Peru Deputy Minister of Culture, Luis Jaime Castillo, today announced his office will make sure the judicial process against Greenpeace activists runs its course until they are extradited and prosecuted for the irreversible damage inflicted to the Nazca Lines on the sideline of the twentieth UN Summit on Climate Change (COP20).
“We will extradite them and bring them back to make them assume criminal and civil responsibility. It is important to understand that we, the citizens, are the first line of defense against the destruction of our heritage,” he added.
The damage done to the Hummingbird geoglyph –traced 2000 years ago into the Peruvian desert– can't be repaired; this is why this action represents an attack against a World Heritage site, as Unesco declared in 1994.
“Our heritage has been tainted. From now on, everybody will be curious to visit the site, but in order to see how affected it was by Greenpeace,” he noted.
Greenpeace activist arrived in Lima within the framework of COP20. They headed to southern Peru lay their ‘time for change’ message to the UN climate talks delegates at the historic site.
Part of the geoglyph was damaged because they did not put on special footwear to venture anywhere near the area where the Nazca lines are cut into the ground.
(END) RFA/FHG/RMB
Published: 12/16/2014