Ecuador Sending Army To Protect Foreign Oil Workers From Indians

by Kintto Lucas

The announcement by a government minister that the army would be called out to back the operations of U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco and its Argentine partner CGC (Compania General de Combustibles) on land to which the Sarayacu Kichwa people hold legal title drew an outcry from local and international environmental and human rights groups.

Minister of Energy and Mines Carlos Arboleda said soldiers would be sent to Sarayacu to allow the companies to go ahead with their plans to explore for oil in Kichwa territory.

He also told foreign correspondents last week that the Native community in Sarayacu was acting "illegally," with the support of non-governmental organizations that were "fomenting chaos."

One of the actions taken by the Sarayacu Kichwa was to form a human chain, made up of men, women, children and elders, along the border of their territory.

Hilda Santi, the vice-president of the Sarayacu community, said "the oil company tries to slander us as terrorists to draw attention away from the abuses they commit against our rights.

"We have merely defended our territory against the aggression of the CGC/ChevronTexaco oil companies according to our customary rights, the Ecuadorian constitution and international conventions" to which this country is a signatory, said Santi.

International Labor Organization convention 169, ratified by Ecuador in 1997, and the Ecuadorian constitution both state the obligation to respect the collective rights of Native peoples and to consult with local communities whenever they might be affected by activities like mining or drilling for oil.

The chairman of the congressional Commission of the Affairs of Indigenous and other Ethnic Groups, Ricardo Ulcuango, criticized the position taken by Arboleda, and said he was considering the possibility of asking the minister to appear before Congress to provide explanations for his statements.

"The Energy Ministry's policies are negative for the indigenous communities of Sarayacu, and run counter to the interests of this country," said Ulcuango. "Indigenous territory cannot be militarized as he has proposed, and people cannot be forced to accept oil drilling" on their land.

The Sarayacu Kichwa are opposed to drilling in their territory because of the pollution it would cause. According to the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), "oil development in Sarayacu risks devastating a region that is recognized worldwide for its remarkable biological diversity, its unique lake zone (made up of around 100 lakes), and its habitat for critically endangered species like the giant otter.

"Over 95 percent of Sarayacu territory is old-growth lowland rainforest, with several tree species unique to this region," the WRM added.

Six months ago, local leaders complained that they were being pressured by the oil companies, and that the companies' armed guards had invaded their territory.

"The Kichwa people of Sarayacu are under pressure from CGC/ChevronTexaco, which is invading our territory and violating the rights of the community," Kichwa leader Franco Viteri said at the time.

He also denounced the felling of "giant trees that have lived for hundreds of years, to build the oil company camps." In addition, he said, the bodies of animals, including the tapir, an endangered species, were found mutilated and abandoned, and "gasoline has been spilled along the dirt roads" that have been opened in the jungle.

The president of the Sarayacu Kichwa community, Marlon Santi, told IPS that the Native leaders have demanded that the oil companies respect an agreement between the state and the local community, "in which the residents made it clear that they did not agree to the drilling for oil due to the environmental damage it would cause."

The Indians also asked the government to protect their collective rights.

But "the authorities ignored our complaints, and our leaders began to be persecuted," said Santi.

The Organization of American States (OAS) working group in charge of drafting the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples expressed concern in February over attacks on Shuar, Achuar and Z‡para indigenous communities, and especially the Sarayacu Kichwa, due to "the unilateral application of the Ecuadorian government's oil policy" with no consultation with local communities.

"In November 2002, the Kichwa of Sarayacu declared their 130,000-hectare ancestral territory in a state of emergency, as a measure to protect their land from the invasion of the CGC oil company working in association with ChevronTexaco," said Santi.

In Sarayacu, the local economy and educational activities have come to a halt because the community has been forced to mobilize, to protect and patrol the boundaries of their territory, he said.

The declaration of a state of emergency "was a last resort, given the harassment and grave internal divisions brought by the oil consortium," said the OAS working group. "That drove the communities to the verge of confrontation, demonstrating that the government's oil policy and the way the companies operate run counter to the collective rights of indigenous peoples."

The WRM alleges that "CGC/ChevronTexaco is employing bribes, disinformation, character defamation and false documents to create and then exploit conflicts among Sarayacu communities."

Arboleda reported that the government had reached an agreement with CGC to allow the company's workers to enter the area last December to explore for oil, and that it had promised to use the forces of law and order to protect the company's operations if necessary.

"Arboleda's statements are disturbing, because there might be plans for a crackdown on the people of Sarayacu and the environmental organizations opposed to the drilling for oil," said Ulcuango.

The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) issued three precautionary measures in favor of the people of Sarayacu in May.

The precautionary measure is a mechanism designed to protect the lives and safety of persons or groups of persons.

According to the IACHR, the state must act to guarantee the safety of community leaders and local residents in Sarayacu, investigate reports of torture of indigenous people by soldiers and attempted rapes of girls by CGC employees in late January, and respect the Kichwa's special relationship with their land.

"On Oct. 16, the IACHR will hold a new public hearing in Washington, because the state has sent a letter saying it has complied with the precautionary measures. But we are going to demonstrate that it has not complied with any aspect of the measures, and that the persecution continues," said Santi.

Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez himself said during the inauguration of a tunnel in the province of Pastaza, that he would provide military support to allow oil company workers to enter the area.

ChevronTexaco is already facing a lawsuit filed by a coalition of environmental and human rights groups for environmental and health damages in Ecuador's Amazon jungle.

Native and campesino organizations from the Amazon originally filed the lawsuit in a New York court on Nov. 3, 1993. On May 4, 1995, Texaco and the Ecuadorian government agreed that the oil company would spend $15 million on "an environmental clean-up and completion of obligations, responsibilities and demands."

The case wound through the U.S. legal system until last year, when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that it was a matter to be decided in Ecuador.

The suit moved to Ecuador on May 7, and the trial will continue in a court in Nueva Loja, the capital of the northeastern province of Sucumbios, within the next few weeks.

Campesino leader Luis Yanza with the Amazon Defense Front, one of the groups that brought the suit, said the lawsuit against the U.S. company is a chance for judges in Ecuador to demonstrate that justice can be done in a small country, "even when confronted by an economic monster like Texaco."

The Front represents 30,000 Siona, Secoya, Cofan and Huaorani Indians, as well as local peasant farmers affected by oil exploration and extraction in the northeastern provinces of Sucumb’os and Orellana.

The plaintiffs have evidence that between 1964 and 1992, Texaco -- which merged with Chevron in 2000 to become the fourth-largest oil company in the world -- spilled 16 million gallons of crude and 20 billion gallons of contaminated water in the northeastern provinces.

Environmental groups say that in the areas where the oil company operated, the level of petroleum in the rivers, which local residents depend on for daily use, is 200 to 300 times higher than the limits set for human consumption. They also complain that the oil giant used obsolete technology that caused enormous damage.

The local communities, which report soaring rates of cancer -- up to 30 times higher than in non-oil-producing areas of Ecuador -- miscarriages and respiratory problems, are demanding compensation for damages to their health and the environment.

Yanza said the company constructed waste spillways just meters from the homes of local residents, provoking the infection and death of hundreds of people and countless animals in the last three decades.

ChevronTexaco does not deny the pollution, but says in its defense that it is not directly responsible, since Texaco had yet to merge with Chevron when the events took place. Furthermore, from its headquarters in California, ChevronTexaco insisted that it had complied with Ecuadorian law and paid for a clean-up operation, which ended in 1998.