| Written by Kevin Koenig | |
| Tuesday, 08 April 2008 | |
| Source: Multinational Monitor via UpsideDownWorld
The ITT oil bloc lies beneath the Amazon basin’s most biodiverse area of rainforest, the Yasuní National Park. Dubbed the “cradle of the Amazon,” the park is a United Nations Biosphere Reserve. It is also home to some of the planet’s last remaining uncontacted indigenous peoples, whose cultural survival depends on protecting the park. Leaving Yasuní’s oil in the ground is among the most significant measures yet proposed, by a developing nation or otherwise, to tackle climate change. But in the eyes of the Ecuadorian government, providing a concrete solution toward reversing climate change is just one of the many benefits. Debt and Destruction Like many other oil-dependent countries, Ecuador has not reaped the much-promised benefits of oil “development.” Although oil revenues were significant in facilitating national development between 1972 and 1982, the panorama has changed in the last 25 years. Today, Ecuador produces more than double the amount of crude it did during the 1970s boom years. However, the average annual per capita income increase between 1981 and 2006 was a mere 0.6 percent, and poverty levels remained constant between 1995 and 2006. Over the last quarter century, national indicators of poverty rose while health indicators declined. The Concept of Ecological Debt Climate change has no borders and represents perhaps the greatest common threat ever posed to humanity. But it reflects a grave asymmetry in responsibility and burden. The Yasuní proposal is based on the concept of ecological debt and the principle of shared responsibility for climate change between developed and developing nations, as laid out in the 1994 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Energy to Keep Oil In the Ground To date, the Yasuní-ITT proposal has generated significant interest from governments, international organizations and individuals. Concrete financial commitments from the Spanish, Norwegian and Belgian governments, as well as the United Nations Development Program, have helped jumpstart the proposal. An expanding group of nongovernmental organizations has committed funding and technical assistance to the Ecuadorian government in its exploration of the viable economic options to acquire compensation for keeping the oil in the ground, and in seeking private and public sector financial support through the launching of a U.S. awareness and fundraising campaign. The proposal was selected for recognition in September 2007 by the Clinton Global Initiative, started by President Bill Clinton to implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. With carbon emissions, global temperatures and oil prices all at record highs, proponents say there has never been a more important time for a proposal like Yasuní-ITT. To date, existing global initiatives have failed to spur significant measures and commitments to mitigate climate change. Kevin Koenig is the Ecuador program coordinator for Amazon Watch. |
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Ecuador’s Oil Change: An Exporter’s Historic Proposal
Quito, Ecuador — On a clear day, high in this Andean capital city, the nearby volcanoes glisten in the distance under the equatorial sun. Of the five visible volcanoes, the most startling is Cotopaxi — both for its proximity and for its remarkably receding glacier. Cotopaxi has lost 30 percent of its glacier over the last several years and people are taking notice.
Ecuador Writer: Correa in Danger
The presence of the US Central Intelligence Agency in the country will bring no good, "when Ecuadorians are aware that we finally want to be the free nation of which Eloy Alfaro dreamt," Galarza said.
Correa´s denunciation that the CIA has penetrated Ecuadorian intelligence services poses a serious threat to his life, as CIA plans are never good, he highlighted.
"We Ecuadorians know perfectly well the bad consequences of the CIA presence, as one of our presidents, Jaime Roldos Aguilera, was killed by that agency in an alleged aircraft accident in 1981, for raising his voice against the empire," the writer stressed.
When speaking during an act in the capital, Galarza warned of shady CIA actions in Ecuador in last decades, and of the US intention to prolong its presence at the Manta base and turn it into another Guantanamo, a Cuban territory illegally occupied by the US.
Ecuador says CIA controls part of its intelligence
QUITO, April 5 (Reuters) - Ecuador's president accused the CIA on Saturday of controlling many of his country's spy agencies, in comments that could fray ties with Washington and drag it into Ecuador's feud with neighboring Colombia.
President Rafael Correa has fired a top intelligence officer and plans to overhaul spy agencies for belatedly informing him about links between Colombian rebels and an Ecuadorean who died in Colombia's raid inside Ecuador last month that sparked a regional crisis.
"Many of our intelligence agencies have been taken over by the CIA," the leftist leader said during his weekly radio show. "Through the CIA, information found here was passed to Colombia to improve their position" in the dispute.
Correa also charged the United States with financing some officers in the Ecuadorean spy agencies.
U.S. Embassy spokesman in Quito Arnaldo Arbesu declined to comment on the charges but said, "We are always willing to work with the Ecuadorean government in any type of issue."
Correa, whose popularity has rebounded for his handling of the dispute and is an ally of U.S. foe Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, is a critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.
He has called U.S. President George W. Bush worse than Satan, and once vowed to cut off his own arm before renewing a lease that allows U.S. troops to use a key anti-drug air base.
The March 1 raid, which killed a Colombian rebel leader and more than 20 other people, raised the threat of war after Ecuador and Venezuela briefly sent troops to their borders with Colombia. Nerves quickly calmed during a regional meeting a week later.
Correa said he hoped the diplomatic spat would be over soon, but warned of legal actions against Colombia for the killing of the Ecuadorean citizen who was in the rebel camp.
Correa added that Ecuador's decision to sue Colombia in international court over Colombia's anti-drug spraying along its border was in response to the raid.
The suit filed on Monday has once again strained relations between the neighbors who share a 400-mile (600-km) border often crossed by rebels fighting a four-decade war against the Colombian government.
Ecuador President Stands by Move to Sue Colombia
Ecuador`s legal claim could take years to be resolved in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Ecuador's decision to sue Colombia over drug crop spraying along their border is a reply to Colombian aggression, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said in a Spanish newspaper interview published on Saturday.
Tension between the neighbours has been high since Colombian troops entered Ecuador in March and killed a senior guerrilla leader, prompting Ecuador and Venezuela to move troops to their borders with Colombia and briefly raising the threat of war.
"I'm not interested in maintaining a dispute with Bogota, but it's difficult to establish relations while these negative gestures keep coming from Colombia," Correa told El Pais.
