Peruvian, Ecuadorian Presidents hold "historical" bilateral meeting

LIMA, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Peruvian President Alan Garcia and his Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa on Thursday held talks which were described by them as "historical" following armed confrontation over a century.

"We have to adjust bills with the history. We do not have one second more to spend, our people have lost a lot on war conflicts," said Correa at the end of 3rd Bilateral Ministerial Cabinet Meeting held in Piura city, northwest Peru.

During the meeting, the two presidents signed six cooperation agreements.

Referring to the peace agreement signed on Oct. 26, 1998 in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia, the Peruvian president said "we are surpassing the agenda" of the agreement.

"Never in the political history of Latin America and in the world, there have been sustained and continuous works in fact like the ones we have been doing," Garcia added.

Over the last 100 years, Peru and Ecuador had experienced several armed conflicts over border issues, such as the war of 1941 in the El Oro border area, the conflict over the military base of Paquisha in 1981 and the Cenepa war in 1995.

Ecuadorian judge files charges against Colombian general

Colombia Reports, 22 October 2009

For the controversial assault in question, 'Operation Phoenix', Ecuadorian courts have requested the extradition of the Police Director, General Oscar Naranjo.

In addition to Naranjo, Ecuador want Colombia's former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and the Commander of Colombia's Armed Forces General Freddy Padilla de Leon extradited, claimed a report by news station W Radio on Thursday

Operation Phoenix took place in March 2008 when the Colombian Military bombed a FARC encampment on Ecuadorian soil without warning Ecuadorian authorities. The assault resulted in the death of the FARC's second most important boss, 'Raul Reyes'.

Ecuador and Colombia are in the process of negotiating strategies to restore their fractured ties.

'Crude,' the Film, Explores Oil Giants' Crude Conduct in Ecuador

WASHINGTON, DC, October 22, 2009 (ENS) - The acclaimed documentary film "Crude," which details the 16-year struggle of indigenous peoples in Ecuador's Amazon to hold Chevron legally accountable for contamination of a huge rainforest area, opens in Washington, DC on Friday during intense scrutiny of a $27 billion liability lawsuit against the oil giant.

Since it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, "Crude" has been praised in the media and has won a series of environmental and human rights awards. Theaters were packed for the film's opening weekend in New York City in September.

'Crude' filmmaker Joe Berlinger with posters for the documentary at the New York City opening, September 9, 2009. (Photo courtesy Amazon Watch)

"Crude" runs from October 23 through 29 at the Landmark E Street Theatre in Washington, DC.

Filmmaker Joe Berlinger focuses on the legal controversy as well as the destruction of human life and the rainforest environment from nearly three decades of oil exploration and development of the Lago Agrio oil field in northeast Ecuador.

The film delves into the complexities of the lawsuit currently underway against the company in Lago Agrio, where Chevron's subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company participated until 1992 as a minority member of a consortium that explored for and produced oil under contracts with Ecuador and Ecuador's government-owned oil company, Petroecuador.

Filed by Ecuadorian Indians and farmers who have suffered illnesses and ecological damage to their land caused by oil contamination, the lawsuit alleges that from 1964 to 1990, Texaco deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic oil production process waste into unlined pits rather than injecting it underground.

In 1995, amid litigation, Texaco agreed to clean a number of waste pits in proportion to its interest in the consortium, at a cost of $40 million. In exchange, the government of Ecuador released Texaco from further liability. Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, has used this agreement as its primary defense against the ongoing legal claims.

American human rights activist and attorney Kerry Kennedy has taken up the cause of the Ecuadorian indigenous groups. Founding president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, and the chair of the Amnesty International Leadership Council, Kennedy is a daughter of former U.S. attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy,

After a visit to the affected area earlier this month, Kennedy told reporters on a teleconference what she observed.

"I saw open air, unlined waste pits, full of oil sludge, built and abandoned by Texaco, never operated by any other company," Kennedy said. "I met a man whose home is just a few hundred yards from the pit. He told me he had 10 children, all of them have become sick, some covered with sores. He told me he has endured a stomach ache for over eight years. His chickens have died, his pigs have died, he said nothing grows near his home anymore."

Texaco built some 350 oil wells across 2,700 square miles of Amazon rainforest. From 1964 to 1990, the company dumped over 18 billion gallons of production water, a mixture of oil, sulfuric acid, and other carcinogens into the streams and rivers where people collect drinking water, bathe, and children swim, Kennedy alleged.

One of more than 900 unlined oil waste pits in the rainforest of northeast Ecuador. April 2009. (Photo by Raoni Maddalena)

"Texaco constructed over 900 oil sludge pits in the early, many the size of Olympic swimming pools. Unlike swimming pools, these pits were unlined with no concrete to protect the surrounding soils and waters from seepage. This allowed the poison to seep into the ground water, and, in a rainforest with heavy rainfall, they were uncovered, so the pollutants were constantly spilling out into surrounding forests and streams," she said.

"Texaco's trucks dumped more oil waste on the roads where people walked, often in bare feet because they could not afford shoes," Kennedy said. "Imagine the burns from sticky black tar-like like substances that stick to the feet baking in the hot sun along the equator."

"I saw enormous gas flares in the middle of the rainforest spewing venom into the air, poison which, because of the delicate ecosystem, will continue to cause damage for generations to come," she said.

"Texaco knew people would die because of what they were doing, and they ignored it," Kennedy accused. "People have died. There are 1,400 cancer deaths directly attributed to Texaco's waste. An entire group of indigenous people have been wiped out. What they did arguably amounts to criminally negligent homicide."

Kennedy said she would welcome the opportunity to speak with the Chevron Board of Directors about this matter. On October 15, she sent a letter to Board Chair David O'Reilly seeking dialogue. O'Reilly retires at the end of the year and will be succeeded by John S. Watson, the company has announced.

"As an American," she said, "I am appalled that a corporation from our country would treat innocent people with such disdain, and I am confident that as more Americans gain awareness of this behavior, Chevron will be held accountable."

Congressman James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who visited the affected area last year and who is scheduled to attend the film premiere, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama in which he described the situation in Ecuador as a “terrible humanitarian and environmental crisis.”

McGovern said in the letter, “As an American citizen, the degradation and contamination left behind by this U.S. company in a poor part of the world made me angry and ashamed.”

In the oil-contaminated community of Yamanunka, Luis and his relatives show signs of cancer after drinking the water he collects in the river behind his house. April 2009. (Photo by Raoni Maddalena)

Chevron contends that after its participation in the consortium ended in 1992, Texaco Petroleum negotiated a settlement agreement with Ecuador and Petroecuador whereby Texaco Petroleum assumed responsibility for specified environmental remediation projects in proportion to its minority ownership interest.

In 1998, in company says, "after the requisite remediation work was performed and independently validated, Ecuador and Petroecuador released Texaco Petroleum and its affiliates from further liability."

"Ecuador assumed responsibility for any remaining impact caused by the consortium's pre-1992 activities as well as any future impact caused by Petroecuador's own ongoing operations in the former concession area," Chevron said in a statement September 23.

"Since Texaco Petroleum's departure, Petroecuador has drilled over 400 new wells in the concession area, compared to the 321 wells that were drilled during the consortium," Chevron said. "Compounding the situation, Petroecuador's environmental record as an operator has been notoriously poor, with more than 1,400 oil spills since 2000 alone."

