pizango on Friday called for an uprising by Indians in the region after the breaking off of talks with the government.

Indians in the regions of San Martin and Ucayali, however, lifted road blockades on Friday and said they were prepared once again to negotiate with the government.

A state of emergency has been in effect since May 9 in several Amazonian towns in four eastern provinces, a measure that the Indians are demanding be lifted.

Media outlets say the more remote Amazon regions are suffering serious shortages due to the Indians’ protests, causing price hikes for food and other necessities.

Pizango acknowledged that some citizens may not understand the reasons for the uprising, but said that the Amazon peoples are not fighting simply to have some statutes repealed, but “to defend a way of life.”

The extraction of gas and oil, logging and the dredging of rivers in search of gold “are destroying in a few years social structures, customs and coexistence strategies that date back thousands of years,” he said.

He gave as an example the fact that electricity and drinking water are not much use to Indian peoples if they come with problems like “alcoholism, prostitution and other modern scourges.”