Ecuador's legal claim could take years to be resolved in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Bogota has rejected the charge.
"The claim before The Hague is a response to these attacks," he said. "We've tried to make them stop these fumigations but we've received arrogant and domineering answers."
Ecuador says the spraying hurts legitimate crops and the health of Ecuadorean farmers living along the border. It wants drug crops to be removed manually.
Correa also rejected claims that his government had links with the leftist Colombian guerrilla group FARC. Quito has accused Bogota of waging a smear campaign to link Correa to the rebels.
"Listen, if the world doesn't believe in our good faith, that we have nothing to do with FARC, at least let them believe in our intelligence. Who, in their right mind, would meddle in a civil war, what would be in it for us?"
"Please, the problem is Colombia's, and they don't know how to resolve it," Correa said.
Ecuador: Correa Fosters Energy Revolution
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"Ocaña is a part of a group of projects that will heal that long historic disease that has characterized the Ecuadorian energy sector," the Ecuadorian President said.
He pointed the work will finish in 28 months at a cost of 55 million dollars, and the new generating plant will work for the generation of 26 Megawatts.
Correa will go to the territory of Azcuy, south of Ecuador, to attend a ceremony for the construction of another hydroelectric plant called Paute-Sopladora.
In his last radio appearance, Correa announced the beginning of a revolution in the energy sector with the construction of four generating plants: Sopladora (400 Megawatts of energy) Ocaña (26), Toachi-Pilatón (228) and Coca-Codo-Sinclair.
The hydroelectric projects, also, will substitute several thermoelectric plants that use crude oil for electricity generation, as well as to reduce the cost of taxes to the Ecuadorian consumers, he emphasized.
Ecuadoran representative leaves ruling party after harassment over position on abortion
.- Representative Rossana Queirolo of Ecuador has decided to leave the ruling party Acuerdo Pais after an intense campaign by party officials to get her to change her position on abortion and the family.
Queirolo, who is a representative in the country’s Constitutional Assembly, said she would continue working with the Acuerdo Pais party “in issues that benefit the majority” of Ecuadorans but that she would no longer be a party member. She made her decision after she learned of the agreement made on Tuesday between party members and President Rafael Correa.
“At first I was pleased that they reached an agreement and a consensus at the meeting. But I am not in agreement with three of the six points,” she said, noting that the agreement left the door open for the legalization of abortion and same-sex unions.
“Point 4 of the agreement says that the new constitution would protect life from the moment of conception. However, I think I have been very clear and I have explained the dangers of allowing exceptions,” she said.
She said that by leaving the door open, the current government and future governments could pass laws that would expand abortion and legalize it, “which would be terrible.”
Queirolo also expressed her concern that the agreement would “leave the door open to proposals of alternative families, which I do not agree with,” and “to same-sex unions, because it recognizes civil unions without specifying between which sexes.”
She also noted that party leaders were always aware of her political and moral positions and nonetheless accepted her participating in the Assembly as a member of the party.
In recent weeks, Queirolo and Diana Acosta became the principal voices in defense of human life without exceptions and of protecting marriage between a man and a woman in the new constitution.
As a consequence they became the target of attacks and harassment by members of their own party, who said they should have the “decency” to resign for not sharing the official party position.Ecuadorean Intelligence Chief Removed
An MoD communiqué revealed that Pazmino remains in active duty, but without post, as he awaits for the ruling of the ministry.
The text reflects that the officer failed to provide appropriate information to the president about the killing of Franklin Aisalia by Colombian military forces in northern Ecuador on March 1st.
Local press reports published video images and news recently, revealing that Aisalia was being watched carefully by the military intelligence service for several years, and the president was unaware of that.
This situation led Correa to order an investigation into the Armed Forces and Police to determine the alleged sale of such revelations to local TV channels by the military.
In this context, Minister of Defense Wellington Sandoval denied the removal of Director of Intelligence of the Armed Forces Joint Command, Gen. Luis Garzon, because of this concealing of information from the president.
How Green is the Latin American Left? A Look at Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia
Ecuador: A New Model for Environmental Politics? Ecologismo Popular and Ecological Debt
The Landscape of Struggle
In November 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafeal Correa declared a state of emergency in the Amazonian town of Dayuma after protests erupted against oil operations. Residents set up road blocks to a number of oil fields, angry about the government’s failure to follow through on promised infrastructural improvements in the town of poor mestizo settlers (colonos). Communities throughout the Amazon have suffered serious social and health problems caused by oil exploration and extraction.
Many social movement leaders and intellectuals signed a letter of solidarity with environmental, human rights and indigenous organizations, asserting that Correa’s "promises of change are diluted by oil interests."
According to a number of analysts, Correa was infuriated by the protests because they interfered with the new East-West trade axis that is being constructed between Brazil, Ecuador, China and other countries throughout Latin America and Asia. This realignment—which replaces the dominant North-South axis of trade relations between Europe and the U.S. on the one hand, and Latin America, Asia and Africa on the other—falls under the rubric of the Multimodal Megaproject Manta-Manaos, referring to the cities in Ecuador and Brazil, respectively, that will be the project’s two central hubs.
Many in Ecuador, including the signers of the solidarity letter, consider the government’s repression in Dayuma a pivotal moment. The signers note that, in Ecuador "...[there] is the possibility of realizing change in favor of the dispossessed and needy...What is in play is whether we will have a sovereign country for all, or if we will just shift from North American hegemony to Chinese and Brazilian hegemony, from Occidental [U.S. oil and gas company] to Petrobras [Brazilian state oil company]."
On March 14th, Ecuador’s Constitutional Assembly approved an amnesty for those arrested in Dayuma, as well as other imprisoned human rights and social movement activists. The last few months have also witnessed a disturbing number of attacks against people, especially indigenous activists, opposing oil and other resource extraction activities.
The new President of the CONAIE, Ecuador’s national indigenous federation, is a 32-year old Amazonian Kichwa from the small community of Sarayacu. Marlon Santi grew up fighting transnational oil companies in the Amazonian province of Pastaza. Santi’s election signals a return to the CONAIE’s militant roots and a total rejection of oil activity in indigenous territories. Santi promises that the indigenous movement will fight hard for the inclusion of territorial and cultural rights in the new constitution, under the rubric of a plurinational state—including the possibility of a national indigenous uprising.