Chevron argues that, "The current Ecuador lawsuit is an effort to force Chevron to pay for Petroecuador's own misdeeds. In collusion with trial lawyers suing Chevron, the government of Ecuador has violated its contracts with Texaco Petroleum as well as protections afforded to investors under the United States-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty."

In September, Chevron filed an international arbitration claim against the government of Ecuador, citing violations of the country's obligations under the United States-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, investment agreements, and international law.

The ongoing legal case, Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco, began in October 2003 in the Superior Court of Nueva Loja in Lago Agrio, Ecuador after it was transferred from a U.S. federal court at Chevron’s request.

In late August, as part of its campaign to discredit Ecuador's courts, Chevron posted secretly-recorded videotapes on YouTube that purport to show a bribery scheme involving a trial judge who has since been removed from the case. Since then, a number of inaccuracies and discrepancies in Chevron's account of the tapes have been uncovered by journalists, and the company has refused to make the witnesses or full tapes available.

Ecuador's government has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Chevron's legal team for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on the theory the company created the tapes to undermine Ecuador's judicial system so it could evade a liability.

Chevron also is currently under investigation by Ecuador's Attorney General for its role in the bribery scandal.

Separately, Ecuador's national prosecutor in 2007 indicted two Chevron lawyers for lying about the results of a partial remediation used to secure a legal release.

Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced he was investigating Chevron to determine if company management was misleading shareholders regarding its financial risk in Ecuador. Incidentally, Cuomo was formerly married to Kerry Kennedy from from 1991 until 2003.

People of Lago Agrio march against Chevron and Texaco. October 5, 2009. (Photo courtesy Amazon Watch)

Over a period of 20 years, the Lago Agrio field produced 1.7 billion barrels of oil with a profit of $25 billion. According to Chevron, 95 percent of the profit from the consortium went to the government.

On October 5, a march was held in Lago Agrio to mark the retirement of Chevron CEO David O'Reilly. Hoisting a coffin filled with effigies of Chevron executives and lawyers on their shoulders, protesters marched to one of the oil waste pits that Chevron claims to have remediated. They lowered the coffin into the still oily ground, symbolically burying O'Reilly and his colleagues.

"We the people in Ecuador want to say that this supposed development is killing our way of life," said Justino Piaguaje, president of the Secoya people, at the march. "We are enclosed in this small territory that does not guarantee life to our people because these territories are contaminated."

The Secoya people are asking Chevron's new chief to come to Ecuador for a first-hand look at the contaminated rainforest.

"To Chevron's new president, we want to send a message that we need remediation urgently. It's not necessary for people to continue dying," said Piaguaje. "We want him, John Watson, to come to Ecuador and see for himself what has happened to our people."

The film "Crude," scheduled to be shown in 40 cities across the country and for a 2010 release in the United Kingdom, is rumored to be in contention for an Oscar nomination.

Attending the Washington, DC premiere will be Luis Yanza, a representative of the affected communities in Ecuador and a winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize; filmmaker Berlinger; and Steven Donziger, the American legal advisor to the communities. Yanza and Donziger are featured in the film.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.

Ecuador, Colombia and An Olive Branch

21 October 2009

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa
(cc) Presidencia de la República del Ecuador/flickr

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has extended the olive branch to Colombia, signaling that he has secured enough power to take a geopolitical risk on Colombia, an enemy contrived only to ensure victory at home, Samuel Logan comments for ISN Security Watch.

By Samuel Logan for ISN Security Watch

---

Ecuadorian Security Minister Miguel Carvajal has announced the suspension of a Colombian-Ecuadorian Security Commission meeting set for 16 October to normalize relations between the neighboring South American countries.

Colombia had requested the suspension shortly after an Ecuadorian judge formalized the extradition of Colombian General Freddy Padilla for his connection to the ongoing court case that began when Colombia attacked Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camps in Ecuador in early March 2008.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa remains committed to the thawing of relations, but he will not go against the judge, yet another sign that domestic pressures have motivated Ecuador’s decision to break relations with its northern neighbor, putting more urgent issues such the necessities of securing a common border or jointly combating the resilient FARC on the back burner.

Hours after the March 2008 bombing that killed FARC commander Raul Reyes, Ecuador exploded with the public outcry of an invasion. A larger, more powerful neighbor had made a unilateral and Machiavellian decision to attack a FARC camp on Ecuadorian territory; it had clearly disregarded the small country’s sovereignty, but the ends result was that the attack shook the FARC to its core, and as an organization it hasn’t recovered and likely never will.

At the time, however, Correa chose not to appreciate the silver lining. He was more concerned with his own internal battle to stay in power and rally a domestic support base for his political movement. Both presidents Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez have used the same strategy, focusing on the US to fire up support in their political bases.

Yet little in the region, and nothing in Correa’s political career, could compare with the Colombian invasion: an excellent opportunity to charge his country to the brink of war abroad so he could ensure victory at home.

Correa became president after a run-off election in November 2006, which he won after taking second place. At the time, he was the country’s seventh president in 10 years. The country’s political climate was tense, and Correa had to act fast to secure his mandate. He had initially garnered support by shutting down the unpopular Congress, renegotiating the country’s national debt, and calling for a Constituent Assembly, which was sworn a little over a month after Colombia bombed Reyes’ camps. Politically speaking, the timing was perfect.

Correa was re-elected as president in April 2009; it was the first time Ecuador had re-elected a president in 30 years.

Finally, in September, about a month after he was sworn in on Ecuador’s bicentennial, Correa extended the peace branch to his neighbor. His domestic agenda was on track, and he was well positioned at home to take more risks internationally, and Colombia was the first bullet point on his agenda.

On 8 October, Correa stated that if Colombia would reveal the location of FARC rebel camps in Ecuador, “we will capture them,” adding, “we can work together as we always have.”

Colombia has delivered information on FARC camps, and as the region waits to see where the political negotiations will head after this latest hiccup, sure proof of Ecuador’s change of heart will be the capture and delivery to Colombia of any number of FARC rebels operating on Ecuadorian territory.

---

Samuel Logan is an investigative journalist and author of This is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America's Most Violent Gang, (relased by Hyperion in summer 2009). He is the founder of Southern Pulse | Networked Intelligence, and has reported on security, energy, politics, economics, organized crime, terrorism and black markets in Latin America since 1999. He is a senior writer for ISN Security Watch.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

Ecuador creates a world heritage ministry

QUITO, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Ecuador has created a world heritage ministry to better share and take care of the country's natural and cultural resources, the presidential office announced on Tuesday.

After taking the ministerial office, former foreign minister Maira Fernanda Espinosa told reporters that the new ministry was expected to replace the mercantilism vision of natural, cultural and human resources of the country with a vision of collective and public welfare.

"The heritage is shelter and support of the dignity and identity of all the Ecuadorian people," said the new minister, adding that the Ecuadorian heritage is not an abstraction but rather a mirror aimed at funding a human, sustainable and inclusive society.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has so far inscribed on its World Heritage list three cultural and as many natural sites from the Central American country.

Heritage Minister Fernanda Espinosa said that his portfolio, created with President Rafael Correa's instruction, "is perhaps one of the most promising spaces for the country because it is where we can put into practice the good living, and it is also aimed to place the public policies to relate to recognizing Ecuador a mega-diverse country."

