Ecuador: 1 dead, at least 49 wounded in protest

[Bacchus39]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_ecuador_indian_protest

Ecuador: 1 dead, at least 49 wounded in protest

QUITO, Ecuador – Police clashed with Amazon Indians protesting proposed water, oil and mining laws Wednesday, leaving one Indian dead and 40 police and nine Indians wounded, Ecuadorean officials said. Indians said two civilians were killed.

The clash took place on the Upano River in Ecuador's southeastern Morona Santiago jungle province where Indian groups have been blocking roads this week.

President Rafael Correa blamed the Indians for the bloodshed and repeated his call for dialogue to resolve Indians' complains about the legislation..

"Tremendously violent groups armed with shotguns and rifles waited for police and received them with gunshots," Correa said in a late news conference. "For this violent act we today must lament the death of a brother Ecuadorean."

Correa said an autopsy showed the Indian who died was shot in the head with a pellet often used by jungle hunters.

Government Minister Gustavo Jalkh said earlier that the wounded police had been hit with pellets. He said police used "progressive force" to clear a highway blockade, but denied they fired guns.

Ecuador's Amazon Indian federation, CONFENAIE, said in a communique that two Shuar Indians were killed and nine wounded by gunshots in the clash. They did not identify the Indians.

Ecuadorean Indians have blocked highways since Monday to protest the laws. The powerful national Indian confederation, CONAIE, called off the protests the same day amid limited turnout across five provinces, but regional Amazon Indian groups continued the blockades.

Correa met with Indian groups earlier Wednesday, though the top Indian confederation did not attend. After eight hours, Indian groups broke off the talks and denounced what they called government repression.

"We declare ourselves in permanent mobilization," Humberto Cholango, a Shuar Indian leader, said at a news conference blaming Correa for Wednesday's violence.

Across the Andean region, Indians are fighting left- and right-wing governments that are pushing ambitious oil and mining-led development plans.

In Peru, a government crackdown at an Amazon highway blockade left at least 23 police and 10 Indians dead in June. The Indians were protesting a packet of pro-investment decrees issued by Peru's conservative government to open their ancestral lands to oil and mining projects.

There also have been sporadic clashes in Chile, where the country's largest Indian tribe is pressing demands for political autonomy by occupying farmland and burning farm machinery.

In Ecuador, CONAIE split with Correa when he refused to grant Indians the right to veto concessions granted to companies exploiting natural resources on their lands under a constitution approved last year.

Indian groups say the proposed laws they are opposing threaten their lands and will privatize water resources. Correa says he has no plans to privatize water resources.

The laws are expected to be passed by the National Assembly, controlled by Correa's party and its allies.

So far, this week's disjointed mobilization has paled in comparison to previous CONAIE protests that helped oust Ecuadorean presidents in 2000 and 2005.

[Peace Patriot]

1. CONAIE did not "split with Correa" over this Constitutional issue.

They voted FOR Correa AND for the Constitution. They endorsed both. (The Constitution won a national vote with nearly 70% of the voters.) But they did object to the indigenous being granted only "consultation" rights over resource extraction projects, and not veto power over them. Correa said, re this issue, that Ecuador's resources belong to all Ecuadorans, not just the indigenous, and that the country requires use of their resources to alleviate poverty.

I am extremely sad and outraged to read of this violence against the indigenous. And if Rafael Correa is responsible for it, he should be held accountable. He has otherwise been an excellent president*.

I am also struck by the detailed reporting of this conflict between the indigenous and a leftist government in Ecuador, and the lack of reporting--let alone detailed reporting--of a much worse conflict in Peru, which has a very corrupt, rightwing "free trade" government, and where hundreds have been killed, and in fascist Colombia, where thousands have been killed. Gee, you think the Associated Pukes might be promoting a corpo/fascist "divide and conquer" strategy in countries with leftist presidents?

Naw, couldn't be. They're just "giving us the facts," right?