On February 22nd, just over three weeks after Santi’s inauguration, three men kidnapped and tortured Miriam Cisneros, Marlon Santi’s wife. According to the CONAIE, the men asked Cisneros about the movement’s plans for an indigenous general uprising if the Constituent Assembly refuses to include indigenous demands in the new constitution. She was also asked about the CONAIE’s advisors and international supporters. The identity and motivation of the assailants remains unclear.
[An Amazonian Kichwa home and chacra, or traditional garden, on the Yasuni River. Credit to David Guzman and the Municipality of Orellana.]
On February 15th, loggers or logger-affiliated paramilitaries reportedly massacred members of the Tagaeri community, a clan of the Huaorani people, in the Yasuní National Park. The incident is still under investigation. The Tagaeri are fiercely independent and refuse contact with the outside world. They have mounted violent resistance to attempts to destroy the Amazon or evangelize their people.
In Ecuador, environmentalists and indigenous people are wary of President Rafael Correa and are concerned that his government will continue to allow the exploitation of traditional territories by mining and petroleum companies, whether state or private. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), a powerful nation-wide movement representing indigenous peoples in Ecuador’s coastal, highland and Amazon regions is the country’s most powerful social movement. As the Constituent Assembly works on re-writing Ecuador’s constitution in the coastal city of Montecristi, Ecuador’s indigenous people and environmental organizations have a historic opportunity to radically change the nation’s political and economic structure.
In an interview, CONAIE Communications Director Janeth Cuji stated that indigenous communities have always fought against extractive activities in their territories and collaborate extensively with the grassroots environmental organization Acción Ecológica to defend Ecuador’s biodiverse ecosystems. While indigenous communities have long recognized the threat posed by natural resource exploitation to their cultures and livelihoods, according to Cuji, the CONAIE is also beginning an internal education campaign to connect the dots between local environmental problems and global warming. In the CONAIE’s December 2007 proposal for the new constitution—a 194-page book detailing every aspect of Ecuador’s political and economic structure, entitled "Our Constitution for a Plurinational State"—extensively addresses land use and natural resources under the rubric of plurinationality and collective rights. Plurinationality has been the central demand of the Ecuadorian social movement for almost two decades. It involves concrete recognition of Ecuador’s many indigenous peoples, including control over territory, education, healthcare, collective cultural rights and direct representation in Ecuador’s political structure.
[Map of oil exploration concession blocks, Yasuní National Park, and Huaorani Territory. Note position of Block 31, Petrobras concession. Credit to Save America's Forests, http://www.Yasuni.ws]
The fact that environmental issues are integrated into a broader legal framework dealing with collective land management and ownership, control of natural resources, cultural practices, economic development, biodiversity, and traditional medicine demonstrates the fundamental interconnection between nature, territory and culture in Ecuadorian indigenous communities. Indigenous cultures cannot survive in the face of extractive development projects that damage the ecosystems in which they live. At the same time, the ecosystems of the Coastal, Andean and Amazonian regions cannot survive without the indigenous people whose hunting, gathering, farming, and cultural practices are integral to preserving biodiversity. The native flora and fauna have evolved over millennia in relation to indigenous human activity.
The CONAIE constitutional proposal recognizes this fundamental fact, stating that the state must guarantee the inalienable collective right of indigenous peoples to the territories and lands they have historically occupied (Article 34, Part 3). This right encompasses the totality of the natural habitats that indigenous communities inhabit, and including the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The state is obligated to assist indigenous peoples to ensure said conservation. In addition, the proposal states that indigenous communities have a right to use and administer all renewable resources in their territory and a right to full consultation and consent before the exploration or extraction of any nonrenewable resources in their territory (Article 34, Part 6 and 7).
On March 11th, the CONAIE mobilized over 20,000 indigenous activists in Quito to demand plurinationality. This mobilizing power, along with the close relationship between Acción Ecológica and some of the more radical Alianza País (Correa’s party) assembly-members, signals that there is a growing possibility that Ecuador’s new constitution will lay the legal groundwork for a more sustainable national economy.
A "Green Economy"? Tree Plantations and the Carbon Offset Market
Despite the strength of indigenous and environmental organizations, economist and advisor to the CONAIE Pablo Davalos argues that Correa maintains a development model that "treats nature as an object to be intervened in, commodified and brought to market. The government is continuing policies that base economic progress on the extraction of minerals and petroleum, biofuels such as ethanol and the privatization of biodiversity." Acción Ecológica—which has focused on the detrimental effects of large-scale industrialization on both ecosystems and local populations since 1986—argues that this extractive economic model is part of an international division of ecological labor that reproduces unequal North-South power relations. In this division of labor, countries such as Ecuador—one of the 12 "megadiverse" nations on the planet—depend on primary resource exploitation. One ironic outcome of this model is that oil-rich Ecuador actually imports gasoline for domestic consumption. As the issues of tree plantations and the emerging market for carbon offsets makes clear, President Correa’s environmental policies do not represent a departure from the dominant extractive, export-oriented economic paradigm.
President Correa’s plan for an "Alliance for a Nation of Forestry" will plant 550,000 trees over the next four years. At first glance, planting trees may seem like a positive step towards improving Ecuador’s environment. But as Acción Ecológica President Ivonne Ramos pointed out in a recent interview, there is no such thing as empty land just waiting to be planted. Large-scale tree plantations increase the rate of deforestation as wild forestland is cleared to make way for tree crops. Tree plantations also contribute to the growing competition for arable land and thus drive up food prices, which threatens food sovereignty. Second, the tree plantations are part of the agro-export economy and produce little in the way of economic benefit for local communities. The lumber will be shipped to countries such as Japan to make products like toilet paper.
