[Lasnetmail] Ecuador: CONAIE Condemns Correa

[LASNET]

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1288/1/

Ecuador: CONAIE Indigenous Movement Condemns President Correa
by Daniel Denvir and Thea Riofrancos
Friday, 16 May 2008

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)
declared itself in opposition to the government of Ecuadorian
President Rafael Correa on May 12. CONAIE accused the president of
continuing right-wing neoliberal economic and racist social policies.
The harsh condemnation focused on Correa´s opposition to two key
demands: the recognition of Ecuador as a plurinational state in the
new constitution and the requirement that communities must offer prior
consent before large-scale mining and other major extractive projects
take place.

Ecuador is currently governed by a Constituent Assembly, which is
writing a new Ecuadorian constitution as well as performing all
legislative functions. The Assembly was convened after voters
overwhelmingly approved a constitutional referendum in April 2007.
Members of Correa´s Alianza Pais party won 74 of the 130 seats.
Patchakutik, the CONAIE's electoral arm, has four representatives in
the Assembly.

While CONAIE has supported a number of Correa`s programs, most social
movement activists in Ecuador say that this conflict was foreseeable.
Correa`s support for large scale mining and his opposition to
plurinationality run up against the indigenous movement's top
political priorities.

Plurinationality is a broad framework that encompasses a number of key
indigenous movement demands, including cultural rights—such as
bilingual education and culturally appropriate healthcare—and
collective economic rights such as the requirement of affected
communities' consent before any exploration or extraction of
non-renewable resources, whether by State or multinational
corporations.

CONAIE's strong position against large-scale mining and for prior
consent is a boon to Ecuador`s anti-mining movement, led by the
National Coordinator in Defense of Life and Sovereignty. Over the past
several months, the Coordinator has organized massive road blockades
in Southern Ecuador, sparking government condemnation and repression.
In response, a large pro-mining march took place in Quito in early
May, apparently organized by government and industry forces.

The environment is a central issue for the Ecuadorian indigenous
movement, as they see cultural rights as closely tied to territorial
rights and the preservation of biodiversity. CONAIE's environmental
demands extend beyond the indigenous movement and involve close
collaboration with local and international environmental
organizations. CONAIE, along with a wide range of regional social
movements, rejects the South American regional integration plan known
as the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in
South America (IIRSA). The development program, funded by financial
institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the
Andean Development Corporation, consists of mega-development projects
such as dams and hydroelectric plants, "poses one of the greatest
challenges to environmental sustainability and social justice today."
In Ecuador, the main IIRSA project is the Manta-Manaos multimodal
transportation axis between Ecuador and Brazil, which includes
building a port and the construction of several new roads leading to
and from the coast. In the words of the Ecuadorian government, this
transportation project will achieve the "dream of joining the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans through a terrestrial-river route," and will
facilitate the creation of a new East-West trade axis.

CONAIE also strongly criticized the negotiations for a Free Trade Deal
(misleadingly called "Association Agreement") between the European
Union and the Andean Community, which took place three weeks ago.

CONAIE's leadership is now visiting and holding consultations with its
constituent base communities throughout Ecuador. The leadership will
reconvene at the end of the month to make decisions about what actions
to take next. It is widely rumored that CONAIE will launch a national
indigenous uprising, events that have in the past shut down the entire
country. According to CONAIE spokesperson Pacha Taran, "We are not
calling for an uprising. But we are not ruling that out, either."

While certain members of Correa´s Alianza Pais (AP) party have made
statements in support of plurinationality, Correa and a number of AP
assembly members either oppose the measure or support it symbolically
while opposing its substance of collective territorial and cultural
rights. As Taran put it, "Correa likes us, except for when we start to
protest. Then he tells us to shut up."

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."

The declaration goes on to accuse the government of "handing over
national and indigenous territories to transnational oil, mining,
pharmaceutical, logging and hydroelectric companies." CONAIE also
demands that the Constitutional Assembly support food sovereignty and
declare Ecuador "free of transgenics and agrofuels."

Furthermore, the twelve-point resolution called for the firing of
Minister of Mines and Petroleum Galo Chiriboga and Minister of the
Environment Marcela Aguiñaga. Chiriboga has been widely criticized for
allowing foreign companies, namely the Brazilian state company
PetroBras, to violate Ecuadorian law. Aguiñaga is accused of allowing
large scale logging in the Amazon and of failing to adequately
investigate the murders of an undetermined number of Huaoroni
indigenous people earlier this year. It is widely believed that the
Huaorani were killed by either loggers or paramilitary groups hired by
logging companies. They have also called for action to be taken
against Attorney General Washington Pesántez. Pesántez is accused of
persecuting social movement activists from unions and indigenous
groups and organizations like Indymedia.

Finally, CONAIE declared its solidarity with the people of Bolivia and
President Evo Morales. They condemned the Bolivian right-wing's
attempt to declare wealthy regions like Santa Cruz "autonomous" and
warned against pro-autonomy statements by Ecuadorian opposition leader
Jaime Nebot. Although this resolution represents the indigenous
movements' strongest public condemnation of Correa to date, CONAIE
makes it clear that they are not part of the right-wing opposition and
oppose Correa on their own terms.

Daniel Denvir and Thea Riofrancos are independent journalists from the
United States and collaborators at the Latin American Information
Agency (www.alainet.org) in Quito, Ecuador. They are also editors at
the forthcoming journal Caterwaul Quarterly
(www.caterwaulquarterly.com). Daniel Denvir is a 2008 recipient of
NACLA's Samuel Chavkin Investigative Journalism Grant.