Ecuadorian court declines extradition request for former Colombian minister

Colombia Reports, 20 October 2009

Ecuador's National Court of Justice declined to process an extradition request involving the former defense minister of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, upon finding that the judge making the request had incomplete documentation.

A court official who declined to be named saying he was not authorized to give information, told the AP that "as soon as the papers are completed, the process will continue normally," reported Miami's El Nuevo Herald.

"The president of the National Court of Justice returned the file on Friday to judge Francisco Revelo in Sucumbios province because the paperwork was incomplete," said the source.

The National Court of Justice must review the extradition request of former minister Santos, before the Foreign Ministry requires his extradition.

According to Ecuadorian authorities, Santos is responsible for the deaths of 25 people, including FARC then-second-in-command Raul Reyes, four Mexican students and an Ecuadorian civilian in a March 2008 attack on a FARC encampment located within Ecuador's borders.

As the raid was not authorized by the Ecuadorian government, President Rafael Correa broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia, citing violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty. The two countries are in the process of repairing relations.

Along with Santos, the Sucumbios court also seeks the Commander of Colombia's Armed Forces, General Freddy Padilla de Leon, for whom an arrest warrant is pending. The Colombian government, headed by President Alvaro Uribe, has closed ranks around Santos and Padilla de Leon.

Ecuadorian leaders’ assassination shows spillover of Colombian conflict

Source: Refugees International (RI)

Date: 16 Oct 2009

Statement by Andrea Lari, Senior Advocate:

"The recent assassination of two Ecuadorian community leaders who have been helping Colombian refugees along the border between Ecuador and Colombia represents another indication that violence and terror are no longer contained within Colombian territory but are generating increasing instability well beyond its borders.

"Miguel Lapo and Miguel Pinzón were murdered by unknown perpetrators on September 28th and September 29th. Mr. Pinzón was assassinated in the nearby town of San Martín. Mr. Lapo was killed in Barranca Bermeja, a town in Ecuador located just across the river from Colombia. This very community was visited by Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts in November of 2008.

"Refugees International visited the northwestern Ecuadorian province of Esmeralda in June of this year and received several reports of the presence of newly reorganized Colombian paramilitary groups operating in the town of San Lorenzo, close to the border. A number of leaflets threatening "social cleansing" of marginalized groups like drug addicts, thieves and prostitutes had been delivered to communities living in San Lorenzo. The same type of leaflets have been circulating inside Colombia in areas where newly organized paramilitary groups are active in criminal activities and trafficking of narcotics, while gradually exercising social control over communities.

"Refugees International calls for a thorough investigation by the Ecuadorian authorities into the murder of these leaders, while also calling on the U.S. government and countries neighboring Colombia to pursue a multilateral regional effort to address the humanitarian and protection dimensions of the Colombian refugee crisis. A starting point should be providing resources for expanding the presence of international humanitarian actors in border areas, given the increasing number of Colombian refugees fleeing their country. They should also assure support for basic services and infrastructure expansion which would benefit host communities and refugees alike."

Refugees International advocates for lifesaving assistance and protection for displaced people and promotes solutions to displacement crises.

Contact:
Vanessa Parra; +1-202-904-0319
Vanessa@refugeesinternational.org

UNICEF praises Ecuador for increasing social investment

QUITO, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Friday praised the Ecuadorian government for its efforts to increase investment in social welfare in the first quarter of 2009 despite the global financial crisis.

In a report released Friday, Cristian Munduate, UNICEF representative in Ecuador, said among the around 14 billion U.S. dollars of central government budget, more than 3 billion went to social sectors, accounting for 24.5 percent of the total.

As of April, 46 percent of social budget had been allocated to such sectors as education, health, housing and social welfare, she said.

Investment in education, health, housing and social welfare increased 52.5 percent, 22.9 percent, 6.2 percent and 17.7 percent, respectively, compared with 2008, said the report.

The increased budget also went to programs which guaranteed the well-being of Ecuadorian children and teenagers, she added.

Ecuadorian Social Development Coordination Minister Jeannett Sanchez said she was satisfied with UNICEF's conclusion, but notedthere is still much room for improvement despite the positive results.

Ecuadorian Finance Minister Maria Viteri promised renewed efforts to increase social budget. "We are investing in hospitals, schools, infrastructure restoration despite the grave economic crisis," he said.

Ecuador’s President Says Big Hydro Project on Track

Latin American Herald Tribune
QUITO – President Rafael Correa said progress was being made in the preliminary construction phase of the Coca-Codo-Sinclaire hydroelectric power plant, the largest facility of its type in Ecuador, following the signing of a contract last week with China’s Sinohydro.

The construction of access roads is in the advanced stage because work started before the contract with the Chinese company was signed last Monday, the president said during his weekly program on Saturday.

The power plant will have the capacity to generate 1,500 MW of electricity, allowing it to meet about 70 percent of domestic power demand in the Andean nation.

Ecuador will no longer need to import electricity from Colombia and Peru once Coca-Codo-Sinclaire is completed, and it will gain the capacity to export power to other countries in the region, Correa said.

The hydroelectric power project is “the biggest investment in the history of the country and is being made despite the economic crisis at the global level,” Correa said, adding that construction would cost some $2 billion.

“Much care is being taken in the environmental area” because the plant is being constructed in the east-central Amazon region, the president said.

Ecuador is providing about 15 percent of the funding for the power plant, with China’s Eximbank financing the other approximately 85 percent of the project.

The Coca-Codo-Sinclaire hydroelectric power plant is located in El Chaco, in the Amazonian province of Napo.

The plant is expected to create some 4,000 direct jobs and 15,000 indirect jobs.

Ecuador to seek defense deals with Russia

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said on Saturday he will travel to Russia late this month to strengthen ties aimed in part at enhancing his country's defenses.

Correa is a critic of Washington and an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is building up his military with Russian weapons.

Both socialist presidents object to a deal being negotiated between Colombia and the United States under which U.S. anti-narcotics operations will be launched from Colombian bases.

Leaders throughout the region and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have voiced concern that South America might be headed for an arms race.

"We are going to go to Russia to open new markets and establish mechanisms of cooperation in the area of defense," Correa said in a televised address. "We need to recover the operational capacity of our military."

Correa, who is also strengthening Ecuador's trade ties with China, did not specify the type of deals he will seek to sign with Russia or the exact schedule of his trip.

Chavez recently returned from Russia with a list of weapons purchases, including the advanced S-300 missile defense system and 92 tanks.

In September, Russia lent $2.2 billion for weapons to Venezuela, where it has growing oil interests. Ecuador is also an oil producer and a member of OPEC.

Ecuador Oil Pollution Case Only Grows Murkier

Moises Saman for The New York Times

A pool of oil in Lago Agrio, an Ecuadorean town in the Amazon where Texaco left contamination. Chevron, which acquired Texaco, has inherited its legal troubles.

By SIMON ROMERO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Published: October 9, 2009

QUITO, Ecuador — The multibillion-dollar legal case between Amazon peasants and Chevron over oil pollution in Ecuador’s rain forest keeps unfolding more like a mystery thriller than a battle of briefs.

Ever since the oil giant released videos in August that were secretly taped by two businessmen who seemed to have the ambition of feasting off the expected $27 billion in damages sought, Ecuadorean officials and Chevron have accused each other of gross improprieties, including espionage.