Possibly the most detrimental aspect of the plantations is the introduction of non-native tree species into complex ecosystems. According to Ramos, these plantations are often grown on the rich soil of the Ecuadorian páramos (wet, high altitude tropical grasslands), which are delicate ecosystems with abundant underground freshwater supplies. The plantations will consist of monoculture pine trees—since they grow quickly and provide the most bang for the buck—that damage these biodiverse ecosystems and destroy local aquifers, the underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials. Tree plantations in the province of Esmeraldas—an area on the northern coast of Ecuador with a primarily Afro-descendent population—are an obvious example of these negative environmental effects. Since 1999, the plantations—owned by Japanese company Mitsubishi Mills Ltd.—have resulted in high levels of deforestation and have monopolized some of the richest soil in the region. Lastly, the displacement of indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples from the lands they have traditionally occupied threatens the very existence of their cultures, which are strongly tied to the territories where they live, hunt, gather, farm and practice sacred rituals.
The relatively recent history of the fast-growing carbon offset market—where consumers pay to "compensate" for their production of greenhouse gases—in Ecuador exemplifies the ecologically and culturally damaging effects of seemingly benign tree plantations. According to Ramos, the fast-growing carbon offset industry is part of an emerging economic logic in which the very functions of nature—in this case, the ability of plants to absorb carbon, i.e. photosynthesis—are commercialized. A joint report by Friends of the Earth International and Acción Ecológica reveals that carbon offsets, dressed up as a method of reducing carbon emissions in the Global North, can have disastrous environmental implications for the South. This is yet another manifestation of the global ecological division of labor.
In 1993, a consortium of Dutch electricity companies decided to plant 75,000 hectares of pine and eucalyptus trees in the Andean region of Ecuador, via the FACE (Forest Absorbing Carbon-Dioxide Emissions) Foundation. At the time of the report’s publication in 2000, 22,000 hectares trees had been planted. 75,000 hectares of trees would supposedly absorb 35 million tons of CO2, but since there have been no experiments with pine and eucalyptus trees in the high-altitude Andes, it is unclear whether they could actually absorb this much carbon outside of their native habitat. At the same time, the vulnerable páramo ecosystems that have been destroyed to make way for plantations are actually much more efficient carbon-absorbers, while the destruction of the páramo releases more than 10 times as much carbon per hour than the newly planted trees can absorb. Furthermore, páramos are one of the principal sources of freshwater in the country, and disrupting these complex ecosystems threatens local communities’ access to water.
To carry out the project, local indigenous communities have been contracted to plant the trees for $250 per hectare. According to Ramos, this sum not only grossly underpays those who labor to plant the trees, but also contributes to displacing indigenous peoples from their land to make room for the plantations, limits the time available for traditional activities and threatens food sovereignty by reducing the availability of arable land. And of course, the introduction of monocultures has negative impacts on the surrounding ecosystem. As Ramos puts it, in the new "green" economy the "poor of the world are subsidizing the mega-corporations." It seems that industrial capitalism, no matter how modern, cannot escape its roots. More than five hundred years after Europeans first "discovered" and colonized Latin America, large corporations are finding new ways to (re)colonize the South.
Correa has also expanded the production of agrofuels, part of the ecological division of labor, which, in this case, requires the people of the Global South to sacrifice their food for the automobiles and factories of the North. He claims, however, that there will be increased attention to the environmental impact of agrofuel plantations and that only idle land will be used. Bleeding the Amazon: The Politics of Oil in Ecuador
Deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon there are still indigenous communities, such as the Tageari, that exist in voluntary economic and social isolation, living in the rainforest much the same way their ancestors did before the Spanish Conquest. Since their first contact with the outside world a half-century ago, they have resisted missionaries, oilmen, and conservationist NGOs attempting to "protect" the land from the people who have lived there thousands of years, perhaps since the last ice age. The Yasuní National Park, 9,820 square kilometers of lush rainforest, is the most biodiverse region in the world. Conflict over oil in the Yasuní has long been at the center of Ecuadorian politics.
Over the past 20 years, the Huaorani, Amazonian Kichwa and Cofan indigenous peoples have joined with poor mestizo migrant oil workers and environmentalists to demand that the Yasuní be totally closed to all natural resource exploitation. The Federation of Ecuadorian Oil Workers (FETRAPEC), the main Ecuadorian oil workers union, has also called for an end to oil extraction in the region. But it is not so easy for a country like Ecuador to stop exploiting its natural resources, as the state depends on oil for revenue. Correa is proposing that wealthy countries pay Ecuador $350 million a year for ten years to not drill for oil in the park, arguing that the Global North has an "ecological debt" to the Global South. This is half of the projected revenues that drilling would generate. This debt is the product of 500 years of colonialism and resource extractive capitalism, in which raw materials from Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America have subsidized and fueled the industrial development of Europe and the United States.
Acción Ecológica also supports repayment of the ecological debt. At the same time, Ramos views Correa’s oil policy in the Yasuní as "schizophrenic." In December of 2007, his administration granted a license to Brazilian state oil company Petrobras to explore Block 31, a 1,000-km2 tract of land that lies almost entirely within the Yasuní and overlaps with Huaorani territory. Ramos insists that it is hypocritical to separate out Block 31 from the Yasuní and then claim that the rainforest is being preserved. The Petrobras concession is a key link in the construction of the new East-West trade axis.
Is there a possibility that Correa will transform Ecuador’s economy, reducing its dependence on the export of primary resources and developing viable local economies? Both Davalos and Ramos maintain that Correa is in every respect continuing the extractive model. But at the same time, as a result of organizing and pressure on the part of the indigenous and environmental movements, voices from within his own party Alianza País—such as Constituent Assembly President Alberto Acosta and Monica Chuji, head of the Natural Resources table in the Assembly—are emerging to challenge the extractive development model. Esperanza Martinez, the Executive Director of Ecuador’s Acción Ecologica, now works as an assistant to Constituent Assembly President Alberto Acosta. Correa himself has incorporated an ecological critique into his rhetoric (such as the concept of an ecological debt discussed above) and advocates regaining national sovereignty over natural resources.
