“Nobody is going to screw us”: Noboa
Guayaquil – Citing pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Ecuadorian President Gustavo Noboa blasted environmentalists for their criticism of a major new oil pipeline project in a press conference yesterday.
Environmentalists, indigenous groups, human rights organizations and local populations along the 500-kilometer long OCP pipeline route, which stretches from the Amazon basin across the Andes mountains to the Pacific coast, have expressed concern over environmental and social impacts.
The Ecuadorian government considers the new pipeline vitally important for the country’s battered economy. Public protests, a lawsuit and a flood of letters of opposition drew an outraged reaction from Noboa yesterday, who fumed “I’m not going to let anyone screw with the country, I’ll give them war.”
Environmentalists and local communities have harshly criticized the OCP for crossing fragile cloud forests around the Mindo valley on the western slopes of the Andes. The area is home to a flourishing ecotourism industry and a global conservation hot spot, with some 450 bird species.
Referring to the broad national and international opposition to the route, Noboa dismissed it as coming from “four jerks and a couple of mayors.”
The President insisted that the pipeline will go forward, “like it or not,” and that the controversial Mindo route proposed by the OCP consortium (Alberta Energy, Occidental Petroleum, Repsol-YPF, Agip, Perez-Companc y Kerr-McGee) was the route favored by his government.
These declarations took environmentalists and government officials by surprise. The Environmental Impact Study (EIS) presented by OCP is currently being reviewed by technical staff at the Ministries of Energy and Environment, with a decision not planned for several weeks. In a prepared statement issued only moments before the President’s tirade, the Minister of Environment, Lourdes Luque, indicated serious reservations regarding the technical quality of the EIS and signaled that she was requesting further analysis from OCP, especially regarding the selection of the route.
Noboa also stated that the International Monetary Fund endorsed his position, given the pipeline’s key importance for Ecuador’s economy. Local press reported that Jeffrey Franks, IMF Representative in Ecuador had warned the government that the pipeline must move forward apace or run the risk of jeopardizing international economic support.