The Ecuadorean judge hearing the case recused himself after he appeared in the recordings discussing the case and potential damages. He was returned to the case by another judge, but he was then removed again.

The two mysterious businessmen, who used watches and pens implanted with bugging devices to make the recordings, have refused to explain their motivations for going to the furtive meetings in Quito and a jungle outpost to discuss a bribery plot. And now, with questions mounting, one of them has enlisted a lawyer who has represented Barry Bonds.

In recent days the plot has thickened further. The Ecuadorean political go-between whose taped remarks about apportioning bribes put him in the middle of the scandal, Patricio García, said he was entrapped in a dirty-tricks campaign by Chevron.

In an interview, he claimed that Chevron had masterminded an industrial espionage project, with digitally manipulated videos and gangsters disguised as entrepreneurs on the prowl for contracts, intended to smear him and Ecuador’s legal system.

“This was all planned from the United States, by Chevron itself,” said Mr. García, 55, a businessman and former car mechanic. He chafed at any suggestion, as laid out in recordings made public by Chevron, that he had discussed a bribery scheme that was to include President Rafael Correa’s sister, Pierina Correa, and Judge Juan Núñez, who was then overseeing the case.

It is not clear from the recordings and transcripts provided by Chevron whether any bribes were paid or whether Judge Núñez and Ms. Correa were aware of plans to try to bribe them. Ms. Correa has denied knowing Mr. García, or having anything to do with the plot, and Judge Núñez has also denied any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, governing party and government officials have characterized Mr. García as a man of little influence.

Ecuador’s attorney general still somewhat echoes Mr. García’s interpretation of the events caught on the tapes, saying that Chevron’s contacts with the businessmen who discussed bribes mean the company should be investigated in the United States for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which outlaws bribery of foreign officials to obtain business.

“It seems to me that Chevron’s strategy is to delegitimize the actions of our judges,” said Washington Pesántez, the attorney general. He added that he regretted that a resolution of the lawsuit, which has dragged on for 16 years, had been delayed by a month with the disclosure of the videos. “Justice that is delayed is not justice,” Mr. Pesántez said.

The tapes were the latest turn in a legal marathon over oil contamination left by Texaco years before it was acquired by Chevron. On one tape, Judge Núñez seems to suggest that he plans to rule against Chevron and that damages could exceed $27 billion, making it potentially the biggest environmental suit in history.

Whether Chevron avoided such an outcome by releasing the tapes may not become clear for months, or even years. Chevron gambled that the disclosure of the videos would enable it to cast doubt on the integrity of the trial and the honesty of the Ecuadorean legal system. But the tapes have also raised questions about its ties to the men who made the recordings, potentially opening the company to a new legal fight.

Taping conversations without everyone’s permission is illegal in Ecuador, and trying to bribe foreign officials is illegal under American law. But shades of gray tinge nearly everything to do with the videos. For instance, Mr. García, the political go-between, said the businessmen who tied him to the bribery plot joked about recording their meetings with a wristwatch, potentially giving them a way out if scrutiny of their tactics intensifies.

“For someone who is trying to figure out what you can learn from this, it’s not as though it yields a rational narrative,” said Ralph G. Steinhardt, professor of law and international affairs at George Washington University Law School, who has been following the case. “In trying to appreciate the complexities of this case, you need to have the skills of a poker player rather than the skills of a lawyer.”

Chevron says that it neither coached nor paid the businessmen to make the tapes, and that it did not edit the material, though it did give one of the men, Diego Borja, an undisclosed amount for moving and living expenses so he could safely move his family out of Ecuador.

Company spokesmen say that when Mr. Borja, an Ecuadorean logistics contractor working with an American businessman, brought tapes of three meetings to Chevron, company officials urged him not to go to more meetings because doing so could be dangerous.

“Chevron had no involvement in the videotaping,” said Kent Robertson, a company spokesman. “Chevron referred this matter to the U.S. Department of Justice and Ecuador’s prosecutor general after making every reasonable effort to verify the evidence that was presented.”

Mr. Borja went back for a fourth meeting, taped it, and gave more evidence to the company. But no one has yet explained what motivated him and his partner, Wayne Hansen, an American, to travel around Ecuador meeting officials and collecting evidence of a bribery scheme, especially one in which they stood to gain lucrative contracts.

Neither the men nor their lawyers would talk, although Mr. Borja’s lawyer, Cristina C. Arguedas, who has represented Mr. Bonds and other elite athletes in connection with the investigation into performance-enhancing drugs, released a statement: “Diego is an outstanding and proud Ecuadorean who came forward on his own to expose corruption. He will answer all questions in a fair proceeding.”

The video and transcripts have been open to interpretation. Still a mystery, for instance, is why supposedly well-connected Ecuadoreans with knowledge of the case would discuss bribes in exchange for government cleanup contracts to come out of a settlement in the Chevron case.

Chevron hopes to delay any future payments for many years; since it has no major assets in Ecuador, it would not be easy to get it to pay, even if it lost. Had the Ecuadorean officials checked Mr. Borja’s background, they would have seen that he had been a contractor for Chevron for years.

Simon Romero reported from Quito, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.

Affected Communities March Against Chevron Corruption in Ecuador as Chevron CEO Retires, Plaintiffs “Bury” his Legacy

San Francisco (9 October, 2009) – Over 400 people from indigenous and farming communities around Lago Agrio, Ecuador, marched to a toxic dump site today to protest Chevron’s on-going attempts to derail the $27 billion lawsuit that will soon come to a close after more than 16 years of courtroom struggle.

Hoisting a coffin filled with effigies of Chevron executives and lawyers on their shoulders, protesters marched to one of the oil waste pits that Chevron claims to have remediated. They lowered the coffin into the still contaminated, oily ground, symbolically burying out-going Chevron CEO David O’Reilly and other masterminds of Chevron’s legacy of corruption. The “burial site” is just one of over 900 open waste pits left behind by Texaco (now Chevron) in 1992 filled with toxic wastewaters.

“We the people in Ecuador want to say that this supposed development is killing our way of life,” said Justino Piaguaje, President of the Secoya people. “We are enclosed in this small territory that does not guarantee life to our people because these territories are contaminated. To Chevron’s new president, we want to send a message that we need remediation urgently. It’s not necessary for people to continue dying. We want him, John Watson to come to Ecuador and see for himself what has happened to our people.”

“Chevron has repeatedly tried to avoid responsibility for the devastating contamination and human suffering caused by their oil operations. But today’s protest of hundreds in Lago Agrio, Ecuador shows that the people here will continue to fight. With new CEO John Watson assuming leadership on December 31, Chevron has an opportunity to start anew and clean up its mess in Ecuador,” said Maria Lya Ramos, Rainforest Action Network Campaign Director, who was present at the march.

The protest comes at a time when Chevron is facing increasing international scrutiny about its handling of what experts are calling the “Amazon Chernobyl.” Just this year, Chevron has lobbied the United States Trade Representative to cancel trade preferences between Ecuador and the U.S., filed an arbitration claim against Ecuador’s government at The Hague, and unleashed a campaign to implicate the Ecuadorian judge, Juan Nuñez, in a bribery scandal.