Venezuela’s experience demonstrates that the nationalization of natural resources does not automatically lead to environmental protection. According to Professor Maria Pilar García-Guadilla, since "social ownership of the means of production does not prevent environmental degradation," many social movements in Latin America critique the entire model of industrial civilization and developmentalism. Yet the Ecuadorian Left believes that state control is a necessary, if not sufficient, first step. According to Fernando Villacencio, a former oil workers union leader, "All political conflicts over the past 15 years have been focused on oil: increased gas prices, attempts to privatize pipelines, to build pipelines, to privatize Petroecuador."
Transnational companies, with the complicity of neoliberal governments, have pillaged the Amazon. Companies like Occidental Oil and Chevron-Texaco have reaped massive profits from oil exploitation and have left the land severely contaminated. Over the twenty-five years that Chevron-Texaco operated in Ecuador, almost twice as much oil was spilled in the western Amazonian region than in the notorious 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska. The Amazon Defense Coalition represents 30,000 plaintiffs representing five different indigenous peoples in a class action lawsuit against Chevron-Texaco in what could be the largest environmental lawsuit in history, potentially resulting in over $10 billion dollars in damages. Environmental and health problems include cancer, birth defects, skin and respiratory diseases, childhood leukemia, and soil and water contamination, among others. The lawsuit began in a U.S. federal court in1993 but has been delayed by hundreds of motions filed by the corporation. Last month, the oil company was accused of committing "extra-judicial attacks" against the court-appointed specialist investigating the environmental damages.The Amazon Defense Coalition is an example of ecuador’s ecologismo popular (popular ecology), which ties environmental activism to struggles for economic and social justice. Ecologismo popular is often contrasted to the "conservationism" espoused by many mainstream (and internationally funded) NGOs.
Ecuador assembly OKs ban on foreign military bases
QUITO (Reuters) April 2 - Ecuador's popular assembly on Tuesday approved a law to ban foreign military bases, a move that could dash hopes in Washington of renewing a lease that lets U.S. troops use a key anti-drug air base.
The 130-member assembly passed the reform in the first package of rewrites to the constitution that once finished must be ratified by Ecuadoreans in a vote during the second half of this year.
"Ecuador is a land of peace; foreign military bases or foreign installations with military purposes will not be allowed," read the amendment approved by the assembly controlled by President Rafael Correa's Alianza Pais party.
Correa, a leftist former economy minister, opposes U.S. military presence in his Andean nation and once vowed to cut off his arm before renewing the lease on the Manta base that runs out in 2009. Air surveillance missions from the Pacific coast base are responsible for more than half of all drug seizures in the world's top cocaine-producing region, U.S. officials have said.
If ratified in the referendum, the assembly's amendment would likely end any chances for the United States to negotiate further use of the base.
Correa and his allies in the assembly, which closed down Congress and took over its powers in November, say U.S. operations at the base compromise the country's sovereignty.
The head of the assembly, Alberto Acosta, told Reuters it was not yet clear if the approval of the amendment in the referendum would immediately force U.S. troops to quit Manta.
Ecuador Sues Colombia to Stop Anti-Coca Herbicide Spray
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands, March 31, 2008 (ENS) - The government of Ecuador today filed suit at the International Court of Justice against the government of Colombia, in an effort to stop or restrict aerial anti-coca spraying that has allegedly sickened people on the Ecuadorean side of the border and harmed livestock, farmland, and sensitive, ecologically diverse rainforest areas.
The lawsuit follows seven years of persistent but unsuccessful diplomatic efforts on Ecuador's part to convince its neighbor to the north to establish a 10 kilometer (six mile) no-spray zone along their shared border.
Colombia is expected to argue that the aerial fumigation of illegal coca farms, which provide the raw material for cocaine production, is a linchpin of the war on drugs. Ecuador claims that the chemical sprays have sickened its people, poisoned farmland and damaged ecologically sensitive areas.
At a press conference in Quito announcing the lawsuit, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said, "With the purpose of establishing the existence and dimensions of the afflictions suffered by Ecuador as a result of these and past fumigations, last year President Rafael Correa created the Ecuadorian Scientific Commission, comprised of eminent scientists from our country.
"The results of the commission's work have been crucial to reaching the irrefutable conclusion that Colombian aerial fumigations have had noxious effects on our people and our environment," she said.
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A plane sprays herbicide on alleged illegal coca farms (Photo courtesy U.S. State Department) |
"There is no doubt that the fumigations conducted by the government of Colombia constitute a grave violation of the sovereignty of Ecuador and of the most basic principles of international law," she said, "which prohibits a state from causing harm to the population, land and well-being of a neighboring state."
Since spraying began in 2000, Colombia has refused to consider such measures, the lawsuit asserts. Instead, its planes and helicopters loaded with herbicide have flown right up to and sometimes directly over the border, releasing chemicals designed to eradicate all forms of plant life.
The spray has drifted to the Ecuadorean side, where villagers have reported feeling the mist settle on their skin. People in Ecuadorean border communities, many of them poor subsistence farmers or those raising small cash crops, have suffered skin lesions and rashes, burning eyes, nausea, dizziness, respiratory problems, and intestinal bleeding. Some have died.
Ecuador alleges that the spraying has killed livestock and crops, forcing the abandonment of villages, while harming ecologically sensitive areas of high biodiversity.
Nearly one third of the country's territory is protected or park land, and Ecuador is estimated to have the highest average biological diversity of any nation on Earth.
Since 2000, the United States has been financing the aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia, which is the world's leading producer.
In 2006, the Colombian National Police's Anti-Narcotics Directorate sprayed 171,613 hectares of illegally grown coca and opium poppy, according to a March 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released by the U.S. State Department.
According to the lawsuit, Colombia has refused to disclose the exact makeup of the herbicide it uses, though the active ingredient is known to be glyphosate (N-phosphonomethyl). The active ingredient is reportedly combined with other chemicals to make aerial sprays more potent.
Ecuador protested the violation of its territory as soon as spraying began in 2000, and has sought to resolve the countries' dispute through negotiation and diplomacy.
As a last resort, it submits its argument to the International Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction is confirmed by the American Treaty for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, also known as the Pact of Bogotá, to which both Ecuador and Colombia are parties.