:sarcasm:

--------------------

*(And I should note that he has had problems with the Ecuadoran military. Don't know if that is part of this situation--the military open-firing on the indigenous in order to embarrass Correa and his government and incite destabilization. Ecuador is part of a trio of resource-rich countries--Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador--which are the main targets of corpo/fascist plotters there, and here. Correa just evicted the US military from its base in Manta, Ecuador, which makes him even more of a target. Ecuador's main oil region is adjacent to Colombia--recipient of $6 BILLION in US military aid, paid for by you and me, and where seven new US military bases are going to be established. Venezuela's main oil region is adjacent to Colombia to the north. We need more information to determine whether or not elements in Ecuador's military instigated this repression on their own. It's more than possible. It is likely. Correa has been a defender of the indigenous--he speaks the indigenous language--in their lawsuit against Chevron-Texaco over the huge toxic spill in parts of the Amazon forest. And the Dark Lords have tried every trick in the book to demonize him and get him out of office, including calling him a "terrorist" after the US/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador last year, which killed 25 sleeping people--suspected FARC guerrillas-- without benefit of trial.)

[Bacchus39]

2. I recall the stories about the conflict in Peru as it was happening

The first I heard about the Ecuador killing was last night. Peru's conflict was about 3 months ago.

news organizations typically report new news and not old news. So that is why you are hearing about a killing in Ecuador that occurred yesterday rather than a conflict in Peru that is several months old, or why you aren't hearing stories anymore about the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

so I think I can dismiss your conspiracy theory, and offer an alternative. You, and others, simply do not like to see stories that may reflect negatively on allies of Chavez. or perhaps you actually believe that where there is a country who has a leader who you like philosophically, bad things actually can not happen in those countries.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Global Exchange dismantles the corpo/fascist 'news' reports on Peru's massive violence against

the indigenous, including highly biased reports by the L.A. Times and the N.Y. Times. But first, a simple example, re the number of casualties...

"Details of the hostility and resulting violence, including death counts, are highly disputed and vary greatly from source to source. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Garcia Belaunde, claimed that 24 police officers and nine protestors had died, while Amnesty International reported that 22 policemen and 30 demonstrators had fallen. These tragic consequences were the result of a police offensive to disperse a demonstration and resulting road block that had been allowed to last nearly two months. Since 1990, mounting tensions could be seen between the indigenous and the authorities in Lima after multinational corporations were granted access to pursue oil drilling, gas exploration, hydroelectric damming and logging throughout the Amazon."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0906/S00199.htm

This number--22 police, 9 demonstrators dead--from "the Minister of Foreign Affairs," was repeated in every corpo/fascist 'news' story and never corrected. Amnesty International is a far more reliable source than a 'free trade' "Minister of Foreign Affairs," yet their number--22 police and 30 protestors--somehow never got out there. But it gets worse. The entire framing of the story was wrong. Here is a detailed analysis of how the bloodshed of the "free trade for the rich" Peruvian government of Alan Garcia is exonerated by the corpo/fascist press, in service to multinational dragons like Occidential Petroleum. Compare and contrast to their treatment of Rafael Correa in an event with far fewer casualties (one).

-------

From Global Exchange...

At about 6 am on June 5, the police attacked the indigenous peoples' highway blockade, ignoring their pleas for dialogue and opening fire with automatic weapons on two sides of the blockade and firing teargas grenades and live rounds from helicopters. The protesters were unarmed or carrying traditional wooden spears. Many fled into the surrounding hillsides and became trapped. Many hid. And some fought back in self-defense.

The government reports that 22 police officers have been killed; indigenous representatives report that at least 40 protesters have been killed by police gunfire and that over 150 are missing or being detained by police.

However the government report on the number of police killed -- widely circulated by the media--deliberately conflates conflicts in two distinct locations that took place on different days, adding to the Bagua count, deaths that occurred the following day during a police operation to reclaim an occupied oil pumping station.

The order of events is important for it determines the chain of responsibility. When police surround and attack from land and air using live rounds on a group of peaceful protesters the responsibility for violence is clearly on the aggressors and their unjustifiable and disproportionate use of force.

The initial press reports however preferred to report on generic "clashes" and thus fold the responsibility for bloodshed into what would seem to be an authorless or inexplicable confrontation.

