Correa condemns the people to suffering and the climate to change

Here is an article in English that mentions some of the sources referred to by colonos when noting that Rafael Correa don’t give a toss about the indigenous people and campesinos whose self-described saviour he likes to present himself as in the global media’s corporate eye - something which he to quite some extent share with his Bolivian partner in populistic crime, Evo aMoralas, who:

“…rejected oil and gas expropriation, supports Big Oil interests, and embraced business as usual policies. Under nationalizations Morales-style, current contractual arrangements are effectively intact, and the country’s mineral resources have been sold off to the greatest ever number of foreign investors.

In addition, Morales broke his promise to triple the painfully low minimum wage, increased it 10% instead, and maintained previous neoliberal fiscal austerity and economic stability policies. He also tolerates the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s intrusive presence and the Pentagon’s Chapare military base; appointed hard right economic, defense and other ministers; opposed agrarian reform; supports large landowners; provides them large subsidies and tax incentives; and backs the Confederation of Private Businessmen in Bolivia by promoting foreign investment, social spending cuts, prioritization of exports, and other pro-business policies above the interests of the people who elected him. Petras says Morales “excels in public theater” by combining “political demagogy” to his base while backing neoliberal IMF austerity and business-friendly policies”. (Read more about forgotten promises here.)

We’re much too busy to translate, sooo many documents floating about these days, so here goes from Upsidedownworld.org, beginning with a highlight:

“According to the CONAIE declaration, “We reject President Rafael Correa´s racist, authoritarian and antidemocratic statements, which violate the rights of [Indigenous] nationalities and peoples enshrined in international conventions and treaties. This constitutes an attack against the construction of a plurinational and intercultural democracy in Ecuador. Correa has assumed the traditional neoliberal posture of the rightist oligarchy.“

UNASURrender to global capitalism

Rafael Correa is the poster boy of neo-socialism - he wears Quechua shirts and bathes himself in the limelight of indigeous peoples’ struggle in the global media, makes promises to the poor and the illiterate (and also delivers on some of his promises) - but more than anything he is increasingly despised by the indigenous peoples and the campesinos “who mean nothing to him” and who he represses violently if they organise against the foreign companies that Correa contracts their land away to. Also known in international socialist and even environmental circles as the saviour of the Yasuni national park. But nothing could be further from the truth - as has been reported by the colonos blog since before Correa entered office.

I have just returned from a meeting where yachaks (shamans) from various regions of “el Oriente” (basically the Ecuadorian Amazon) have gathered all weekend to discuss, among other things, Correa’s rejection in the constituent assembly processes of collective rights and a range of specific demands made by the indigenous movements as part of the rewriting of the Ecuadorian constitution. Talks are of strikes and some suggest that another uprising is brewing - at any rate Rafael Correa is very unpopular with indigenous people and campesinos, because he arrogantly have stated that he cares not about their demands since “they only constitute a few percent of his voters“.

So what does Mr. Correa care about - well, like the Clintons he seems mostly fascinated by inscribing himself into the white man’s history of conquest of the world through an industrial economy that is essentially based on exploitation of labour and pachamama (mother earth).

“Unasur to boost financial self-sufficiency in S America:

BRASILIA, May 23 (Xinhua) — Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said here Friday that the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) will boost programs to help realize financial self-sufficiency in the region.

After signing the bloc’s constitutive agreement in the Brazilian capital, Correa said it was “a historical day for South America, which brings great expectation and hope.”

“We can do like the European Union (EU). As the EU has to explain why they united, we will have to explain to our children and grandchildren why we took so long to do it,” he told a press conference.”“

Correa’s vision and that of UNASUR is about entrance into an economy that many ever since its inception - with the conquest of new worlds and the industrial production apparatus that makes wars for more profit possible - have been fighting. And for quite some years it has been quite clear that it is a very unsustainable economy that the planet cannot sustain.