Ecuador's suit seeks three things:
- a declaration by the court that Colombia has violated Ecuador's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the manner in which it has sprayed herbicides
- an order by the court that Colombia no longer spray in a manner that affects Ecuadorean territory
- an order that Colombia pay reparations to Ecuador for damage caused by the spraying
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A coca plant (Photo courtesy U.S. Justice Department) |
Colombian government officials have come to agree with recent reports by the International Crisis Group that aerial spraying against coca plants is largely ineffective, yet Colombia still refuses to alter its spraying practices along the border with Ecuador.
As part of its case before the International Court of Justice, Ecuador has appointed as its agent Diego Cordovez, former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and former Ecuadorean foreign minister.
Ecuador's legal team is led by Paul Reichler, a partner in the Washington, DC, office of law firm Foley Hoag LLP who specializes in public international law, which governs relations among sovereign nations.
The filing of Ecuador's suit is unrelated to the cross-border attack undertaken by Colombia on March 1, which killed a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the anti-government guerrilla group that had taken refuge in the hinterlands of Ecuador.
The raid was condemned in resolutions by the Organization of American States and by the Rio Group, an organization of Latin American states. Colombia apologized in both resolutions, and promised not to violate Ecuadorean sovereignty again.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.
Abortion, God Ignite Polemic at Ecuador Assembly
Discussions over legalization of abortion have opened up a very complicated issue in Ecuador, where most of the population is catholic.
Alianza Pais assembly member Betty Amores considers the topic is not fundamental, and the rightwing put it on the table to cause disagreements, and somewhat lead to confrontations at the Assembly.
Referring to that polemical subject Thursday, President Rafael Correa noted it is not main concern, and advocated not to include it in the new Constitution the Assembly is drawing up.
Instead, he called for the Constitution to guarantee "the right to live since the very moment of conception."
Meanwhile, the top representative of the Assembly, Alberto Acosta, pointed out that legalization of abortion, homosexual marriage, and mention of God in the preamble of the Constitution are not constitutional topics.
Acosta advocated discussing the inclusion of the name of God, but called for a lay Political Constitution, without discriminating beliefs or religions.
"A secular State does not mean a rejection of religion, it means the State accepts all religions but recognizes all atheists as well," he concluded.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Ecuadorian father denies son was rebel
QUITO, Ecuador (CNN) March 24 -- A day after a Colombian official identified one of the people killed by a Colombian military strike on a rebel camp in this country as Ecuadorian, the dead man's father denied his son was a member of the rebel group.
Guillermo Aisalia said his 38-year-old son Franklin, who was killed in the March 1 attack, was not the man seen standing next to two rebels in a picture distributed by the Colombian military.
"I've never met that man," Aisalia told reporters Monday in Quito.
Attorney General Alfredo Alvear said that fingerprint tests confirmed the body, which has been taken to Bogota from the rebel camp, was Aisalia's.
Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos on Sunday confirmed the military raid that killed about two dozen Colombian rebels in Ecuadorian territory also killed a citizen of Ecuador.
On Saturday, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa had warned that it would be an "extremely grave" development to learn if foreign troops were responsible for the "murder" of an Ecuadorian citizen.
"When it is confirmed, we will take appropriate action," the president said in a statement on his Web site.
Ecuador cut diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian soldiers and police bombed a camp inside Ecuadorian territory March 1. The attack also killed Raul Reyes, the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Colombia called it the most significant blow to the leftist group in more than 40 years of warfare.
The action provoked a diplomatic crisis as two of Colombia's neighbors -- Ecuador and Venezuela -- moved troops toward their borders with Colombia. Yet the crisis largely defused when the presidents of the three nations met and shook hands a few days later in the capital of the Dominican Republic.
Ecuador and Venezuela condemned the raid and all three countries affirmed that no country has the right to violate the territory of another.
Ecuador has not re-established diplomatic ties with Colombia, and tension mounted in recent days as the family of Franklin Aisalia suspected that he was killed in the raid.
The Colombian government initially identified his body as that of a FARC rebel.Cuban literacy method "Yes, I Can" it benefits the Ecuadorians
According to Granma news daily, it is the Amazonian territory of Pastaza, where nearly 97 people from the Tsuraku community received certificates last week.
Ecuador already has a province free from illiteracy thanks to the Cuban literacy method ‘Yo si puedo’ (Yes, I Can).
Since 2004, when the Cuban program began to be put into practice in Ecuador, more than 83.000 Ecuadoreans have learned to read and write while 26 cantons of the Coast, the Mountains and the Amazonian region have been declared free from illiteracy.
Currently, eight Ecuadorean municipalities, including four of Peztaza, are already in the second stage of the literacy program.
Thus far, some three million people in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Oceania have learned to read and write using the Cuban method.
Colombia confirms one Ecuadorian among dead in cross-border raid
Monster and Critics, March 24, 2008
Bogota - Colombia on Sunday confirmed that an Ecuadorian was among the more than 20 killed in a cross-border airstrike against leftist Colombian rebels in Ecuador, an admission that is likely to further strain already tense relations between the two countries.
Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said one of the bodies brought back to Bogota after the March 1 attack had been identified as an Ecuadorian citizen, but warned Ecuador not to take any drastic action as a result.
'I have told President (Rafael) Correa and the Ecuadorian authorities to keep a watchful eye and to not be robbed of their good faith by a few criminals,' Santos told reporters in Bogota.
The controversial strike, which targeted Raul Reyes, the second- in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), prompted a serious crisis in relations between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Both countries mobilized troops along their borders with Colombia and broke diplomatic ties, but the tensions appeared to have eased in the last two weeks amid reconciliatory moves from all sides at a summit in Rio de Janeiro and in talks at the Organization of American States in Washington.
But Ecuador's President Rafael Correa warned Saturday that the crisis could be reopened if it was confirmed that an Ecuadorian was indeed among the dead in the strike.
Santos again defended Colombia's attack as 'legitimate acts of war, legitimate acts in defence of democracy.'
Colombian commandos entered Ecuador's territory after the initial airstrike and retrieved the bodies of Reyes and another man initially identified as a FARC member known as Julian Conrado. Forensic examinations had now revealed the second man to be an Ecuadorian, Santos said.
