Dozens of people affected by the construction of the heavy crude pipeline protested before the facilities of OCP and Occidental Petroleum in reclamation of the “ridiculous indemnifications” that they received for the expropriation of their lands, as well as the environmental damages caused to their property, forest areas, and community and public water sources.
At 9am, demonstrators tried to take the Amazon oil station, located 4km from Lago Agrio along the route to Quito, but were prevented by approximately 300 military and strongly armed police. The protest continued throughout the day.
The demonstrators said that the new Environmental Minister has not made any effort to pursue the actions of his predecessor Edgar Isch, who incorporated the claims of those affected communities who never signed agreements
allowing exproriation of their lands. The new minister did not warn of the terrible environmental damages, nor did he proceed with just compensation for the damages, which “has increased the miserable situation that is lived in the land of Sucumbios.”
The protest ended in the afternoon, after the affected peoples resolved to join in the days of protest planned for August 21 to raise awareness within the government “with the goal that it abandons its neoliberal economic
policies and IMF oriented policies, does not privatize the electrical companies nor Petroecuador, and adopts a peace policy regarding the conflict of our sister country Colombia instead of being subjected to Colombia Plan,”
according to Nelson Alcívar, the coordinator of the Amazonian Network.
In addition, the communities denounced the spill of 80,000 barrels of crude by a transnational oil company in the Sacha field due to negligence, an incident that will increase global warming. Affected comunities are asking
the international community to protest before the Ecuadorian authorities.
They also made public that since December of 2002 the OCP consortium “misplaced” 5 recepticles containing radioactive material. It is now known that at least one of those fell into the Quininde River (one of Ecuador’s largest) in Esmeraldas, risking contamination of local water sources and
seashore.
