BUENOS AIRES, Nov 9 (IPS) - Buenos Aires has unexpectedly become the new stage for a long-standing battle between an Argentine oil company and an Ecuadorian indigenous community fighting to defend its ancestral land rights in the Amazon rainforest. 

Representatives of the Kichwa community of Sarayaku have come to the Argentine capital to call on President Néstor Kirchner to intervene in the conflict. 

"Our people's future is threatened. We are living in a constant state of fear," Marlon Santi, a community leader from Sarayaku, told IPS. 

During a protest at the Coca airport last week, 50 indigenous people from the Siona, Huaorani, Cofan, and Shuar groups demanded that Texaco pay $6 billion to clean up half a million hectares of land polluted by former oil productions. Representatives for Texaco said they had spent $40 million already and did not intend to spend more.

On January 25, the Sarayacu community in the Ecuadorian Amazon declared a state of emergency to defend their territories and stop exploration and exploitation of their lands by the Argentina General Fuel Company (CGS). As part of the declaration, the Sarayacu have created 25 Peace and Life Camps, each comprised of 150 members. The action comes in the wake of President Lucio Gutiérrez’s statement last week that CGS oil projects would continue in the area.

Sarayaku President Marlon Santi met with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington to discuss a recent battle between the Sarayaku and the Argentine oil company CGC. CGC has announced plans to drill on traditional land against indigenous wishes but with the complete support of the Ecuadorian Government.

The Sarayacu of Ecuador recently met with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (OAS) to present evidence of the Ecuadorian government’s human rights violations. They are accused of not complying with the OAS’s precautionary measures that were enacted to protect the Sarayacu.

ChevronTexaco Oil Company (CGC) will continue seismic operations in Sarayacu territory against the wishes of the Kichwa of Sarayacu. Spokespersons for the Kichwa say that allowing CGC to drill is a violation of their human rights. The Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez supports oil operations on Kichwa land.

During a meeting last week attended by over 400 hundred indigenous Ecuadorians, the Kichwas restated their objection to oil operations on their land. The community will present a new demand to the Ecuadorian Government to maintain the petroleum block on Sarayacu land.

Indigenous leaders from the Achuar, Shuar, and Zapara peoples have been staging protests outside the international headquarters of Burlington Resources in unified opposition to the company’s oil exploration and extraction policies in their territories. Purchaser of the oil concession referred to as Block 24, Burlington Resources owns blocks in the primary rainforest of the southern Ecuadorian Amazon, overlapping with the ancestral territories of the Achuar, Shuar, and Quichua peoples.

The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights issued an order of precautionary measures in favor of the Sarayacu indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The Commission ordered the Ecuadorian government to put in place all the necessary measures to protect the life, safety, and territories of the Sarayacu people. 

On April 10, the Specialized Commission of Human Rights of the National Congress of Ecuador decided to officially visit certain territories, including Sarayacu, to investigate allegations by indigenous leaders against CGC and other oil companies. The principal objectives of this visit are the gathering of testimony from inhabitants of Sarayacu and inspection of areas where CGC has been active, and accused of violating the human rights of the local Kichwa people. This visit will take place on April 25, and a report regarding the situation in the region will follow.

Sarayacu community leaders, who continue to oppose the entry of oil companies onto their land, are now threatened by an order to "locate and detain" them, apparently from the Presidential office of Ecuador. They claim they face trumped-up charges of taking hostages, theft, and the destruction of goods. This order means that at any time leaders can be detained and kept in jail until the end of lawsuits between Sarayacu and CGC Oil Company.

Communications on the morning of March 22, 2003 from the Shell company’s security agents are reported as suggesting that the dispute over seismic oil testing on Sarayacu territory will be resolved in 15 days or the oil company will enter by military force. The military entered the Shaimi and Montalvo area of the Sarayacu territory, and the Kichwa say that they desperately need moral and financial support to help them mobilize against the illicit incursions.