''In the name of the indigenous people of the Ecuadorean
Amazon, we demand that the government suspend the seventh round
of bidding and declare a 15-year moratorium,'' said leader Rafael
Pandam.
The vice president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations
of Ecuador also called for the formation of a United Nations
mediation panel and an independent team of scientists to
investigate human rights violations and environmental
destruction.
The dumping of toxic waste in the Amazon sparked a lawsuit in
the New York courts against the US oil company, Texaco, which
recently ceded its exploration rights to other companies.
The report on the human consequences of petroleum exploration
in the Ecuadorean Amazon was prepared by the Centre for Economic
and Social Rights, and was delivered to the Ecuadorean embassy in
Washington after having been presented to the press.
Dr. Sarah Zaidi, director of health and development at the
Centre, explained that an in-situ evaluation found accumulations
of toxic substances in the water at concentrations far higher
than the maximum levels tolerated in the United States.
The substances found in water used for fishing, bathing and
human consumption could have carcinogenic effects and produce
birth defects.
Despite the limited nature of the one-week study, Dr Zaidi
said that reported cases of dermatitis and other skin diseases
are associated with hydrocarbon pollutants.
Pandam confirmed that increased rates of cancer, miscarriages
and birth defects have been recorded among the indigenous
communities, which he believes are directly related to the toxic
waste dumped in the Amazon.
The report estimates that 120 billion litres of toxic waste
have been dumped in the Ecuadorean Amazon region without the
necessary protective measures.
Pandam blamed the Ecuadorean government for the situation,
which he says was caused by a lack of effective regulation.
He said that far from complying with a constitutional
requirement to safeguard the environment, the government had
''created confusing and ambiguous laws with weak environmental
regulations.''
Pandam addded that ''for the (Ecuadorean) government, the
indigenous people do not exist, they consider our territories to
be wastelands.''
Roger Normand, a lawyer for the Centre for Economic and Social
Rights, said the report would be included as part of the legal
complaint against Texaco, as it is the first study of dumping in
the Amazon.
Both the Ecuadorean government and the oil companies are being
asked to carry out in-depth studies of the health consequences of
toxic waste on local residents, including possible links with
cancer and birth defects.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Comments from NativeNet moderator, Gary Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us):
An article by Joe Kane, the author of the following piece, entitled
"Moi Goes to Washington" (about Huaorani Indians' battle against
American petroleum interests that have begun drilling for two hundred
million barrels of raw crude under their lands) appears in the _New
Yorker_ magazine dated 2 May 1994:
/** iearn.fp: 45.0 **/
** Topic: Amazon Article Exerpt **
** Written 11:57 am Nov 11, 1993 by Leids@walkabout.igc.apc.org
in cdp:iearn.fp **
Magazine: The New Yorker
Issue: September 27, 1993
Title: LETTER FROM THE AMAZON With Spears from All Sides
Author: Joe Kane
Oil companies, missionaries, and environmental activists all tried to dictate
the fate of Ecuador's ancient Huaorani tribe. So the tribe decided to fight
for itself.
The four Huaorani hardly resembled the hotel's photographs. They wore
spotless denim jeans, brightly shined plastic loafers, and bleached white
cotton shirts. The first man I spoke with sometimes went by the name
Eugenio, because he found it convenient to use a Latin name when he was
visiting a foreign country, which is what he considered Ecuador to be. But
if you looked closely when he smiled you could catch the candlelight glinting
off his left front tooth, which had been inlaid with gold in the shape of an
A. This was for Amo, his Huao name.
The man next to him, Enqueri, had no front teeth--he had hardly any
upper teeth at all--and he was wearing a pair of headphones that appeared to
be plugged into his right hip pocket. When I asked him what he was listening
to, he replied in a tone so solemn I was sure I'd committed a horrible breach
of Huao etiquette. "I am listening to my pants," he said. He let that hang
for a moment, and then he and Amo collapsed with laughter, rolling on the
ground and cackling wildly.
"To your pants!" Amo gasped. "What do they say?"
"They say, `Wash me, you moron!'"
The other two men, whose names were Nanto and Moi, sat with their arms
around each other's shoulders. Nanto told me that to reach Coca they had
travelled by foot, canoe, and truck for three days. They had been in town
five days, and had not eaten since they arrived. They had come to Coca to
find the Company--the Huao name for all petroleum interests. The Company was
going to drill oil wells inside the Huao territory, and build new roads, and
the Huaorani did not want this. Nanto was going to tell the Company to stay
out. He had the authority to do so, he said, because he was president of the
Huaorani federation, which was called--here he rolled his eyes up into his
head, searching for the name.
"The Organization of the Huaorani Nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon," Moi
said. Like the others, Moi had thick black hair cut long in back and
straight across his eyes; unlike the others, he wore a crown of toucan
feathers, and he didn't smile. Moi, Amo, and Enqueri were ONHAE's
vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, respectively. All were in their
mid-twenties, though there was some disagreement on just where in his
mid-twenties Enqueri was; and they had been elected by their people (there
are about fifteen hundred Huaorani) to speak to the cowode--the cannibals,
who included the missionaries, the Company, me, and everyone else on earth.
This reaching out was an extraordinary step for the Huaorani, who until
the middle of this century were almost completely isolated from the world
beyond their territory. (Their language is unrelated to any other in the
Amazon, but some of the younger men now speak and are literate in Spanish.)
These, however, were extraordinary times. In the heart of the Huao homeland,
the Company had found oil reserves it estimated at two hundred and sixteen
million barrels. It was about to begin constructing a ninety-mile access
road, a hundred and fifty miles of service roads, and a pipeline, and
drilling a hundred and twenty wells.
None of the projected two billion dollars in revenues would be shared
with the Huaorani; under Ecuadorian law, the state retains all subsurface
mineral rights. But from the Huao point of view, at least, money wasn't the
issue. The issue was survival. Oil development in the Oriente is virtually
unregulated, and it has been an environmental disaster, dumping millions of
gallons of untreated contaminants into the watershed every day and opening
the area up to such rapid and uncontrolled colonization that by some
estimates it will be completely deforested early in the new century. The
consequences have been borne most heavily by the Oriente's two hundred
thousand indigenous people. To understand what looms for the Huaorani, one
need look but a hundred miles north, to the Cofan. The Cofan were a small
but thriving nation in 1967, when Texaco drilled its first exploration well
in their homeland; today, their culture has almost completely disintegrated.
It is likely, in other words, that the Huaorani will be wiped out for
the sake of enough oil to meet United States energy needs for thirteen days.
However, the Ecuadorian government, which has a huge international debt,
depends on oil production for nearly half its revenues, and it has outlawed
any attempt by the Huaorani to impede the Company. In any case, ONHAE, from
what I gathered, had no office, no phone, and no money. What, I asked, did
the Huaorani propose to do?
It was Moi who answered, softly but without hesitation. "We will find
the Company and talk to them," he said. "If they don't listen, we will
attack with spears from all sides."
-end of excerpt-
** End of text from cdp:iearn.fp **