“Chevron has ramped up an assault on Ecuador’s judicial system over the past few months with ready-made video scandals that have failed to produce any evidence of foul play within the courts,” said Mitch Anderson, Amazon Watch Corporate Accountability Campaigner. “Chevron’s sole intention appears to be to lay the groundwork for future appeals and delay a final decision as long as possible; a legal strategy of undermining the rule of law in Ecuador to buy time.”

“The Toxi-videos are just the latest way that Chevron is trying to corrupt the trial by creating false evidence,” said Luis Yanza, a plaintiff who was recently profiled in the acclaimed documentary Crude, now screening in the United States. “Those who committed the crime of the Toxi-videos and the masterminds behind those videos should be investigated and punished. We need to be more alert than ever because Chevron is on its last breath”.

Chevron’s liability in the lawsuit stems from what may be the worst oil-related contamination on the planet and was inherited when Chevron, under O’Reilly’s watch, paid $35 billion for Texaco in 2001, apparently without accounting for a possible adverse judgment in the case, which was pending at the time in U.S. federal court.

O’Reilly ignored the warnings about Texaco’s Ecuador liability, which at the time was estimated in the billions of dollars. The lawsuit asserts Texaco deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon when it operated 356 oil wells in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990, poisoning an ecosystem the size of Rhode Island, decimating the lifestyles of six indigenous groups and causing an epidemic of cancers and other oil-related illnesses.

Contact: Mitch Anderson at 415-342-4783 or mitch@amazonwatch.org
Maria Lya Ramos in Ecuador at 011-593-9-7083-887 or mramos@ran.org

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT CHEVRON – TEXACO CRIMES COMMITTED IN ECUADOR CHECK THE LINK: http://www.texacotoxico.org/eng/

SI TU QUIERES SABER MAS ACERCA DE LOS CRIMENES COMETIDOS POR CHEVRON – TEXACO EN ECUADOR VISITA LA PAGINA: http://www.texacotoxico.org/

Ecuador’s Correa Loses Majority Support

October 09, 2009

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - For the first time since taking office as Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa has seen his popularity miss the 50 per cent mark, according to a poll by Cedatos/Gallup. 49 per cent of respondents approve of Correa’s performance, down two points since August.

Correa, a former finance minister, ran for president as an independent leftist under the Alliance Country (AP) banner. In November 2006, Correa won a run-off with 56.69 per cent of the vote. He officially took over as Ecuador’s head of state in January 2007. Correa’s party nominated no candidates to the National Congress.

In September 2008, Ecuadorian voters ratified a new constitution in a nationwide referendum. The draft was approved by the pro-government majority in the Constituent Assembly. Under the terms of the new constitution, Ecuador held a presidential election in April. Final results gave Correa 51.95 per cent of the vote. For the first time in 30 years, the Ecuadorian presidential election did not require a run-off.

On Oct. 1, Ecuadorian police clashed with protesters in the Amazon region, where natives want the government to prevent oil-drilling and mining in their land. One civilian died and nine were wounded, while 40 police officers suffered injuries. Correa described the incident, saying, "Tremendously violent groups armed with shotguns and rifles waited for police and met them with gunshots."

Polling Data

Do you approve or disapprove of Rafael Correa’s performance as president?

	Sept. 2009	Aug. 2009	Jun. 2009
Approve	49%	51%	52%
Disapprove	44%	44%	43%

Source: Cedatos/Gallup
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 2,086 Ecuadorian adults, conducted from Sept. 17 to Sept. 20, 2009. Margin of error is 3.4 per cent.

Ecuador wants to double green power use

By Mica Rosenberg

LEON, Mexico (Reuters) Oct 8 2009 - Ecuador aims to double hydroelectric power use over the next decade and increase grid capacity to attract mining investment but must overcome local opposition, a senior official said on Thursday.

Ecuador wants 86 percent of its electricity needs to be covered by hydroelectric power by 2020, up from 43 percent now, Luis Castelo, an official at Ecuador's ministry of electricity and renewable energy, told Reuters in an interview.

"We have massive hydroelectric resources in the country that have not been exploited for a long time," Castelo said at a climate forum in the central Mexican city of Leon.

But he said one challenge is to appease local communities in the Amazon region that have voiced opposition to large-scale hydroelectric projects.

"There is a lot of resistance from the indigenous communities. There's been a lot of effort to work with the communities so they see the projects as a source of jobs."

The ministry, created in 2007, is now charged with implementing a clause in the country's new constitution that commits to increasing Ecuador's use of renewable energy.

Ecuador has world-class precious metals deposits that have yet to be exploited and increased electricity capacity could help lure investors. "The mining industry demands a lot of electricity. We are proposing to increase the electricity supply precisely for mining uses," Castelo said.

The aim is to reduce the country's reliance on diesel imports, since oil-producing Ecuador does not have refining capacity, he added.

Chinese company Sinohydro has signed a contract with President Rafael Correa to build a $2 billion hydroelectric project along the Amazon river, which will be the country's largest with a capacity of 1,500 MW.

The project will be 85-percent financed by a Chinese bank and the government will provide the other 15 percent for construction to be completed by 2015.

Ecuador is seeking investors for other big dam projects but says companies must come with their own financing.

Ecuador strike called off after President meets indigenous leaders

By: Francisca Pouiller

8th October 2009

BUENOS AIRES (miningweekly.com) – After eight days of protests against a proposed government water policy, indigenous leaders in Ecuador met on Monday with President Rafael Correa and were able to hammer out an agreement to address their concerns.

The strike, which blocked roads and railways and erupted into violence at times, ended on Wednesday.

The meeting between indigenous leaders and the President lasted four hours, eluniversal.com reported.

The riots left one casualty in the Amazon region after a violent confrontation with police and paralysed railways for a week.

Indigenous groups were demanding changes to Ecuador's new mining law and opposed the government's proposed new water policy.

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie), the biggest indigenous organisation in Ecuador, says the new Water bill could result in the privatisation of the country's water supply, although Correa rejects this claim.

The group is also against the official plans for large-scale mining exploitation in ancestral territories, claiming it will affect the environment.

The meeting this week produced a six-point agreement, which the President is expected to sign next Tuesday.

Firstly, the parties have agreed to institutionalise a permanent dialogue between the government and the native communities.

There will also be a commission set up to work on the Water bill and try to reach an intermediate agreement between the government's plans and the indigenous groups.

A thorough analysis of possible modifications to the mining law, will be conducted and, finally, a commission, comprising two delegates each from the government the indigenous groups, will investigate the death last week of protester Bosco Wisum.

Indigenous groups had a leading role in overthrowing two previous Ecuadorian presidents.

A BBC article comments that, even though they are not as powerful as they used to be, native communities have grown stronger from this conflict.

Ecuador: Left Turn?

