[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: Ecuador: CONAIE and Correa Begin Dialogue

[Jai Sen]

Friday, October 9 2009





More, on crucial developments in movement in Latin America : Now, in  
Ecuador.



             JS



fwd


Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Brian K. Murphy" <brian at radicalroad.com>
> Date: October 8 2009 5:24:53 am GMT+05:30
> To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
> Subject: Ecuador: CONAIE and Correa Begin Dialogue
>
> http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2146/1/
>
> Ecuador: CONAIE and Correa Begin Dialogue
> by Jennifer Moore
> Wednesday, 07 October 2009
>
> After a week of marches and road blockades, Ecuador's national  
> indigenous movement and the government of President Rafael Correa  
> have initiated talks.
>
> On Monday afternoon, a delegation of about 150 representatives from  
> the three regional organizations of the Confederation of Indigenous  
> Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) attended a meeting with the  
> President and his cabinet in Quito.
>
> Following hours of intense discussion, the government agreed to  
> review a presidential decree affecting the autonomy of the  
> indigenous bilingual education system and to work toward consensus  
> with the CONAIE over changes to the new water law. The CONAIE will  
> also propose reforms to the new mining law passed in January and  
> which they have appealed before the Constitutional Court.
>
> Additionally, a joint commission incorporating members of the  
> government and the CONAIE will investigate events during a  
> confrontation between police and indigenous in the Southern Amazon  
> last Wednesday, which left one indigenous man dead and several dozen  
> police and indigenous wounded.
>
> While exchanges during the meeting were reportedly still pointed,  
> the CONAIE says they acknowledged that the government has previously  
> adopted social movement proposals including for a popular National  
> Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution, to recognize part  
> of the external debt as illegitimate, and the non-renewal of the US  
> contract for its military base at Manta. They call talks part of  
> ongoing efforts toward "a national agenda for peace, democracy and  
> the rule of law" within the context of Sumak Kawsay (good living)  
> and plurinationality.
> Outstanding issues include a proposal from the Shuar and Achuar  
> indigenous nations to declare the Amazonian province of Morona  
> Santiago "ecological," or off-limits to extractive industry  
> projects. The proposal echoes a recent provincial ordinance passed  
> in the Amazonian province of Zamora Chinchipe, which declares it  
> "the lungs of Mother Earth and a source of water and life." Both  
> provinces encompass vast stretches of intact tropical rainforest  
> where some of the largest recent finds of gold and copper have been  
> discovered and whose principal owners are Canadian-financed  
> companies including Corriente Resources and Kinross Gold. The  
> government has indicated that this will be a difficult issue to  
> agree upon.
>
> Indigenous organizations would also like to see a recent  
> presidential decree revoked that puts the Catholic church in charge  
> of state development efforts in the Amazon for the purposes of  
> evangelizing and incorporating Amazonian peoples into the socio- 
> economic life of the country. The decree also applies to the  
> predominantly Afro-Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas and the  
> Galapagos Islands.

> Ongoing dialogue will be facilitated by the Secretariat of Peoples,  
> Social Movements and Citizen Participation in coordination with the  
> Development Council of Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador (Codenpe).
>
> As of Tuesday morning, although the CONAIE had officially suspended  
> the national mobilization, road blockades were still being  
> maintained by Shuar people in two points around the southern  
> Amazonian city of Macas while they awaited the arrival of the Quito  
> commission to discuss the outcome of talks with the government.  
> Father Juan de la Cruz Rivadeneira, a native of the city of Macas  
> and a local Salesian missionary for more than thirty years, says  
> despite the violence and insults that the Shuar have suffered he  
> remains hopeful "that they will seek out the best solutions possible."
>
> He notes ongoing heavy police presence in the city and recounts lost  
> opportunities over the last ten days to open up dialogue with the  
> Shuar, whose organizations he says were "admirable" for being so  
> open despite efforts to delegitimize them. In particular, he remarks  
> about ongoing insults from the President against indigenous people  
> whose mobilization he called "a failure" and whose leaders he  
> accused of being privileged and manipulative. De la Cruz adds that  
> much local press coverage of their protests has also been "biased,"  
> and paints the Shuar as "barbaric" rather than "the noble and  
> sincere people they are, who live from the land, the jungle and the  
> river."
>
> As a result, until late last week, talks seemed distant especially  
> following a violent confrontation when police tried to dislodge two  
> road blockades near Macas on September 30. The Interprovincial Shuar  
> Federation which represents 500 Shuar communities in the southern  
> Amazon denounced police violence which they say was responsible for  
> the death of Shuar bilingual teacher Bosco Wilsum. However, the  
> government maintains that police responded to orders to act "with  
> utmost prudence" and that they were unarmed and equipped only with  
> anti-riot gear. President Correa has also recently alleged that  
> messages were transmitted by radio to incite people to violence.
> But local reporter Edgar Llerena notes "inconsistencies" in this  
> latter version. He says he was standing near police when the  
> operation began and recalls that most police were wearing police- 
> issue pistols in addition to helmets, bullet-proof jackets and  
> devices to fire tear gas against protesters. He confirms that Shuar  
> were also armed with traditional spears and rocks, and that they  
> threw tear gas canisters back at police. In terms of the shotgun  
> bullet that killed Wilsum, he says he heard reports, but did not  
> see, both police and Shuar with shotguns. He adds, however, that  
> Wilsum was facing police at the time and received the shot from in  
> front.
>
> Llerena also wrote about a second attack which took place  
> concurrently against a road blockade in the community of Metzankim,  
> also near Macas. In this second case, according to testimonies,  
> police fired at protesters. As protesters fled, a helicopter flew  
> overhead and police used heavy tear gas and violently entered homes  
> from 100 meters away. A local doctor told the journalist that he  
> treated 48 patients shortly after, many children, for respiratory  
> problems "related with the indiscriminatory use of gases on the 30th."
>
> Stressing the importance of further investigation, Llerena says more  
> importantly than who shot whom is who gave the orders for the  
> operation. At the time that police tried to dislodge the road  
> blockade, he says indigenous leaders and government representatives  
> were in a two hour recess from talks taking place in the city of  
> Sucúa, also in the province of Morona Santiago. According to  
> Llerena, talks were advancing. However, upon hearing notice of  
> police repression on the Upano River bridge, dialogue was truncated  
> and people left Sucúa to see what was happening. He says the  
> experience left people feeling "very deceived" and concludes that  
> "an opportune intervention by national authorities" could have  
> avoided the confrontation in the first place.
>
> Father Juan de la Cruz confirms that there were attempts at dialogue  
> and comments that during several occasions over the last ten days  
> the government could have entered into talks with the Shuar who have  
> also been allied with the national teachers union during recent  
> protests. Confident in indigenous efforts to move ahead, Father Juan  
> de la Cruz says they will continue lobbying for the President to  
> change his attitude toward better governance, and despite  
> indications that it will be a difficult point on which to arrive at  
> agreement, is hopeful a conclusion will be reached declaring this "a  
> province free of oil production, mining and foreign multinationals."

______________________________
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
www.cacim.net
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, +91-98189 11325

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