The people of Sarayaku, a community of around 2,000 indigenous Kichwa peoples in the central Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, do not consider television an important part of their culture. But they were certainly paying attention to television on September 21, when a statement made on the network Gamavision signaled yet another warning that their land and culture are in danger.
The words came from Ecuador's Minister of Energy and Mines, Eduardo Lopez. He stated that oil exploration in Sarayaku was of extreme importance to Ecuador, and that only four Sarayaku families were standing in the way of that exploration.
In fact, the Sarayaku and their advocates argue that nothing could be further from the truth.
"The Sarayaku have been consistent and united in their position," said Kenny Bruno, a campaign coordinator for EarthRights International, a non-profit that documents human rights and environmental abuses worldwide. That position, say Bruno and other advocates, is simple: the Sarayaku are opposed to oil drilling on their land, an area called "Block 23" in the parlance of government officials who've divided the Amazon up into "blocks" for oil concessions contracts. The Sarayaku believe these concessions are a threat to their livelihood and their culture.
The Minister's public statement prompted Sarayaku leadership to withdraw from meetings with the Ecuadorian government that had been taking place in the capital city, Quito. It is uncertain what possibility exists for a negotiated agreement between the Sarayaku and the Ecuadorian government in the future.
The suspension of talks was only the latest development in a long struggle over Amazon oil rights in Sarayaku. Oil makes up around forty percent of Ecuador's foreign exchange, and has been the primary means by which the government has tried to pay off its enormous foreign debt.
In effect, the Ecuadorian government signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that requires them to open the Amazon up for oil to help pay their debts. According to an optimistic 1999 study by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Energy and Mines, which was reported in the New York Times last year, the Ecuadorian Amazon could yield as much as 26 billion barrels in oil reserves, enough to rival Mexico and Nigeria.
In Block 23, an Argentinean company called Compañia General de Combustibles (CGC) stands to gain the most from the concessions, though the Houston-based Burlington Resources also won the bid for a portion of that block, along with other blocks in the Amazon. The United States, which already gets more oil from Latin America than the Middle East, stands to gain a lot from further access to the Amazon's potential reserves.
But Bruno says that Ecuador's oil boom in the late 1970s hasn't helped most Ecuadorians. Poverty amongst Ecuadorians has actually increased, he claims.
"It's been a disastrous path for the last 30 years," Bruno said.In the same Times article a year ago, Bruno was quoted as calling the battle over oil rights in Block 23 a possible "Waterloo" for the Ecuadorian government's battle for oil contracts. Nowhere has the battle over oil concessions between indigenous Ecuadorians and the government been more contentious than in Block 23.
The Sarayaku's case took off in 2000, when Sarayaku elder Sabino Gualinga came to New York City to look for help at the United Nations. He also contacted Ecuadorian-American Karen Marrero, who began helping him look for legal representation in the United States. The process was difficult, Marrero said, but they finally caught the attention of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and decided to take their case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The Inter-American Court is the commission's autonomous judicial institution, of which Ecuador is a member, that applies and interprets the American Convention on Human Rights. Because many Sarayaku claimed they were being harassed by oil companies and the Ecuadorian military (who were preparing for seismic testing in Block 23), CEJIL—along with lawyers based in Ecuador—made a case for the protection of their human rights to the Inter-American Court. In July of this year, they won.
That victory prompted the talks in Quito, which were supposed to show the Sarayaku that the government was concerned for their welfare. But Marrero says the television statement by Lopez erased what little trust the Sarayaku may still have had for the government.
If oil drilling begins in Block 23, Marrero said, "It will completely destroy [the Sarayaku] way of life." She added that unlike some other indigenous Kichwa in the area, the Sarayaku are unwilling to accept offers of financial compensation in return for oil contracts.
That's because the Sarayaku concerns aren't purely economic. They believe they share their Amazon homeland with spirits of the jungle.
"If the jungle is destroyed, the [spirits] will run away..." explained Marrero. "If that happens, how are they going to live?"
And so despite the possibility of new jobs that would come with oil development, which has enticed at least some indigenous peoples in the area, the Sarayaku remain opposed to the concessions.
"Oil would be the end of their traditions, their culture, and their environment as they know it," Bruno said. Both access roads and the drilling developments would significantly damage the forest, Bruno explained, something the Sarayaku have observed in the northern regions of the Ecuadorian Amazon and are anxious to avoid.
Compared with the prospect of jobs, this destruction isn't worth it.
"They don't want to be day laborers," Bruno said.