Of course it is the rich and the powerful who mostly have to change their wasteful ways, but to happily join that horrible economy that Correa is so blinded by and which accelerates climate change and destroys civilization is plain stupid. However, the middle classes who get better roads (this, the year where it seems like we have to take drastic measure and actions to counter climate change, is the year of asphalt in Ecuador), nicer cars to drive them on and bigger supermarkets to park them by and shop in, and of course the capitalists that exploit the natural resources that he so happily gives to foreign and private interests are laughing all the way to the bank while the earth cries.

The rest of the chinese article follows.

Corridors of destruction and other neo-socialist “progress”

Six months before the colonos blog came into being the article below - here translated into English - was written in Castellano. It is about what we have been labelling corridors (or interoceanic corridors) or the Manta-Manaus commodity highway. In this article a much more comprehensive perspective is offered - and shows how big, concerted and damaging to the continent and the rest of the world that this global capitalist project is.

Get the whole article in .pdf format.

Re-mapping Latin America’s Future

IIRSA: Integration Custom-Made for International Markets (#1)

Raúl Zibechi | June 13, 2006

Translated from: IIRSA: la integración a la medida de los mercados
Translated by: Nick Henry

Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

americas.irc-online.org

The project for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA, by its initials in Spanish), is swiftly but silently moving forward. IIRSA is the most ambitious and encompassing plan to integrate the region for international trade. If completed in full, the project would connect zones containing natural resources (natural gas, water, oil, biodiversity) with metropolitan areas, and both of these with the world’s largest markets.

PROTEST: United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

PROTEST: United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Indigenous Peoples representatives and organizations held a protest at the May 2 2008 conclusion of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York. They were angered by the final report of the Permanent Forum, which ignored Indigenous Peoples stated concerns about carbon trading projects (REDD), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and other so called” good practise” initiatives.

More info:

RED Climate Change and Forests.pdf:
http://www.divshare.com/download/4285737-1a7

RED Commodifying Forests.pdf: http://www.divshare.com/download/4286100-733

Lessons learned from the CDM.pdf:
http://www.divshare.com/download/4286573-8ea

World Bank and the FCPF.pdf: http://www.divshare.com/download/4286867-1cc

Kampar Peninsula.pdf: http://www.divshare.com/download/4286964-2ae

No Carbon Market for Forests.pdf:
http://www.divshare.com/download/4287207-4a4

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The fate of the big forest: a future for the Amazon?

Writes Mongobay: Up to a quarter of global carbon emissions are caused by deforestation. That means that in the next five years deforestation around the world will release more CO2 into the atmosphere than all aircraft from the Wright Brothers’ first flight until at least 2025.

And then consider the very interesting report the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia—IPAM), the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais—UFMG - from before the current global food crisis - then go figure:

The Amazon in a Changing Climate: Large-Scale Reductions of Carbon Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Impoverishment - Authors: D. Nepstad (WHRC, IPAM), P. Moutinho (IPAM, WHRC), B. Soares-Filho (UFMG) Graphics: P. Lefebvre, M. Ernst, B. Soares-Filho, D. Nepstad Translation (to Portuguese): G. Carvalho For more information: dnepstad@whrc.org, moutinho@ipam.org.br, britaldo@csr.ufmg.br, www.ipam.org.br, www.whrc.org, www.csr.ufmg.br/simamazonia/

and check the recent (follow-up) interview with Daniel Nepstad who has a good analysis, but whose belief in the effectiveness of such market based ploys as the REDD initiative (see the next entry) leaves much to be desired……

TAKE RADICAL ACTION NOW

- don’t hold your breath, if we wait for capitalism to reform itself, we will suffocate

Correa’s War for Oil, Oil for War Machine: Mad Men

Ecuador to buy Brazilian warplanes, reports Ecuador Rising, so now we know for sure: let Brasil (and the Chinese, of course) take the oil out of the Amazon, repress the indigenous people who try to protect their land from severe contamination, and receive war machines in return - that is Correa’s anti-environmental neo-socialism in a nutshell. As if the world needed more of that sort of thing!?!?!?!?!?!

====================

PressTV, Wed, 30 Apr 2008
Brazil’s Defense Minister Nelson Jobim has said that Ecuador would buy 24 warplanes made by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer.

