Road Protest
Peru’s Congress Suspends Destructive Decrees: Not a victory, just one less defeat!
Today the world’s media carry the story of the Peruvian Congress having suspended the destructive decrees that caused a non-violent, yet forceful uprising by indigenous peoples organising to defend the Amazon from the oil and gas industry. It is not a victory – merely one less defeat! The forest continues to be destroyed. Drilling, pumping, spilling roads building and Christian conquest of hearts, souls and minds through concerted violence, repression, manipulation, false promises (“Jesus will buy you a fridge and a car”) and disrespect for the inhabitants of what was once the world’s largest (rain) forest, but which is now better described as a region threatened by destruction, deforestation, desertification, in brief, death. However, at least, for now the attempt to accelerate further the destruction has been pushed back, but not stopped. The struggle continues…..
June 11, 2009
World Briefing | The Americas
Peru: Decrees to Open Jungle Area to Investment Are Suspended
By SIMON ROMERO
Congress temporarily suspended two decrees issued by President Alan García that had helped set off recent protests by indigenous groups fearful of large oil and logging investments in the Peruvian Amazon. The decrees would open vast jungle areas to investment and allow companies to bypass indigenous communities to get permits for projects. The protests resulted in repression by security forces and apparent reprisals by Indians last week that left dozens dead.
See also: Top name brands implicated in Amazon destruction, New Greenpeace report shows how the cattle industry in Brazil is feeding demand for raw resources and “Slaughtering the Amazon”
Mining Action Alert
Action Alert: Ask the Ecuadorian Government to Protect Human Rights During Upcoming Anti-Mining Demonstrations
The Ecuador Solidarity Network, an organization based in Canada and the United States, is joining human rights and indigenous peoples organizations in calling on President Rafael Correa to respect human rights during nation wide protests against large-scale mining that will begin on Monday January 19th.
The protests will spread from the Amazon and reach Quito, Ecuador’s capital, on January 20th. Anti-mining protests earlier this month were met with police violence in the Southern provinces of Azuay, Loja, Zamora Chinchipe and Morona Santiago. A number of activists were beaten and detained, and one leader was critically injured after being shot in the head.
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and a number of farmer and environmental organizations are protesting against the recent approval of a mining law by Congress, opening the country to large-scale metal mining. Canadian mining companies would benefit from many of the concessions. The CONAIE and other organizations contend that the new law will allow large-scale mining in protected areas and contaminate critical community water supplies. The CONAIE is also protesting against government plans to drill for oil in the Yasuni National Park, the rainforest home of two indigenous communities in voluntary isolation.
Following recent statements from the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the Ecuador Solidarity Network calls on activists around the world to support the human rights of protesters demonstrating against large-scale metal mining in Ecuador. The CONAIE emphasizes that the demonstrations will be peaceful and calls on President Correa to not use police or military forces against protesters.
E-mail President Rafael Correa and President of Congress Fernando Cordero and ask that the government take preventative action to ensure that protesters’ human rights are respected. We also denounce any attempt by right-wing organizations in the U.S. or Canada to opportunistically use the upcoming mobilizations to attack President Correa for motives that have nothing to do with indigenous rights or environmental protection.
Please send emails to:
Presidencia de la República, Presidente Rafael Correa:
presidencia @ presidencia . gov . ec
Presidencia Legislativa, Presidente de la Comision Legislativa y de Fiscalizacion, Fernando Cordero Cueva:
presidencia @ asambleaconstituyente . gov . ec
Please send a carbon copy of the messages to
ecuadorsolidarity @ gmail . com
Media Contacts:
Ecuador: Jennifer Moore, Ecuador Solidarity Network (593) 8-877-8928 / jenmoore0901 @ gmail . com
Canada: Jamie Kneen, Mining Watch (613) 761-2273
Governor of Orellana arrested under terrorism charges – repression continues
Guadalupe Llori, governor of the Amazonian province of Orellana, was seized from her home and arrested on December 8 by the Ecuadorian military and charged with terrorism and sabotage for her support of the local strikes and protests. Locals who assembled at her house to contest her arrest were dispersed with tear gas.