Ecuador warns tension with Colombia could worsen
QUITO (Reuters) March 22, 2008 - Ecuador's President Rafael Correa warned on Saturday that diplomatic tension with Colombia will rise if an Ecuadorean was among the dead in a bombing raid on a rebel camp inside its territory this month.
Correa broke off diplomatic ties with Bogota after the March 1 Colombian attack on a guerrilla camp in Ecuador that killed more than 20 people, including a top rebel commander.
The conflict briefly awoke fears of war in the Andean region when Ecuador and Venezuela ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, but tempers cooled at a regional summit that led to a handshake between the three countries' leaders.
Despite an apology from Colombia, Correa has not reopened formal relations and said on Saturday he would look for ways to further punish his neighbor if it became clear an Ecuadorean was killed in the raid.
"It would be extremely grave if it is proven that a Ecuadorean died," the left-wing president said on a radio program. "We will not let this murder go unpunished."
He did not specify what type of action he might take.
Colombian planes bombed the camp belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia just inside Ecuadorean territory on March 1, killing over 20 people including the rebel's second in command, Raul Reyes.
Most Latin American countries joined Ecuador in condemning the attack.
Correa ordered an investigation after family members claimed one of the bodies belongs to an Ecuadorean locksmith called Franklin Aizalia.
Colombia's civil war often spills over into neighboring countries. Ecuador and Colombia share about 400 miles border that is difficult to police.ECUADOR: Manta Air Base Tied to Colombian Raid on FARC Camp
MANTA, Ecuador, Mar 21 (IPS) - Military and diplomatic sources see a link between the Manta air base, operated by the United States in Ecuadorean territory, and this month’s bombing raid by Colombia on a FARC guerrilla camp in Ecuador.
The U.S. air force was granted a 10-year concession in 1999 to use the base, located in the port city of Manta on Ecuador’s northern Pacific coast, in its counter-drug trafficking activities in the region.
A high-level Ecuadorean military officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS that "a large proportion of senior officers" in Ecuador share "the conviction that the United States was an accomplice in the attack" launched Mar. 1 by the Colombian military on a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) camp in Ecuador, near the Colombian border.
FARC’s international spokesman Raúl Reyes and 24 other people were killed in the bombing raid, which prompted Quito to break off diplomatic relations with Colombia, although ties were restored several days later.
"Since Plan Colombia was launched in 2000, a strategic alliance between the United States and Colombia has taken shape, first to combat the insurgents and later to involve neighbouring countries in that war," said the officer. "What is happening today is a consequence of that."
Plan Colombia is a U.S.-financed and supported counterinsurgency and anti-drug strategy carried out by Bogotá.
The information gathered by IPS from military and diplomatic sources indicates that the Manta air base played a role in locating, and carrying out reconnaissance of, the FARC camp in Ecuador.
Ecuadorean Defence Minister Wellington Sandoval said there should be an investigation of whether the Manta air base was used for the attack on the rebel camp in Ecuador. According to the agreement signed by Washington and Quito, it is the Ecuadorean armed forces that should carry out such a probe.
The Manta air base lease clearly stipulates that the base can only be used for counter-narcotics operations.
Sandoval said he cannot provide any information until an investigation has been conducted.
The military source who spoke to IPS said that what should be verified "above all are the flights from the base in the 20 days prior to the bombing, who was on them, the routes they took, and what they were investigating. This data should be complemented by other inquiries and information."
On Mar. 13, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said she had had "a conversation with (U.S.) Ambassador Linda Jewell who ensured us that the planes (at the base) were not involved in any way" in the bombing of the FARC camp.
But the military source said that "the technology used, first to locate the target, in other words the camp, and later to attack it, was from the United States."
Sandoval declared that "equipment that the Latin American armed forces do not have" was used in the Mar. 1 bombing.
"They dropped around five 'smart bombs'," the kind used by the United States in the First Gulf War (1991), "with impressive precision and a margin of error of just one metre, at night, from planes travelling at high speeds," said the minister.
The military source said that "an attack with smart bombs requires pilots who have experience in such operations, which means U.S. pilots. That’s why I think they did the job and later told the Colombians ‘now go in and find the bodies’, which is when Colombian helicopters and troops showed up" at the site of the raid.
According to the official version of events that the Colombian government gave an Organisation of American States (OAS) fact-finding commission that visited both countries, 10 "conventional" bombs were dropped from five Brazilian-made Super Tucano aircraft and three U.S.-made A-37 planes.
The A-37s dropped bombs guided by GPS (Global Positioning System) and the five Super Tucanos have the technological means to launch bombs at targets with a five-metre margin of error, said the OAS delegation’s report.
But according to the sources who spoke to IPS, the U.S. role in the incident could have been even greater.
The military officer said the bombing raid in Ecuadorean air space was actually led by "U.S. pilots, possibly from DynCorp," a U.S.-based private military contractor that has contracts under Plan Colombia.
The aircraft took off from the Tres Esquinas air base in the southern Colombian department of Caquetá, said the source.
"The planes used to fumigate coca crops or to attack the guerrillas are piloted by serving members of the U.S. military or (former) military men at the service of companies like DynCorp," said the officer.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on Mar. 15 that his government would not allow "any foreign soldier, whether regular or irregular, to affect the soil of our fatherland. That is why there will be no more foreign bases after 2009."
U.S. usage rights for Manta expire on Nov. 12, 2009.
A committee in the Constituent Assembly that is rewriting the Ecuadorean constitution approved the chapter on territorial sovereignty on Mar. 17.
One of the articles states that "Ecuador is a territory of peace. The establishment of foreign military bases, or foreign installations for military purposes, is not permitted. National military bases cannot be leased to foreign security forces."
In its refusal to renew the air base lease, Ecuador can argue "many causes: direct or indirect participation (by U.S. forces from Manta) in the bombing; negligence for failure to detect the FARC camp with their technology, first of all, and the attack, in second place; and, in case they did detect the camp and the raid, for failing to inform authorities in the partner country, Ecuador," said a diplomatic source who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity.