Written by Marc Becker

Thursday, 08 October 2009

Source: Against the Current On April 26, 2009, Rafael Correa won re-election to the Ecuadorian presidency with an absolute majority of the vote. He gained broad popular appeal through a combination of nationalist rhetoric and increased social spending on education and health care. The victory cemented Correa’s control over the country as the old political establishment appeared to be in complete collapse. Mainstream news outlets reported Correa’s triumph as another socialist win in Latin America. Barely a month earlier, Maurcio Funes of the former guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) won El Salvador’s presidential elections, bringing the left to power for the first time in that country’s history. Motivated by what is perhaps an unjustified optimism by the left, undue fear on the right, and the opportunism of eager politicians, socialism is increasingly seen as the dominant discourse in Latin America. Is Ecuador’s Correa justly included as part of a leftward tilt in Latin America, or is his inclusion in this trend a result of hopeful thinking? On one hand, analysts now talk of Latin America’s “many lefts,” ranging through Chile’s neoliberal socialist president Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia’s Indigenous socialist Evo Morales, and Venezuela’s state-centered socialism of Hugo Chávez. On the other hand, this is not the first time that a new president in the small South American country of Ecuador has been warmly greeted as part of a leftward movement. In 2003, in a seeming repeat of Chávez’s rise to power, Lucio Gutiérrez was elected president after a failed 2001 military-Indigenous coup. He quickly moved in a significantly neoliberal direction, alienating his social movement base and finally falling in an April 2005 popular uprising known the “rebellion of the forajidos” or outlaws. Gutiérrez continues to enjoy a significant amount of support from some sectors of the Ecuadorian population, particularly from evangelical Indigenous communities, but most of those on the left would now denounce him as a center-right populist. While many outside observers either celebrated or bemoaned Correa’s consolidation of power as part of Latin America’s broader turn to the left, social movements in Ecuador have become increasingly critical of his populist positioning. Despite Correa’s claims that under his administration the long dark night of neoliberalism is finally over, Indigenous movements have condemned him for continuing basically these same policies through large-scale mineral extractive enterprises, particularly of petroleum in the ecologically delicate eastern Amazonian basin. Rafael Correa and a New Constitution Correa is a young economist and university professor who wrote his dissertation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign attacking neoliberal economic policies known as the “Washington Consensus.” He does not emerge out of social movement organizing, but rather out of a Catholic left motivated by concerns for social justice. Correa first came onto the public scene as the Minister of Finance in Alfredo Palacios’ government after Gutiérrez’s removal. Correa leveraged his popularity in that position to a win in the 2006 presidential elections. In power, Correa appeared to attempt to follow Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s strategy to consolidate power through rewriting the constitution. He could then call for new elections that would reaffirm himself in office and provide for a more sympathetic legislature. Like Chávez, Correa had run as an independent without the support of a traditional political party. The existing “party-ocracy” was severely discredited in both countries. Since 1996, not a single president in Ecuador had been able to complete a four-year term in office. Three presidents (Abdalá Bucaram in 1997, Jamil Mahuad in 2000, and Lucio Gutiérrez in 2005) were removed through massive street protests. On April 15, 2007, three months after Correa took office, 80% of the Ecuadorian electorate approved a referendum to convoke a constituent assembly. Correa created a new political movement called Acuerdo País (AP) that on September 30, 2007 won a majority of seats in the assembly. A year later, on September 28, 2008, almost two-thirds of the voters approved the new constitution that had been drafted largely under Correa’s control. As was the case with Venezuela’s 1999 constitution, Ecuador’s new Magna Carta so fundamentally remapped the country’s political structures that it required new local, congressional and presidential elections. Lengthy and contentious debates in the constituent assembly resulted in a constitution that provided a basis for a more inclusionary and participatory political system. The new document rejected neoliberalism, and embraced increased resource allocation to education, social services and health care. Similar to Venezuela, it also employed gender inclusive language. It also expanded democratic participation, including extending the vote to those between 16 and 18 years of age, foreigners living in the country for more than five years, and Ecuadorans living outside the country. The constitution also defended the rights of nature, Indigenous languages, and in a highly symbolic gesture, pluri-nationalism designed to incorporate Indigenous cosmologies into the governing of the country. The constitution also borrowed from Bolivia’s Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca the Quechua concept of sumak kawsay, of living well not just better. Sumak kawsay includes an explicit critique of traditional development strategies that increased the use of resources rather than seeking to live in harmony with others and with nature. Following Venezuela’s lead, Ecuador also created five branches of government. In addition to the executive, legislative, and judicial, the constitution added an electoral branch and a Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social or Council of Citizenship Participation and Social Control. The last branch is in charge of nominating officials including the attorney general and comptroller general. The purpose for the new branch is to increase citizen participation and improve political transparency, although the opposition complained that it would concentrate more power in Correa’s hands. While advocates argued that a stronger executive was necessary to bring stability to this chronically politically unstable country, social movements feared that it would come at a cost to their ability to influence policy decisions. 2009 Elections Correa won the April 26, 2009 presidential elections with 52% of the vote. The significance of this victory cannot be overstated — the first time since Ecuador’s return to civilian rule in 1979 that a candidate won a high enough percentage of the vote to avoid a runoff election. Most Latin American presidential campaigns are multi-party races that require either a runoff election between the top two vote getters or a congressional decision to select the victor. Salvador Allende, for example, won the 1970 presidential race in Chile with only 36% of the vote. Evo Morales’ 2005 victory in Bolivia with 54% of the vote was the first time in that country’s history that a candidate had won the election with an absolute majority. Under Ecuador’s current constitution, in order to avoid a second round a candidate must either win more than 50% of the vote, or gain at least 40% of the vote and outpace the nearest rival by at least 10%. In Ecuador’s fragmented and contentious political landscape, it is unusual for any candidate to poll more than 25% of the vote in the initial multi-candidate round. Correa’s closest competitor in this election was the former president Lucio Gutiérrez of the centrist Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), who won 28% of the vote. Gutiérrez drew most of his support from his native Amazonian region, wining those provinces by a wide margin, and in evangelical Indigenous communities in the central highland provinces of Bolívar, Chimborazo and Tungurahua. His support rose as the election approached when the conservative opposition, including the most traditional sectors of the Catholic Church grouped into Opus Dei, recognized him as the best opportunity to defeat Correa. Gutiérrez claimed he had evidence of a monstrous fraud that denied him victory, although the electoral commission rejected the charge. International observers, however, criticized Correa’s overwhelmingly dominant media presence as compromising the fairness of the poll. The third-place candidate was billionaire banana magnate Alvaro Noboa of the right-wing Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (PRIAN), who almost won the 2006 elections. In 2009, with the right completely discredited but still running on the same neoliberal agenda of privatization, opening up the country to foreign capital, and lowering taxes on the most wealthy, he only polled 11%. This was his worst showing in four attempts to win the presidency. The left did not fare any better than the right. Martha Roldós, daughter of the progressive president who returned Ecuador to civilian rule in 1979 but was killed two years later in a mysterious plane crash, only won four percent of the vote. She ran as a candidate of the Red Ética y Democracia (RED), which grouped labor leaders and other leftist militants. Her campaign was based largely on attacking Correa, without successfully presenting an alternative to his “citizen’s revolution” project. Another leftist candidate Diego Delgado, who strongly questioned Correa’s commitment to socialism, only gained one percent. Many on the left preferred to opt for Correa instead of risking a conservative victory. Eight candidates in total competed