“It’s a done deal,” Jobim told Reuters during a visit to Ecuador’s capital Quito when asked if Ecuador had agreed to buy the turboprop Super Tucano planes.

Earlier, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he planned to strengthen country’s air force to protect its border with Colombia after the country bombed a leftist rebel camp inside Ecuador.

Jobim did not say how much Ecuador will spend for the planes, but local media speculates it could cost more than $200 million.

“I don’t know the price… the purchase details were arranged by the Ecuadorian government and Embraer directly,” Jobim concluded.

Face2Face with a Dragonfly: Photos from a rare encounter.

I recently had the rare opportunity of coming face-to-face with a Dragonfly in the rain forest near Loreto in the Napo region of the Ecuadorian Amazon - this is what it looked like (click on pix to see a slightly bigger version or ask for originals, if you have a good idea for using them):

and coming up close to the bugger…

—– great pattern, init?!?!?

This is a link to a 1200×803px JPEG shot of the Dragonfly - cropped a bit and compressed with The GIMP:

and also an un-cut 1024×768 on MyShutterSpace:

Marlon Santi on Correa’s government and the Constituent Assembly

Interview with Marlon Santi, New President of Ecuador’s Indigenous Confederation
Written by Patricio Zhingri T.
Thursday, 17 January 2008

And so it goes, that history repeats itself and the day after the revolution anyone is a conservative, I think Hannah Arendt once wrote. The morning after in Ecuador - after the floods - and we know which way the wind blows. For that we don’t need a weather man.

Here is, however, what CONAIE’s new president, Marlon Santi, reckons about the Correan revolution and the reconstructive Constituent Assembly - well no news there, really, it is business as usual:

“PZT: As the new president of CONAIE, how would you evaluate the first year of this government?

MS: Proposals from the Indigenous movement and other social sectors from the coast, highlands, and Amazon are not present on the national government’s political agenda. Nor are they on the agenda of the Constituent Assembly. The government says a lot and they say that they are going to open petroleum explorations, that they are going to privatize water, rivers, páramos (high communal grasslands). Nothing has changed. The only change is when the Indigenous movement rises up, because even in light of this we have made some advances in Collective Rights and other demands. Rafael Correa has not recognized the demands of Indigenous nationalities and peoples, and he should do so.

PZT: How will the government of Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples act with the current government of Correa?

REPSOL “in contempt of court”

On January 1 of this year, a major oil spill occurred in the Yasuní UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve as part of the workings of Spanish oil giant REPSOL. REPSOL is working in the oil fields of concessionary Block 16, which happens to overlap Huaorani ancestral territory.

Even though several months have passed since the spill was detected, and despite the severity of the event and the insistent pleas of the Huaorani community Dícaro that the company may undertake the necessary clean up and remediation, no action has been taken by REPSOL.

Contextualizing Yasuní.

(This article was first published in an abridged version by CarbonWeb)

The Ecuadorian National Park and UNESCO Worldwide Biosphere Reserve, Yasuní, has recently become the main stage for discussions alluding to, insisting on, and negotiating pathways to an oil-free future – or rather to a future where oil remains undisturbed in its subterranean place of origin. Some oil at least. The “Leave the oil in the soil” proposal, instigated by environmental grassroots organisations, and taken on by Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who announced it at the UN High Level Meeting on Climate Change last September, is to not drill for oil in some parts of the Yasuní National Park. Ecuador will leave the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil fields untouched in exchange for international compensation. Compensation of about US$ 450 million per year for ten years would entail a commitment by the South American state not to exploit nearly 920 million barrels of petroleum, and hence has been presented as preventing the emission of around 111 million tons of carbon. (At the moment Ecuador is South America’s fifth-largest oil producer, with a daily production of about a half-million barrels of crude.)

It seems that the neo-socialist revolution in Ecuador has found its sunshine story that has already inspired similar proposals with regard to oil and other natural resources in several other countries. But behind this glamorous initiative lurks the reality of the wider project of Ecuadorian reform in the context of contemporary geopolitical change.