For the last couple of weeks, protests and road blocks have been taking place particularly in the oil-producing community of Dayuma, on ancestral lands of the Huaorani and Tagaeri peoples who were displaced in the 1960s and 70s by the oil companies, paving the way for many poor settlers from other areas in search for a better life. Especially inhabitants of Loja in the Andes and Manabí at the coast which experienced a severe drought at the time moved to this part of the Amazon when the Agrarian Reform opened up the rainforest as no-man’s land to be claimed by anyone able to cut down 50% of the trees of a given piece of land.
Repression in Orellana
In the night of November 30 – December 1, over 50 people (including 3 minors), mainly from the community of Dayuma near Coca in the Northern Amazon region of Ecuador, were violently arrested by the military acting on orders of President Rafael Correa who pronounced a State of Emergency in the Amazonian Province of Orellana (Decree 770) due to protests in the oil producing province for improving road infrastructure and basic services and against feared quasi-privatisation of the state-owned oil company PETROECUADOR.
Esperanza Martinez on Yasuni and the ITT proposal.
This article by CarbonWeb.org deserves to be reproduced in full:
Yasuni – Our Future in Their Hands?
Ecuador proposes to claim compensation in exchange for leaving crude oil in the ground. Esperanza Martinez examines what this means for resource sovereignty.
Oil, for countries that possess it, is often centre stage when it comes to issues of sovereignty. Invasions have been launched to access it and military and political interventions pushed through to control it, leaving the door wide open for corruption.
Invitation to Expedition in the Napo-Ucayali Corridor: June/July 2008
It is still early days of planning, but a small group of people are planning to travel, for the second time, down the Napo river – doing workshops relevant for indigenous peoples’ struggles, such as shamanic civil rights, and healing sessions in communities along the 1000km long and very exciting route from the beginning of the River Napo in Tena, Ecuador to Iquitos (where it meets the Amazon and the Ucayali rivers). The journey goes through one of the most biodiverse regions in the world – right past the Yasuni National Park, before crossing the border into Peru. After visiting The 4th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference: Magic, Myths and Miracles, which will be held in Iquitos, Peru – July 19th – 26th, 2008, we might continue to Pucallpa….
Contemporary developments in the global economy are very significant for the Amazon rain forest. While this might be said to be true for anywhere at any point in time there are nevertheless good reasons for paying special attention to what maybe the last battle for the survival of the largest rain forest in the world, the loss of which it should need no further justification to lament – and that is the basis upon which this invitation is written….
“Recipes For Disaster”: An Anarchist Cookbook
– by False Flag Thursday, Mar. 01, 2007 at 3:06 PM
“For ten long years, our operatives have honed their skills, testing their wits and mettle against the global capitalist empire, the most formidable adversary in the history of life on earth. We have learned how to redecorate the walls of cities occupied by armies of riot police, to transform random groups of damaged, isolated individuals into loving communities capable of supporting one another through the most severe bouts of repression and depression, to shut down corporate summits and franchises armed with little more than plastic piping or eyedroppers of glue. Now, the notorious CrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective has compiled many of the techniques that made these feats possible into a 624-page manual entitled Recipes for Disaster.”
Comment on Comment – is Ecuador Rising?
We are flattered to have received a comment from Ecuador Rebelde, who runs the Ecuador-Rising blog that we often link to and the RSS feed of which we feature in the right-hand side-bar. We have responded to ER’s comment, but it has become such a long-winding comment that it might just deserve its own entry here….
Correa strengthens the police state to exploit the forest – and blames the rest of the world?
President Rafael Correa shows his true colours:
“”We will not allow any more invasions of oil installations or the blockage of roads,” said Correa while visiting the Amazon, home to an array of unique species.
The U.S.-educated economist added he understood the plight of poor jungle residents but that the rule of law had to be respected to safeguard the main revenue source of South America’s No 5 oil producer.
He said he would sign a decree to increase the military and police presence around oil facilities and allow those forces to shift protesters by force, Correa said.”
So now we know – Correa has serious dictator potential, he strengthens the already excessive powers of the police and military apparatus to prevent the marginalised and indigenous peoples from speaking their voice through action – and what else does a largely illiterate population have to speak with, if not their bodies and their concerted actions as a multitude? What are their means of expression if not direct action?
And there is more to it…..
colonos 