On November 29, dozens of Rukullacta leaders and community members traveled to Quito to deliver a message to Ecuador’s decision-makers: Any oil underneath their lands should stay there. Permanently.
The mobilization in Quito was coordinated to coincide with the anniversary of the death of the Amazonian indigenous warrior Jumandy – a widely-recognized hero who led the first indigenous uprising of the Americas against the Spanish on November 29, 1548 that prevented colonization of Ecuador’s Amazon for many years.
In Quito, Rukullacta members gathered in the San Blas plaza, the site where Jumandy was executed after eluding capture for years in the rainforests and caves in and around Rukullacta ancestral land. With signs, chants, and a sacred fire, the community paid homage to Jumady and warned the government of Rafael Correa and Canadian oil company Ivanhoe Energy that efforts to drill on their lands will be met with the same steadfast resistance that kept the Spanish out nearly 500 years ago.
The mobilization in Quito comes on the heels of new Rukullacta community resolutions expressing outright opposition to Ivanhoe’s proposed project on their lands. The resolutions ratify that all non-renewable resources in Rukullacta territory will “remain permanently in the ground” and that Rukullacta is designated as an area “free of oil drilling, mining, and logging, as well as bio-prospecting.”
This latest reiteration of opposition from the Rukullacta general assembly, which represents seventeen communities numbering some 8,000 people, is another blow to Ivanhoe, which has sought drilling access since receiving the Block 20 oil concession in 2007. A new film in Spanish with English subtitles about the lives and traditions of the Rukullacta Kichwa can be seen here.
Rukullacta members then marched to Ecuador’s Congress building, where they proceeded to enter an in-session Congress and present their resolutions and, with the help of allied Congressional representatives, submitted a proposal designating Jumady as a national hero, which passed unanimously.
“We are here in the footsteps our of ancestral hero, said Ines Shiguango, Rukullacta member and current Vice President of CONFENIAE (Confederation of Amazonian Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) who delivered the Rukullacta resolutions to the Ecuador’s Congressional President. “Our battle against Ivanhoe is similar to what Jumandy faced. We are channeling his spirit, and we will prevail.”
Rukullacta’s continued resistance spells trouble for Ivanhoe, which faces a whole host of project risks associated with its “Pungarayacu” venture, named after the largest oil field in the Block 20 concession. A recent Risk Assessment by Amazon Watch highlights the controversial history of Ivanhoe Energy and the significant risk facing the company and investors over the Pungarayacu project in Ecuador’s rainforest. The assessment includes current financial information, company background and legacy issues, speculation of stock “pump and dump” schemes, and extensive in-country investigation of the project, including contract controversies, Ivanhoe’s questionable HTL technology, and opposition of the Kichwa of Rukullacta.
The report also looks at the legacy of Ivanhoe CEO Robert Friedland, known as “Toxic Bob” or the “Toxic Billionaire” for his role as CEO of Galactic Minerals, the now bankrupt company responsible for the largest cyanide spill in US history in Summitville, Co.
Further scrutiny of Friedland surfaced recently in the new biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Friedland met Jobs after having served two and a half years in prison for felony drug trafficking, and became a guru figure for him, until Jobs came to see him as a charlatan. “[I]t was a strange thing to have one of the spiritual people in your young life turn out to be, symbolically and in reality, a gold miner… Robert always portrayed himself as a spiritual person, but he crossed the line from being charismatic to being a con man.”
