Ecuador

The Fight For Justice For Ecuador’s Amazon Continues

April 21, 2015 Lindsay Ofrias, www.upsidedownworld.org Resist! Amazon, Ecuador, Environment, Oil & Gas

Amazonian residents cite various peer-reviewed health evaluations demonstrating significantly higher rates of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, and skin diseases, among a multitude of other health problems for those living in the region as evidence of them being poisoned. Those studies show that the health problems are even more acute for those living nearby the 300 or so oil well sites of the former Texaco concession of which PetroEcuador also had a hand in. For local residents who have witnessed the growth of the Amazonian oil industry over the last half-century, they are confident of it being the arrival of Texaco that marks the gradual destruction of their once clean land and water resources. The fact that Texaco ominously renamed the burgeoning oil frontier town of its Amazonian heyday to Sour Lake (Lago Agrio in Spanish) as homage to its corporate birthplace in Texas has not helped to alter that widely held view.

Voices & Images From The People’s Summit In Panama

April 10, 2015 Resist! Cuba, Ecuador, Imperialism, indigenous, Panama, Summit of the Americas, United States, Venezuela

The Summit of the Americas, beginning Friday in Panama City, has incorporated parallel meetings. The Youth forum, the Academic forum, the Business forum and the Civil Society and Social Actors forum were organized after a process of selection by the Organization of American States, which also organizes the presidential summit. However, more than 2,000 social movements and progressive organizations have organized the People's Summit, an event that seeks to express backing for the policies advanced in the region in recent years, following the election of numerous left-wing governments. The social movements that will participate in the parallel summit include small farmers, indigenous groups, human rights activists, political movements, worker unions and environmentalist organizations. With such a diverse array of different issues the organizations agreed on an extensive agenda to discuss the most important problems which they believe will not be present in the official presidential event. “We are not an anti-(Americas) Summit. We are a summit that aims at giving voice to the popular movements that are not part of the Summit of the Americas. Our objective is to raise the issue of fighting poverty, for social equality and the sovereignty and right to self determination of the people. We are discussing things completely different to the Americas Summit agenda,” explained Dr. Fernando Cebamanos, organizer of the People's Summit and President of the Broad Front for Democracy party in Panama.

Swedish Prosecutor Rejects Questioning Assange In London

November 2, 2014 David Crouch, www.theguardian.com Educate! Ecuador, England, Julian Assange, Sweden

Backtacking from an earlier suggestion described by the Guardian below, the Swedish prosecutor has once again rejected questioning Assange in London. Telesur reports: "Sweden’s chief prosecutor Marianne Ny has ruled out questioning Julian Assange in London ahead of a court ruling in Sweden on whether to lift the warrant for his arrest, she stated on Wednesday. "This comes despite suggesting earlier this week that she was considering taking advantage of the offer made by Ecuador to facilitate the interview at its London embassy." An earlier report: Sweden’s chief prosecutor said on Tuesday she was seriously considering an invitation by the British government to question Julian Assange in London, before a court ruling in Sweden on whether to lift the warrant for his arrest. The Foreign Office said on Tuesday it would welcome a request by the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to question Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy and would be happy to facilitate such a move, which is seen by Assange’s lawyers as an important step towards breaking the deadlock surrounding the case.

Indigenous Communities Take Chevron To Court For ‘Crimes Against Humanity’

October 27, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Chevron, Ecuador, Indigenous Rights, Law

Chevron's repeated refusal to clean up its toxic contamination of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest constitutes an "attack" on civilian populations and should be investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, impacted indigenous and farming communities charged this week in a formal complaint (pdf) to the global body. “In the context of international criminal law, the decisions made by Chevron’s CEO, John Watson, have deliberately maintained—and contributed to—the polluted environment in which the people of the Oriente region of Ecuador live and die every day,” states the complaint, which was submitted to the ICC's Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Thursday on behalf of approximately 80 affected communities, totaling tens of thousands of people.

Julian Assange Calls Out Google As Corporate NSA

October 1, 2014 Ryan Grim and Sarah Harvard, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Ecuador, Edward Snowden, Google, Julian Assange, NSA, Surveillance

Julian Assange: "It's a duplicitous statement. It's a lawyerly statement. Eric Schmidt did not say that Google encrypts everything so that the US government can’t get at them. He said quite deliberately that Google has started to encrypt exchanges of information -- and that’s hardly true, but it has increased amount of encrypted exchanges. But Google has not been encrypting their storage information. Google’s whole business model is predicated on Google being able to access the vast reservoir of private information collected from billions of people each day. And if Google can access it, then of course the U.S. government has the legal right to access it, and that's what's been going on." As a result of the Snowden revelation, Google was caught out. It tried to pretend that those revelations were not valid, and when that failed, it started to engage in a public relations campaign to try and say that it wasn’t happy with what the National Security Agency was doing, and was fighting against it.

