Amazon Theater

Ecuador: Amazon indigenous leaders attacked

From FPcN InterCultural, Sept. 6:

Gloria Ushigua and Rosa Gualinga, two indigenous leaders, were attacked on Sunday August 26, after months of receiving death threats for their efforts to protect the territory of the Zapara people in the Ecuadorian Amazon. They were beaten until unconscious, thrown in the trunk of a car, and later, apparently, left for dead.

Ecuador: indigenous march for land rights

Some 800 members of the Awá indigenous people, who inhabit northern Ecuador on the border with Colombia, arrived July 11 in Quito after marching cross-country to demand the government recognize their rights to "ancestral lands." Awá leader Byron Chuquisán said the Ecuadoran government had recognized their land rights in 1986, but their territories have since been invaded by illegal loggers who are exploiting timber without any controls.

Ecuador: violence in Orellana oil zone

According to an open letter from the Provincial Council of Ecuador's Orellana province, starting in June 26 the Ecuadoran armed forces attacked striking residents of 26 communities of the Dayuma-Pindo Zone parish in Orellana. The communities were protesting the refusal of the Chinese oil corporation PetroOriental to comply with a labor agreement it signed on July 28, 2006, in which the company pledged to hire 80% of its skilled and non-skilled workforce from among local community residents. (Adital, July 2) Residents were also demanding that the company carry out promised local infrastructure projects. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, July 7 from EFE)

Brazil: slaves freed from biofuel plantation

Authorities in Brazil say they freed over 1,000 workers who were being held captive as “debt slaves” at an ethanol producing sugarcane plantation. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice said that police from the Mobile Verification Task Force freed 1,108 workers who were cutting sugarcane for 14 hours a day: from 3 AM until 5 PM, with only a short break for lunch. Those who were in debt were "living in a horrifying condition in cramped shelters with poor sanitation." (AHN, July 4) Humberto Celio, co-ordinator of the Mobile Verification Task Force, told Agencia Brasil that many workers were sick due to spoiled food and contaminated water. (AP, July 3)

Setback for Chevron in Ecuador suit

On June 19 US District Judge Leonard Sand of the Southern District of New York ruled against Chevron Corp.'s efforts to have the American Arbitration Association settle its dispute with Ecuador and the Ecuadoran state oil company Petroecuador. This was a significant setback for Chevron, which is trying to avoid paying for the cleanup of environmental damage in Ecuador's Amazon region caused by Texaco Petroleum Co.'s operations there from 1964 to 1992. Texaco left the country in 1992; it merged with Chevron in 2001.

Ecuador to enviros: pay us to keep oil in the ground

Ecuador has offered to drop plans to develop the country's biggest oilfield at Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) in the Amazon basin if developed nations pay it to protect the land. President Rafael Correa hopes wealthy governments and environmental groups will pay $350 million annually to leave the oil in the ground and help slow global warming.

Amazon tribe block roads to halt hydro project

The Enawene Nawe, a remote Amazonian tribe in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, are blockading a highway in protest at a series of hydroelectric dams that will destroy their vital fishing grounds. Companies led by the world·s largest soya producers, the Maggi family, are pushing for the vast complex of dams to be built along the Juruena river which flows through the tribe's land. "The dams will bring our death, as they will raise the uncontrollable anger of the spirits," said tribe members.

Brazil: rancher guilty in slaying of Amazon activst

On May 15, wealthy landowner Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura was given the maximum sentence, 30 years, for being one of the masterminds of the February 2005 murder of US-born nun Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old defender of the Amazon rainforest and landless people. It is the first conviction of a member of Pará state's landed elite in a wave of killings of peasant leaders and forest defenders in recent years.

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