With the authorship of violence obscured, the citations of government speculation and slander coupled with a failure to even engage with the indigenous participants' perspective, serves to insinuate the old colonial stereotype of "uncivilized" and "barbarous" "Indians" and to subtly displace the responsibility for violence on those who suffered the attack.

The Los Angeles Times article, "Insurgents threaten Peru's Stability" (published online on June 5 at 6:30 pm, headline subsequently changed) illustrates the problem. The headline represents protesters engaged in a two-month long campaign of non-violent civil disobedience as "insurgents" and claims that they are the ones "threatening" Peru, rather than defending their ancestral and communal lands.

The article opens with the following declaration: "Protests by indigenous communities over oil drilling and mining in the Peruvian Amazon region turned violent Friday, leaving at least 13 people dead in clashes with police and subsequent rioting."

The Los Angeles Times here presents the violence as a continuation of the protests themselves ("Protests... turned violent") and then describes the predawn police raid as "clashes with police" and even adds the unexplained claim of "subsequent rioting." No other news report from June 5 or since has described riots. Thus "subsequent rioting" must be left hanging there to describe the chaos of indigenous protesters running from gunfire, local residents taking to the streets outraged by the repression, and people fighting back in self-defense.

In the chaos some non-indigenous and mestizo townspeople burned government offices and vehicles. The Los Angeles Times however, conflates the protest blockade on the road, the police attack and the subsequent acts of property destruction altogether in "clashes" and "rioting."

The Los Angeles Times article is somewhat conflicting however, for eight paragraphs down the reporters write: "The clash between protesters and security forces occurred after the government sent 650 police to clear protesters..." Here the reporters hint at police culpability, but only hint, for they fail to mention that the act of "clearing" the protesters involved shooting at them from land and air.

Other initial reports in The New York Times ("Fatal Clashes Erupt in Peru at Roadblock," June 6) and Reuters ("At least 20 dead in Peru clash over Amazon resources," June 5) described the violence as generic "clashes" with police, though they cited early on indigenous testimony of the police attack.

(SNIP)

The New York Times article also leaves out the necessary context and trivializes the indigenous demands as "the government's failure to involve them in their plans."

The article also quotes critics who "pointed out the potential" that the indigenous could link to the Shining Path and "speculated" that Venezuela and Bolivia were behind the protests. Such "potential" and "speculation" are not only inaccurate; they conjure up fear and doubt that only serve to denigrate the indigenous peoples' autonomous protests. The New York Times did not include quotes from indigenous organizations that have pointed out the potential for a policy of genocide against the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

The Amazonian indigenous peoples' mobilizations have been peaceful, locally coordinated, and extremely well organized for nearly two months. Yet President Alan Garcia insists on calling them terrorist acts and anti-democratic. Appealing dangerously to underlying racism against indigenous peoples, Garcia has even gone so far as to describe their mobilizations as "savage and barbaric."

The media have widely reported Garcia's vague and insidious attempts to link the autonomous indigenous protests with the Shinning Path and unnamed South American governments (undoubtedly those of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa) without including critical commentary.

"It is unfortunate that President Garcia has invoked the terrifying history of the Shining Path to describe what happened," Robin Kirk wrote in an email response to questions. Kirk is the author of The Monkey's Paw: New Chronicles from Peru and co-editor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics; she reported extensively on the Shining Path in the early 1990s and is now the director of the Duke Human Rights Center at Duke University.

"There is no credible information showing that such ties exist; to the contrary, these groups have a long and well-documented history of independence regarding their geographic, political and cultural heritage," Kirk wrote, "To link them even indirectly to the Shining Path only serves to obscure and confuse issues which the government must try to solve in peaceful and productive ways. At a time when the government should be investigating what happened and seeking to calm the waters, this kind of language only inflames the situation."

The initial media response to the violence obscured the order and nature of events and thus the responsibility for violence, converting a bloody police raid into generic "clashes." The Peruvian government has in turn attempted to recast state violence as the necessary response to "terrorism" with insidious speculative claims linking the indigenous protesters with an array of demonized outsiders, and the media have largely lent the government a hand in this task by widely and uncritically reporting their insinuations and slander.

