From the Pachamama Office in Ecuador:
In early May, leaders from the Achuar, Shuar, and Zápara peoples arrived at the international headquarters of Burlington Resources to manifest their unified opposition to the multi-national oil company’s operations in ancestral indigenous territories. Burlington Resources is the owner of the oil concession known as Block 24, and is rumored to be in the process of purchasing the right to the neighboring concession Block 23. The blocks are located in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon in primary rainforest inhabited by the Achuar, Shuar, and Quichua peoples.
Despite the aggressive tactics used by the Burlington and CGC (current proprietary of Block 23) to divide communities and corrupt leaders in order to win indigenous approval for oil exploration, their entrance in to these ancestral territories has been denied for over 5 years, due to the organized resistance of indigenous peoples in the zone.
One of the most important victories for indigenous peoples in the case, has been a Constitutional injunction, ratified by the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, stating that the company must negotiate with the representative organization of each people and prohibiting that it dialogue with individuals or communities. However, this decision has not been enforced and criminal charges against the company for failure to observe the injunction have been stalled in local courts for over a year. Another important victory came in early May, when the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ordered emergency measures to protect the leaders and territory of the Quichua Sarayacu from human rights violations. The decision was the result of a situation in which community leaders were seized within their ancestral territory by Ecuadorian military forces and then turned over to the company’s private security forces and tortured. The commission’s decision are obligatory for the Ecuadorian state.
The indigenous organizations impacted by the blocks have forged a strong alliance and are reaching out to find new allies at the national and international level to exert pressure on the Ecuadorian government to ensure their rights. In recent assemblies, the Achuar and Shuar peoples have decided that their leaders should travel to the United States to win new attention for their case and directly announce their position to Burlington Resources. A broad coalition of NGO’s and supporters from Ecuador and the Unites States (Pachamama, Amazon Watch, Earth Rights Int., Oxfam America, CDES – Ecuador) worked to coordinate the delegation, in which Quichua and Zápara leaders also participated. The delegation won the attention of financial analysts, oil industry press, international press, investor groups, and Spanish-language radio during the eight days it spent in Washington, DC, and Houston, TX. Indigenous leaders also gained valuable experience in international networking and press work.