A History of Botanical Exploration in Amazonian Ecuador, 1739-1988

Just came across this article called A History of Botanical Exploration in Amazonian Ecuador, 1739-1988 and thought it could deserve a little attention, even if it comes from the conservative Smithsonian Institute, for those interested in knowing more about the Ecuadorian Amazon

It begins:

“In proportion to its area Ecuador is the floristically richest country in South America. This botanical wealth is undoubtedly due to the diverse ecological conditions created by the Andes, rising in Ecuador from sea level to nearly 6300 m altitude. The country accordingly has attracted the interest of numerous naturalists, many of whom crossed Ecuador on their way from Bogota to Lima or visited various ports of South America, including Guayaquil. Among the earliest were La Condamine and Joseph de Jussieu (174Os)

More repression in Ecuador..

When Rafael Correa came into government he soon announced that he was investing more powers in the police and the military to repress popular protests, which is one of the main means of political expression for many largely illterate indigenous and campesino communities; and those powers are “well” used, Upside Down World writes:

“The peaceful demonstration began at 5am was met with state repression around noon, leading to the arrest of 17 protestors, which include the parish priest of Victoria del Portete, dairy farmers, and University of Cuenca students. Approximately 80 soldiers blasted tear gas into to the crowd of protestors— around 300 strong. Female students report that they were later taken to a casino for police and forced to undress.
“We are here to defend the right to pure and clean water,” declared Miriam Chuchuka, a 36-year-old dairy farmer from Victoria del Portete. Small farmers fear that cyanide and mercury related to gold mining and production will pollute local water sources.

The struggle of the Achuar in Peru

Dan Collyns for BBC News writes about the struggle of the Achuar in Peru that their “story is an emblematic case of resistance for indigenous Amazonians and is unprecedented in Peru“. The article provides a little bit of information, but it is not contexualised very well. There is a similar struggle fought by the Cofan in Ecuador which also only gets minimal time and attention in the mainstream media - and also generally only reported on in isolation. Between the territories of the Cofan and the Achuar lies the Yasuni National park, about which much has been written in this blog. While we keep compiling more comprehensive information and try to tie these obviously mutually relevant scenarios together, we seem to be waiting in vain for editors of the environmental sections of what is left of a critical voices in the corporately led world of media to bring stories that connect these struggles with the “leave the oil in the soil” proposal and the general discourse of climate change.

Climate Change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges

These are the conclusions of a report on the “IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION MEASURES ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ON THEIR TERRITORIES AND LANDS”, by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues’ Seventh session, New York, 21 April -2 May 2008 on the Special Theme: “Climate Change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges” with regard to the Implementation of the recommendations on the six mandated areas of the permanent Forum and on the Millennium Development Goals (Download the full E/C.19/2008/10 report here: unpfii-report-on-climate-change.pdf):

Current political crisis in Latin America: Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela.

There has been many news reports - often tied to the terms “terrorism” and “weapons of mass destruction” (dirty bomb, for instance), does that ring any bells? The issue is basically that:
“Colombia’s commando raid into Ecuadorean territory Saturday killed rebel leader Raul Reyes and 22 other guerrilla fighters, who had crossed the border to hide from the Colombian military.“

Correa and Chavez are gesturing and posing, moving troops to the border with Colombia, and condemning the attack in which several laptops belonging to FARC were seized from rebels shot dead in their sleep, on Ecuadorian soil, that contained details of relations to Ecuador and Venezuela. That makes it possible for the war on terror coalition of the willing to lump Ecuador and Venezuela together with Iran and FARC with Al-Qaeda; and, then, all that is needed is a paragraph circulating with the words “weapons of mass destruction” before the whole world knows that we are talking about “the evil ones”.

“Ahmadinejad and Chavez have called themselves the “Axis of Unity.” Some security experts call them something else: a potential threat to American security.”

But who is who and what’s the history?

Consider first the credentials of the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, who is accusing Ecuador and Venezuela of aiding terrorists and drug dealers: