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It seems more the stuff of an action movie than an anthropology professor's field work.

But Kansas University professor Bart Dean found himself in the middle of a violent showdown between corrupt Peruvian officials and the indigenous Cocama-Cocamilla people.

Earlier this year in a village in the Peruvian Amazon, a group of more than 30 indigenous people had their skulls cracked, eyes gouged and limbs hacked in an act of political violence.

Dean happened to be doing research in the area at the time when a tribal official approached him, told him about the attack, and asked him to help get authorities to do something about it. Seven months later, Dean has become embroiled in a nationwide controversy in Peru and is working with a group of KU students to document the abuses on the Internet.

"My general sense is that when somebody's rights are diminished, mine are as well," Dean said. "As a concerned citizen and as a professor of anthropology, I had to speak out."

Earlier this week he and his students unveiled a preliminary version of an Internet site, www.cocama.org, that eventually will contain video footage, photos and other information about the attack and political problems in Peru.

"I just want people to open their eyes and look," said Kara Wilson, an Olathe senior who on Tuesday was working with other students in an on-campus editing studio to convert video footage of the victims into digital format.

Intense adventure

Dean has spent much of his career studying and speaking up for indigenous people in the Amazon. He's survived bouts of malaria and has come to be known in the area by nicknames, including one that means "white howler monkey."

Kansas University anthropology professor Bart Dean, right, just got back from Peru, where he's become embroiled in a dispute involving human rights abuses of the indigenous Cocama-Cocamilla people in the Amazon basin. Now Dean and a group of KU students are working on a Web site to document the abuses. Tuesday in a lab at KU's Dole Center, Kara Wilson, Olathe senior, left, reviews video to post on the Web site, while Dean discusses the articles on his efforts as covered by Peru's national press.

But his intervention this spring and summer after a politically motivated attack in the village of Lagunas in the upper Amazon ranks among his more intense adventures.

The victims in the attack, the Cocama-Cocamilla people, are the largest indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon. The attack happened April 20 after a group of the Cocama-Cocamilla surrounded a government building to protest the mayor, Rider Padilla Sinarahua, who they suspected was stealing monthly oil remittances from the federal government that were supposed to be used for infrastructure.

The group was attacked at night by about 50 hooded men, armed with pick axes and nail-studded clubs, who had been drinking moonshine mixed with gunpowder as a way to prepare themselves for battle, Dean said.

Dean said he had no doubt the mayor was involved.

"We're talking about a very evil, twisted person who is capable of great violence," Dean said.

KU faculty earn Fulbright grants (07-02-04) Kansan.com: Professor practices hands-on learning (09-09-03)

Larger issue

Dean said video footage of public marches and other documentation suggested the mayor had ties to Shining Path, the leftist guerrilla movement responsible for atrocities in the 1980s and 1990s during the country's civil war. Cocaine and petroleum production lead to "shadow economies" that contribute to corruption throughout the area, Dean said.

"This is not an isolated case," Dean said.

When Dean first arrived in Lagunas, the villagers' wounds were fresh, and Dean said he was shocked by the severity of their injuries. He said he got involved for a simple reason: He saw people humbly asking him for help, and he couldn't turn them down.

Cocama-Cocamilla community members, who live along the Bajo Huallaga River, Peruvian Amazon, protest in June against human rights violations committed by forces loyal to the mayor.

He said he thought most people in the world would have done the same thing.

Dean said he first went to a local prosecutor and judge, but he was brushed aside by the prosecutor and kicked out of the judge's office.

Meanwhile, the victims and their supporters were stockpiling grenades and guns and preparing to fight back. Dean said that in an effort to prevent further violence, he and a tribal leader went to the nation's capital, Lima, to ask federal authorities to intervene in the crisis.

They went door-to-door in Lima and were assured help was on the way, but nothing happened, Dean said. That's when Dean took the story to a national newspaper, El Comercio, and arranged for a reporter and photographer to visit the village.

Power of the press

The result was a front-page June 12 article that featured photos of villagers' injuries, photos of a protest march in Lagunas, and a photo of Dean. A short article that accompanied the longer article described Dean's trip to Lima, detailed names of the leaders he visited, and said that no one had done anything.

The next day, the federal government intervened, and eventually the mayor was arrested on corruption charges, Dean said. But the article embarrassed and angered some government officials, and at one point he was told that the government couldn't guarantee his safety.

"There are a number of people who are not happy with my presence," he said.

By the time Dean returned to Peru in November, the mayor had been freed by the state Supreme Court and was trying to have the protesters jailed.

Dean said he hoped the Web site would put ongoing pressure on the government to address the problems in the region and would let the Cocama-Cocamilla know they have support from people miles away.

Other students working on the project this week included webmaster Zach Holden, Topeka junior; anthropology student Josh Homan, Salina junior; and Erin Bartling, a St. Louis senior who's studying the history of cocaine production in the area.