Ecuador Battles The Corporate Media, Strives For A Peoples Media

September 29, 2014 Important Cool, www.importantcool.com Educate! Ecuador, History, Media

From the revolution’s formative years to the present day, Ecuador’s corporate media has fought a rear-guard action in defence of the old system. When Rafael Correa first ran for the presidency in 2006, the media backed his opponent, Álvaro Noboa. As owner of thousands of hectares of banana plantations and the richest man in the country, his presidential candidacy spoke volumes of the banana republic status Ecuador had yet to leave behind. Noboa’s opinions on various matters continue to be printed as news by the corporate press today, after eight years of revolutionary government. Ecuador’s two biggest newspapers, El Comercio and El Universo, are hubs of right-wing analysis, debate, and strategy. These newspapers have been passed down since the days of the colonial elite, with El Comercio owned by the Mantilla family since 1906, and El Universo controlled by the Pérez family since 1922.

How Ecuador Threw Off The 1%

September 29, 2014 Important Cool, www.importantcool.com Educate! Capitalism, Ecuador, Human Rights, Julian Assange, Socialism

From being on the margins of the world, Ecuador was instantly at its centre when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sought asylum at its London Embassy in June, 2012. When on 16 August, 2012, he announced the decision to grant asylum, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño argued that “the extradition of Señor Assange to a country outside the European Union was feasible.” How had it come to pass that Ecuador, a nation of just 15 million people, could publicly denounce the human rights credibility of the U.S., the so-called leader of the free world? How could a nation with less personnel in its armed forces than the U.S. 7th Fleet possibly be poking the giant in the eye? The story of Ecuador and its capital, Quito, is a miraculous one that should inspire all those who want to believe that another world is possible. To tell it, we have to go right back to the beginning.

264 Military Buildings To Become Parks Or Hospitals In Ecuador

September 5, 2014 Telesur, www.telesurtv.net Create! Defense, Ecuador, Peace

Ecuador will reduce its military by 51 percent over the next ten years. Ecuadorean defense minister, Maria Fernanda Espinosa announced on Wednesday that the army´s 516 units will be reduced to 252, reported El Telegrafo. The measure aims to optimize Ecuador´s military presence nationally. “We know now what we have, how to maintain it, and what we need,” she explained to the press. She clarified that this will affect the three branches of the army and at least 600 hectares of urban spaces will be made available by 2025. This space is in addition to the 30,000 hectares of rural spaces already delivered by the army to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment for protection. Inmobiliar, the government institution in charge of managing public land, will assess and determine the future use of the lands. They could be converted into parks, or used for new schools, hospitals, centres for children, or community police units, but will not be for private use or real estate. In the south of Quito, the army base will be used for the presidency and other ministries.

How America Does Latin American Coups Now

August 10, 2014 Maurice Lemoine, www.alternet.org Educate! CIA, coup, Democracy, Ecuador

There is plenty of room for subtle psy-ops, including those where the participants don’t know they are participating, to manipulate or destabilise governments, or create negative images of them abroad. These go well beyond necessary criticism of policies. The much-used term “populism” belittles the sometimes considerable social advances made in the target countries, and their achievements in reducing poverty and redistributing wealth; these sovereign choices are called “irresponsible” and “incompatible with democracy.” Before the attempted coup against Chávez in Venezuela in 2002, public opinion was bombarded with rowdy headlines in El Nacional and El Universal — “Taliban in the National Assembly,” “Black October,” “Terrorists in Government” — and calls to overthrow the president.

Lift Assange Out Of Legal Limbo

June 19, 2014 Michael Ratner, www.usatoday.com Resist! Ecuador, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers, Wikileaks

A whistle-blower living in exile in Russia. A publisher seeking the asylum he has already been granted while his sources are imprisoned. This isn't the cast of a summer blockbuster. It's a perfect storm of real-life cases that make it clear that constitutional guarantees of a free press and government accountability are rhetorical devices, not political realities. The whistle-blower is Edward Snowden. This month marks the first anniversary of his disclosures of massive National Security Agency surveillance. The publisher is Julian Assange. Thursday marks two years since he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Meanwhile, two of Assange's sources, Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) and Jeremy Hammond, remain in prison for providing WikiLeaks with confidential documents. Manning, who exposed atrocities from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including evidence of U.S. war crimes, was sentenced to 35 years. Hammond is serving a 10-year sentence for hacking into the e-mails of a private intelligence company.