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/Peru/6219.html

--------------------------------------

Note that the Associated Pukes article (the OP) repeats the Peruvian government's numbers, although granting one more indigenous death--22 police, 10 protestors dead--in the course of comparing Rafael Correa's situation with Alan Garcia's--even after the Amnesty International report that 30 protestors were killed in Peru (and indigenous reports of 40, with 150 missing or 'detained'). They continue to misrepresent the Peruvian event and ignore far more reliable facts than those provided by the Peruvian government, long after the event.

This kind of reporting by our corpo/fascist press--in which the real story is either entirely blackholed (not reported) or so twisted that it might as well be from "Alice in Wonderland," and in which the facts are WRONG or turned upside down--if we analyze it, the way Global Exchange has done here, helps prepare us for this Associated Pukes story (the OP) in which a corrupt and viciously murderous, rightwing racist fuckwad like Alan Garcia is made to seem equivalent to Rafael Correa, a leftist president with provable sympathies with, and concrete achievements for, the indigenous. Prior to Correa, the indigenous were non-persons in Ecuador. They had no right of consultation on resource projects. Correa fought for and won a Constitution that not only acknowledges indigenous rights (short of a veto over resource projects), it enshrines the right of Mother Nature herself ("Pachamama" in the indigenous) to exist and prosper apart from human needs and desires--a first in the world.

The indigenous want more--and it is their right to seek more, and, indeed, it is probably best if they get more, since they are far superior stewards of the land to anyone else--but Correa is president of all of the people, and feels that he cannot just cordon off Ecuador's rich resources as the purview of the indigenous and no one else.

The conflict in Ecuador is tragic, in that there are good people on both sides, each with good motives and good arguments. That one person died is tragic (note: the indigenous groups say two died), and of course accountability for that death (or the two deaths) must be pursued. But it does not even remotely resemble the conflict in Peru--despite the superficial resemblance of the indigenous vs mining/logging projects. The Peruvian state is extremely corrupt, and is using highly sophisticated weapons paid for by the USA (in the infamous "war on drugs")--such as gunboat helicopters--to mow down the indigenous. Correa has banished the US "war on drugs." He just threw the US military out of Ecuador! He is a good guy. Alan Garcia is NOT.

They conflate these two situations, thusly: "Across the Andean region, Indians are fighting left- and right-wing governments that are pushing ambitious oil and mining-led development plans."

This is simply NOT TRUE "across the Andean region." Indians are WORKING WITH leftist governments in every other leftist country where these issues have arisen--in Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay--and have indeed been working with Ecuador's very sympathetic leftist government up to this point, including Rafael Correa's strong backing of the indigenous in their lawsuit against Chevron-Texaco. Correa's conflict with CONAIE is the ONLY indigenous conflict of any significance, with a leftist government in the Andean region! When Venezuela's indigenous objected to a mining project, Chavez shut the project down. Evo Morales IS indigenous (100%) and indeed is the great liberator of the indigenous on all of their rights. Paraguay's Fernando Lugo was fighting toxic pesticide spraying of indigenous farm workers long before he was elected president. To equate the right and left on this issue is absurd, unfactual and wrong. And this--and the sorry history of AP and other corpo/fascist reporting on all leftist leaders and issues in Latin America--make this article highly suspect in all of its assertions.

I am NOT apologizing for violence against the indigenous in Ecuador--if it was unjustified--nor for any part Correa may have played in the result (one or two killed, nine wounded). I am saying, a) I don't trust the report, and b) the report is obviously biased against the left (from a 'news' organization that is notoriously biased against the left). I am also saying--with Global Exchange--that the reporting on Garcia's massive violence against the indigenous (including outright slaughter and martial law) was treated very differently, so as to exonerate Garcia and his storm troopers.

I have not liked Correa's tendency--nor Lula da Silva's in Brazil--to sacrifice the environment for short term economic gains. But neither of these leaders is ill-intentioned, as far as I can see. And Alan Garcia is. So are the fascist death squadders in Colombia. There is no comparison. A political protest in which one or two protestors are killed--in circumstances that are not yet clear--is far different from the systematic extermination of indigenous farmers by the Colombia military or the vicious repression of the Peruvian government which has begun to resemble that in Colombia.