Another reason that could be set forth is the direct support that the U.S. Southern Command, under which the U.S. armed forces at the Manta air base operate, has provided the Colombian military.
Admiral James Stavridis, the commander of the Southern Command, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Mar. 6 that he was monitoring the movement of Ecuadorean and Venezuelan troops to the Colombian border.
Stavridis said that with continuous U.S. support, Colombia has won "hard-fought successes" in the armed conflict. He added that "this key strategic ally" was making irreversible progress towards peace and against "terrorism."
He also told the Senate Committee that the FARC had been reduced from 17,500 guerrillas in 2002 to around 9,000 today.
In July 2001, retired colonel Fausto Cobo, former director of the Ecuadorean army’s Escuela de Guerra (war collage), had told IPS that "Manta, for the purposes of Plan Colombia," is a "U.S. aircraft carrier, on land."
By April 2001, when work began on the expansion of the Manta air strip, an average of 100 troops were taking part in up to three missions a day in F-3 reconnaissance planes.
A diplomatic source from the United States told Britain’s Financial Times at the time that by October the number would go up by 200, and by 200 more within the following few months.
After the expansion of the air strip, bigger, more sophisticated aircraft began to be used for reconnaissance missions.
Manta is one of the four "forward operating locations" (FOLs), along with Curaçao, Aruba and El Salvador, that make up the U.S. network of counter-narcotics bases in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In August 2006, the Expreso de Guayaquil newspaper reported that Colombian pilots were operating alongside Ecuadorean pilots on flights out of the Manta air base.
The commander of an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) squadron based out of Manta, Rich Boyd, told the Guayaquil newspaper that one of the AWACS aircraft was operated by a Colombian air force officer.
But Boyd said that each country's sensitive and confidential information is protected, because the Colombian officer exits the cockpit when the plane is in Ecuadorean air space, and the Ecuadorean pilot leaves when the plane overflies Colombia.
According to Boyd, three of the U.S. military’s 27 AWACS were at the Manta base. Each one has a price tag of one billion dollars -- nearly double the entire 2005 budget of the Ecuadorean air force. (END/2008)
Ecuador's Yasuni Park: Oil Exploration or Nature Protection?
| , March 20th, 2008 | |||
Manuela Omari Ima, a Waorani woman from the Ecuadorian Amazon, was born in the Yasuni National Park, a 2.5 million acre primary tropical rainforest at the intersection of the Andes, the Amazon and the Equator. That intersection is also the heart of a struggle between two plans: one for oil exploration and another that would permanently protect one of the most biologically diverse regions of the planet.
Armed with these new contracts from Quito, Ecuador’s capital, the companies have attempted to win over the people of the forest. Alicia Cahuiya, another Waorani woman who lives in the town of Pujo, says the companies offered the indigenous villagers items such as soccer clothes and candy in return for permission to drill for oil on their land. Local Complaints The Chiru Isla villagers, who fear repression and therefore prefer to remain anonymous, also say that Skanska hired people from the local population to perform dangerous jobs, like carrying heavy equipment and climbing at the construction site without protection -- but never paid them. Skanska is also accused of having purchased food supplies like bananas and yucca in the villages, but failing to pay. |
Friday, March 07, 2008
'Farc rebels' arrested in Ecuador
 Ecuador has moved soldiers towards its border with Colombia |
Defence Minister Gustavo Larrea said the suspected rebels were detained by the army during a search of farms and houses close to the Colombian border.
It comes amid a growing crisis over a Colombian raid inside Ecuador in which a senior Farc leader was killed.
On Thursday Nicaragua said that like Venezuela and Ecuador it was breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said "we are breaking off relations because of the political terrorism" carried out by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
He made the announcement in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa at his side.
Mr Correa is on a tour of Latin American capitals to rally opposition to Colombia's cross-border raid on Saturday.
The situation shows that everyone needs to be vigilant about the use of border areas by terrorist organisations like the Farc 
Venezuela and Ecuador have already broken off diplomatic ties and moved troops to their borders with Colombia following the raid in which Raul Reyes, a prominent member of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), and at least 23 other rebels were killed.
Announcing Ecuador's arrest of five alleged rebels, Mr Larrea said that they had been detained very close to the Colombian border.
"The guerrillas were detained in the Chanangue river, which leads to the San Miguel River, located very few metres from the Colombian border."
He said that they had been discovered by an army patrol searching homes for any signs of residents sheltering guerrillas.
Condemnation call
Tensions throughout the region have risen since Colombia's raid in which Reyes died.
Venezuela says 9,000 soldiers have been moved to the border with Colombia, while Ecuador says 3,200 of its forces have been deployed.
Latin American leaders have urged calm and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for a "diplomatic resolution" to the crisis.
Colombia has apologised to Ecuador but said the raid was necessary.
"The situation shows that everyone needs to be vigilant about the use of border areas by terrorist organisations like the Farc," Ms Rice told a news conference in Brussels after a meeting of Nato foreign ministers.
The presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela have called for clear international condemnation of Colombia's actions.
Regional meeting
An opportunity for talks could arise in the Dominican Republic, where regional leaders are gathering for a meeting of the Rio Group.
Latin American presidents, including those from Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, are expected to meet on Friday.
The Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution saying that Colombia had violated the "principles of international law" by crossing into Ecuador, but stopped short of an outright condemnation.
The 34 OAS member states agreed to set up a commission of inquiry led by OAS head Jose Miguel Insulza to investigate the incursion and scheduled a meeting of OAS foreign ministers for 17 March.
Colombia has waged a four-decade conflict with left-wing rebels who finance themselves through the cocaine trade and by kidnapping hostages for ransom or political gain.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had become involved in mediation efforts to free Farc-held hostages in Colombia, securing the release of six this year.
He branded the Colombian raid a "war crime", adding that Bogota, which receives billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight drug-trafficking, was just a "lackey of United States imperialism".
He dismissed Colombian claims that a laptop found during its raid on the rebel camp in Ecuador held files indicating that Venezuela had given the Farc $300m (£150m).