Ecuador Buen Conocer Summit Declaration

June 6, 2014 FLOK Society, www.buenconocer.org Create! Ecuador, Knowledge, Latin America, Manifesto, New Economy, Open Source

Table 1: Open Educational Resources Education is a common. It has to be open and free access, as a mean to maximize the participation of all people in social knowledge economy. When we talk about open education we talk not only about ICT. Access to educational resources (tangible and intangible) must be released under open licenses. Free access must be ensured distributing repositories via Internet, intranet or other means. Education systems must recognize learning by formal and informal experiences, at any stage of life. All work done with public funds should have open and free license and access. It is necessary to strengthen and create learning communities as a strategy for knowledge production and social economy. Table 2: Open Science Science should be accessible to everyone, being the requirement for open data, processes and results of scientific research and its management through free licenses and open protocols and formats, as well as construction of a collaborative scientific commons platforms, and knowledge banks repositories. Only in that way we can guarantee the development of human capabilities and access to resources, processes, and scientific results and also the transparency in the management of this aspects.

Chevron Shareholder Meeting Draws Protests

May 31, 2014 Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire, www.csrwire.com Resist! Chevron, Ecuador, pollution

Dozens of protesters including Ecuadorian indigenous and activists gathered outside the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, to ask Chevron to take responsibility for the widespread contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. The crowd, led by Humberto Piaguaje of the Secoya nation, and Robinson Yumbo of the Cofán nation from the affected communities, held banners and signs condemning Chevron’s refusal to remediate the pollution that its predecessor, Texaco, left in Ecuador after decades of operation in the country’s Amazon region. Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was found guilty and fined approximately $19 billion by an Ecuadorian court for polluting the rainforest. The decision was ratified by the country’s highest court but reduced the amount to $9.5 billion. The company refuses to pay and instead sued the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their lawyers under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was designed to combat organized crime.

The Injustice of Federal Judge Ruling For Chevron On Ecuador Oil Spill

March 6, 2014 Mark Karlin, www.Truth-Out.org Educate! Chevron, Ecuador, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Oil and Gas

...as Chevron dragged the case out -- stalling tactics are par for the course with oil companies, as also exemplified in the Exxon Valdez litigation -- Ecuadoreans elected a more populist president, Rafael Correa, who was sympathetic to the plight of the residents of Lago Agrio -- and less receptive to the alleged bribes and financial clout of Big Oil. Suddenly, Chevron was pleading its case in a court system that now had less of a built in bias toward US corporations. The Ecuadorean legal process had tilted unexpectedly toward justice for the impoverished with demonstrable grievances. As a result, Chevron gambled with the venue of the case and lost. In the end though, for global corporations that is not the end, it just necessitates kicking the case down the field and moving to another venue. As happens in the vast majority of such corporate manipulations of the law, it worked.

Correa Sells Ecuador To Gold Mining, Indigenous Vow Fight To Death

February 13, 2014 Alexander Zaitchik, www.salon.com Educate! Ecuador, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Mining

“Those who have organized against Correa’s policies have not fared well. If they’re lucky, they are merely harassed. More than 200 other non-violent activists end up in court and face serious jail time. ‘Like a dictator, everyone in government repeats his pro-development themes and slogans: Responsible mining, man over nature, Indians versus progress,’ said Fernanda Solis, a weary-eyed campaign coordinator for the Quito group Clinica Ambiental. ‘There is no independent judiciary. The three powers of government are acting with Correa and everyone knows it. Because Correa represents the left, opposing him opens you up to the charge of supporting the U.S., or the old right that bankrupted everyone. He’s betrayed the new constitution and proven himself a neoliberal with redistributive touches. He’s avoided pacts with the U.S. but has sold the country to China.’”

At the UN, A Latin American Rebellion

October 12, 2013 Laura Carlsen, www.fpif.org Educate! Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela

Without a doubt, the 68th UN General Assembly will be remembered as a watershed. Nations reached an agreement on control of chemical weapons that could avoid a global war in Syria. The volatile stalemate on the Iran nuclear program came a step closer to diplomacy. What failed to make the headlines, however, could have the longest-term significance of all: the Latin American rebellion. For Latin American leaders, this year’s UN general debate became a forum for widespread dissent and anger at U.S. policies that seek to control a hemisphere that has clear aspirations for greater independence. In a region long considered the United States’ primary zone of influence, Washington’s relations with many Latin American nations have gone from bad to worse under the Bush II and Obama administrations.

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