for the country’s highest office. Many on the left had urged Alberto Acosta, the popular former president of the constituent assembly, to run. When it appeared unlikely that he could rally the left against Correa in the face of the president’s overwhelming popularity he declined to enter the race. The Indigenous party Pachakutik did not run a presidential candidate, and refused to endorse any of the candidates. In the 2006 elections when a possible alliance with Correa fell apart, Pachakutik ran their standard bearer Luis Macas but only polled two percent of the vote. While Correa enjoys majority support from the voters, the same is not true for his AP, which lost its control over congress. In 2006, Correa campaigned without the support of a political party or alliances with congressional delegates. Three years later, Correa is still having difficulty pulling his new party together even though he personally remains quite popular. The January 25, 2009 primaries for legislative and local races was fraught with difficulties and disorganization. The AP is by no means an ideologically homogenous or coherent party, which may be its greatest strength as well as its greatest weakness. While it incorporates a broad range of people, that diversity also threatens to pull the party apart into left and right wings. In the runup to the April vote, Correa implemented several populist economic measures, such as restructuring the foreign debt, which appeared to be largely designed to strengthen the electoral fortunes of his congressional allies. The AP’s failure to win an overwhelming majority in the congressional contests complicates issues, particularly since Gutiérrez’s PSP is the second largest, and very antagonistic, power. Even though the AP fell far short of the two-thirds majority it enjoyed in the constituent assembly, it still remains the largest party in the assembly. If it can build alliances with smaller leftist parties it might still be able to control the decisions. Such alliances are sure to be fragile. Nevertheless, the new constitution significantly strengthens executive power at a cost to the assembly, so losing congressional control may not prove so much a liability to Correa who could still rule through decrees and referendums. Traditional parties such as the Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) continue to lose support. In fact, all the parties that largely defined the return to civilian rule in 1979 and actively contested power over the last 30 years the PSC, the Izquierda Democrática (ID), the Democracia Popular-Democracia Cristiana (DP), Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano (PRE) -– have now largely disappeared. The PSC did not run a presidential candidate, instead focusing its energies on congressional and municipal elections. In the coastal commercial port city of Guayaquil which has long been a bastion of opposition to Correa’s left-populist government, the conservative PSC mayor Jaime Nebot easily won re-election. Even in Guayaquil, however, political allegiances fall out along class lines, with poor people strongly supporting Correa, including many of those who voted for Nebot as mayor. Reflecting deep-seated regional divisions, the AP’s Augusto Barrera easily won election as mayor of Quito. Indigenous Movements in Opposition Much of Correa’s support comes from urban professionals. Despite his seemingly leftist credentials, Ecuador’s leftist Indigenous movement has moved deeply into the anti-Correa camp. Because of his support for a new mining law that advocates resource extraction, Indigenous activists have criticized Correa for ruling with a neoliberal agenda. Furthermore, under Correa’s governance Indigenous movements have become increasingly fragmented, with militants accusing the president of attempting to destroy their organizational capacity. The largest and best known Indigenous organization is the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), founded in 1986 as an umbrella group of regional Indigenous organizations intended to represent all Indigenous peoples in Ecuador. CONAIE emerged on the national scene through a 1990 uprising for land and Indigenous rights that shook the country’s white elite to its core. Perhaps the most militant Indigenous organization in Ecuador is CONAIE’s highland regional affiliate Ecuarunari, the Confederation of the Peoples of the Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador. Ecuarunari has consistently run to the left of Correa, challenging him for his failure to make a clean break with Ecuador’s neoliberal past. These organizations continue to press their agenda in a variety of ways, including with a proposed water law to conserve and protect water resources. At an April 2 assembly, CONAIE made its position crystal clear in a resolution which stated that “Correa’s government was born from the right, governs with the right, and will continue to do so until the end of his time in office.” They condemned the government for creating organizations parallel to CONAIE, and stated that they would evict anyone from their organization who occupied positions in the government or worked with Correa’s electoral campaign due to “their lack of respect for our organizational process.” In particular, CONAIE targeted Correa’s extractive policies, and especially large-scale mining and petroleum exploration efforts “because they go against nature, Indigenous peoples, it violates the constitution, and threatens the governance of the sumak kawsay.” They were eager to use Correa’s constitution as a tool to combat what they saw as his abusive policies. (“Resoluciones de la asamblea ampliada CONAIE 2 de abril del 2009,” www.conaie.org/es/ge_comunicados/2009/0402.html) CONAIE stated that as an organization they would not support any presidential candidate, despite earlier conversations the leftist Martha Roldós. Refusing to support a presidential candidate is an explicit reversal of a policy in previous elections to support a candidate because otherwise campaigns would prey on rural communities to gain the Indigenous vote. In 1995, CONAIE helped found Pachakutik as a political movement for Indigenous peoples and their allies to contest for electoral office. A short-lived alliance with Gutiérrez in 2003, however, was such a horrific experience that CONAIE and Pachakutik remained very shy of entering into another such similar alliance. Nevertheless, they did urge support for local and congressional candidates running under the Pachakutik banner. Historically, Pachakutik has fared much better in local races. In this election, however, they suffered significant losses to the AP, and barely survived with only one seat in the national assembly. In addition to CONAIE and its regional affiliate Ecuarunari, two competing Indigenous organizations are the National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous and Negro Organizations (FENOCIN) and the Council of Evangelical Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of Ecuador (FEINE). FENOCIN has its roots in the Catholic Church’s attempts in the 1960s to draw support away from the communist-affiliated Ecuadorian Federation of Indians (FEI). FENOCIN broke with the church and became much more radical in the 1970s, assuming a socialist position. Today it is allied with Correa, and some of its principle leaders including president Pedro de la Cruz serve as AP deputies. FEINE tends to be much more conservative, and recently has allied with Lucio Gutiérrez. In the past, the three organizations (CONAIE, FENOCIN, FEINE) have sometimes collaborated to advance Indigenous interests, and at other times bitterly competed with each other for allegiance of their Indigenous base. Currently they are perhaps as fractured as they ever have been. Twenty-first Century Socialism Correa has been very eager to speak of socialism of the 21st century, but has never been very clear what he means by this term. During a January 2009 trip to Cuba, Correa rejected the “dogmas history has defeated” including “the class struggle, dialectical materialism, the nationalization of all property, the refusal to recognize the market.” (“Correa attempts to define modern socialism,” Latin American Weekly Report, WR-09-02, January 15, 2009: 3) Discarding key elements traditionally associated with socialism while failing to identify alternative visions raises questions as to what exactly Correa means by 21st-century socialism. Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has faced similar criticisms. At the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil where Chávez first spoke of the Venezuelan revolution as socialist, he said that new solutions must be more humanistic, more pluralistic, and less dependent on the state. Nevertheless, both Chávez and Correa have relied on strong governmental control in order to advance their political agendas. Indigenous intellectuals and their close allies such as economist Pablo Dávalos argue that once one looks beyond the rhetoric of socialism of the 21st century, regional integration, and the Bolivarian dream of a united Latin America, the reality on the ground often looks quite different. Yes, there has been state intervention in the economy, most notably in important areas such as health and education. But the basic economic model remains capitalist in its orientation. Not only does Correa continue to rely on extractive enterprises to advance Ecuador, but he uses the repressive power of the state to attack anyone who dares to challenge his policies, including presenting dissidents with charges of terrorism. In one of the most high profile cases, Correa sent the military into Dayuma in the eastern Amazon in search of “terrorists” who had opposed his extractive policies. The environmental NGO Acción Ecológica also faced a threat of removal of legal status, seemingly because of their opposition to Correa’s petroleum policies. When faced with a massive outcry, Correa quickly backpedaled, claiming that the government was simply moving its registration to a different ministry where it more logically belonged. Although AP managed to liquidate the previous political system and emerged with a leftist discourse, Dávalos argued that “in reality it represented a continuation of neoliberalism under other forms.” This is clear in its themes of decentralization, autonomy, competition, and privatization.” Correa continued to follow traditional clientalistic and populist policies far removed from what could be reasonably seen as radical or as a socialist reconstruction of society. Dávalos concludes that in no sense is Correa a leftist, nor could his government be identified as a progressive. Rather, he “represents a reinvention of the right allied with extractive and transnational enterprises.” (Pablo Dávalos, “Alianza Pais o la reinvencion de la derecha,” http://alainet.org/active/29776). After Correa’s victory, Luis Fernando Sarango, rector of the Amawtay Wasi Indigenous University, criticized the president’s talk of radicalizing his programs. “What socialism of the twenty-first century?” Sarango asked. “What about a true socialism, because we have seen almost nothing of this of the twenty-first century.” Instead, Sarango proposed “a profound change in structures that permits the construction of a plurinational state with equality, whether it is called socialism or not.” (Boletin Digital Universidad Intercultural Amawtay Wasi 12, May 2009: 2) CONAIE leader and 2006 Pachakutik presidential candidate Luis Macas criticized Correa for pursuing a “citizen’s revolution” as part of a fundamentally liberal, individualistic model that did not provide a fundamental ideological break with the neoliberal past. In contrast, Indigenous movements pressed in the 2006 electoral campaign for a “constituent revolution” to rewrite the structures of government to be more inclusive. Correa stole the thunder from Indigenous militants in also pressing for a new constitution, and even going one step farther in granting CONAIE their long-standing demand to have Ecuador declared a pluri-national country. It is not without reason that CONAIE resents Correa for taking over issues and occupying spaces that they previously held. At the same time, Correa holds those to his left hostage because criticizing him plays into the hands of the oligarchy who are equally anxious to attack him from the right. At the World Social Forum In January 2009, Correa joined his fellow leftist Latin American presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay in a meeting with representatives of Vía Campesina, an international network of rural movements, at the World Social Forum (WSF) in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Belém. Of the five, Correa was the president with the weakest links to civil society. Lula and Morales, of course, were labor leaders before becoming president. Lugo was a priest, influenced by liberation theology, who worked in rural communities. Chávez rose through the military ranks and used that experience to cultivate his popular support. Correa, in contrast, comes out of the academic world, but of the five presidents at the forum he presented the deepest and most serious analysis of the current economic crisis. He began with a challenge to neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. “We’re living a magic moment, one of new leaders and governments.” Correa noted that capitalism is commonly associated with efficiency, whereas socialism emphasizes justice. Nevertheless, Correa argued, socialism is both more just and efficient than capitalism. Latin American countries need national development plans in order to advance, and Ecuador’s new constitution was part of that process. He appealed to support for Indigenous cultural projects, the Pachamama (mother earth), and repeated the now common call for the sumak kawsay, to live well, not better. We need to be responsible for the environment, Correa said, and conserve resources for the next generation. Capitalism is in crisis, Correa argued, and Latin America is in search of new models, one that would bring dignity to Latin American peoples. Even though Ecuador has resisted joining Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), for which Chávez publicly chided Correa at the forum, Correa still called for Latin American integration, for a United States of Latin America. “We are in times of change,” Correa concluded. “An alternative model already exists, and it is the socialism of the twenty-first century.” Much of his rhetoric echoed that of the dominant discourse at the forum that has fundamentally shifted sentiments away from neoliberal policies. Correa also seemed to be the most eager of the five to employ populist discourse in order to identify himself as with “the people.” Correa spoke favorably of Indigenous movements and the history of exclusion that Afro-Ecuadorians have faced. All this came in the face of his increasingly tense relations with social movements, particularly over his determination to build Ecuador’s economy on resource extraction. Correa has not responded well to criticism, condemning what he terms as “infantile” Indigenous activists and environmentalists. At the closing of the Indigenous tent three days after the presidential presentations, longtime leader Blanca Chancoso denounced the “nightmare” that they were living with Correa who was undertaking resource extraction “at all costs.” Perhaps the only current Latin American president broadly identified with the left who would have received more vigorous denunciations at the forum is Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, who in particular has engaged in pitched battles with women’s movements. Many Lefts Following Chávez’s lead in Venezuela, Correa has sought to build his popularity on the basis of “petro populism,” which uses income from oil exports to fund social programs. But the fall of the price of oil threatens to put those programs at risk. At the same time, a growing inflation rate threatens to undermine some of his government’s accomplishments. Although Correa talks openly of embracing a socialism for the 21st century, he has made no move to nationalize industries. Building his government on economic development without proper concern for the environment and people’s rights has cost him support, while gaining him the label of “pragmatic” from the business class. On the other hand, Correa does follow through with enough of his policy proposals to assure his continued popular support. He promised not to renew the U.S. Forward Operating Location (FOL) lease on the Manta airbase when it comes due this fall, and it appears that Washington is proceeding ahead with his wishes to withdraw. Last December, Correa defaulted on more than $3 billion in foreign bonds, calling the foreign debt illegal and illegitimate because they had been contracted by military regimes. Many people rallied to his defense, saying that he is defending the country’s sovereignty. In addition to tripling spending on education and health care, Correa has increased subsidizes for single mothers and small farmers. These steps played very well with his base. Despite Correa’s attempts to mimic Chávez’s strategies, his policies are not nearly as radical as those of his counterpart. Of the many lefts that now rule over Latin America, Correa represents a moderate and ambiguous position closer to that of Lula in Brazil or the Concertación in Chile rather than Chávez’s radical populism in Venezuela or Morales’ Indigenous socialism in Bolivia. The danger for popular movements is a populist threat with Correa exploiting the language of the left but fundamentally ruling from the right. It is in this context that a mobilized and engaged social movement, which historically in the Ecuadorian case means an Indigenous movement, remains important as a check on a personalistic and populist government. If Correa follows through on any of the hopeful promises of his government, it will be due to this pressure from below and to the left. Correa continues to enjoy an unusually large amount of popular support in a region which recently has greeted its presidents with a high degree of good will only to have the populace quickly turn on its leaders who inevitably rule against their class interests. Chávez (and, to a certain extent, Evo Morales in Bolivia) have bucked this trend by retaining strong popular support despite oligarchical attempts to undermine their governments. Correa is a charismatic leader, but in the Ecuadorian setting charisma does not secure longevity. José María Velasco Ibarra, Ecuador’s classic caudillo and populist, was president five times, but was removed from four of those when he failed to follow through on his promises to the poor. In recent history, Abdalá Bucaram was perhaps the most charismatic leader, but he lasted only seven months in power after winning the 1996 elections. Charisma alone does not assure political stability. In the wake of Ecuador quickly running through ten chief executives in 10 years, Correa appears positioned to remain in power for 10 years if he can maintain his current coalition to win reelection in 2013. Correa has also said that it will take 80 years for his “citizens’ revolution” to change the country. In quickly moving Ecuador from being one of Latin America’s most unstable countries to maintaining a strong hold over executive power, Correa appears to have been able to mimic Chávez’s governing style. Whose interests this power serves, and particularly whether it will be used to improve the lives of historically marginalized subalterns, remains an open question.