Ecuador Bans Environmental Group

ecuador indigenous woman faces police 8th Dec The

ecuador indigenous woman faces police 8th Dec The crim­i­nal­iza­tion of Ecuador’s indige­nous and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments con­tin­ues, as the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­tizes extrac­tion at all costs. From World War 4 Report:

Ecuador’s gov­ern­ment ordered closed the envi­ron­men­tal­ist Fun­dación Pachama­ma Dec. 4, with the Inte­ri­or Min­istry say­ing it was “affect­ing the pub­lic peace.” The Envi­ron­ment Min­istry issued its own state­ment accus­ing of the orga­ni­za­tion of “inter­fer­ence in pub­lic pol­i­cy.” Plain­clothes police were sent to seal off the group’s offices in the morn­ing. The action stemmed from the pre­vi­ous week’s protests at the XI Round for sell­ing oil leas­es in the Ecuadroan Ama­zon. Pres­i­dent Rafael Cor­rea accused Pachama­ma and anoth­er group, Yasunidos, of attack­ing the Chilean ambas­sador, Juan Pablo Lira. Pachama­ma denies the alle­ga­tions, say­ing its mem­bers were not even present at the protest in front of the Hydro­car­bons Min­istry. Fun­dación Pachama­ma plans to appeal the government’s deci­sion.

“The real rea­son the gov­ern­ment has tar­get­ed Fun­dación Pachama­ma is because of the effec­tive­ness of their work,” said Bill Twist of the Pachama­ma Alliance, the group’s sib­ling orga­ni­za­tion based in San Fran­cis­co.  ”This is an attempt to keep them from doing their work, and chill their rights to free speech and assem­bly.”

Yasunidos is a group that is col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to demand a ref­er­en­dum on devel­op­ment of the Ish­pin­go-Tam­bo­cocha-Tipu­ti­ni oil bloc, locat­ed with­in Yasuni Nation­al Park. State com­pa­ny Petroa­ma­zonas is set to begin devel­op­ing the ITT bloc in 2014, and is seek­ing pri­vate part­ners for pro­duc­tion in the zone.

In June, the Cor­rea admin­is­tra­tion issued a Exec­u­tive Decree 16, instat­ing new strin­gent pro­ce­dures for NGOs to obtain legal sta­tus. Human Rights Watch, protest­ing the clo­sure of Fun­dación Pachama­ma, said the group was the “first vic­tim” of the decree, which it charged “con­tra­venes the rights of free expres­sion and asso­ci­a­tion.”

In a state­ment, Fun­dación Pachama­ma accused the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment of vio­lat­ing its own con­sti­tu­tion: “We have the right to dis­sent the deci­sion of the author­i­ties, the process that has been imple­ment­ed and alter­na­tive­ly pro­pose that the oil remain under­ground to pre­serve one of the great­est rich­es of our coun­try, its cul­tur­al and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty. The cur­rent Con­sti­tu­tion oblig­es the gov­ern­ment to find a new devel­op­ment mod­el that respects our country’s Pluri-nation­al­i­ty, Human Rights, Rights of Nature and ‘Sumak Kawsay’ or ‘Liv­ing For­est.’… We believe it is ille­git­i­mate to imple­ment process­es affect­ing indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries and not include the pres­i­dents of indige­nous nation­al­i­ties and peo­ples…”

The state­ment also said the group “extends sol­i­dar­i­ty” to the Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of the Nation­al­i­ties and Peo­ples of Ecuador (CODENPE), offi­cial­ly empow­ered to con­sult on issues affect­ing indige­nous peo­ples. (Rebe­lión, Dec. 7; EFE via Ecuavisa, Dec. 6; Pachama­ma Alliance press releas­es via Sacra­men­to Bee, Dec. 5, UDW, Dec. 4; WSJ, Dec. 4)

Ecuador’s 2008 con­sti­tu­tion includes pro­vi­sions for con­sul­ta­tion with indige­nous peo­ples on devel­op­ment issues, but the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment has been repeat­ed­ly accused of vio­lat­ing these mea­sures. The con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of Sumak Kawsay, usu­al­ly ren­dered Vivir Bien or Good Liv­ing, is a phrase adopt­ed from Ecuador’s indige­nous move­ment.