IN BRIEF
ECUADOR: OIL STRIKE IN THE AMAZON A major strike in ecuador’s main oil-producing provinces in August dealt a heavy blow to multinational oil corporations operating in the country, sending a stern...
...Thomas Rivera Schatz, president of the conservative New Progressive Party (PNP), which calls for official Puerto Rican statehood, said, “The agents who participated in this disgraceful incident have managed to destroy the image of the U.S...
...Ojeda Ríos was a leader of the pro-independence rebel group Boricua Popular Army (ERP, the Macheteros or cane cutters...
...Palacio has been pulled in two opposite directions since he assumed power after the ouster of President Lucio Gutiérrez last April...
...He was arrested in 1985 in connection with the 1983 robbery of $7.2 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut...
...The FBI didn’t confirm Ojeda Ríos’ death until late on September 24...
...Violent confrontations between the military and protesters led to several injuries and arrests...
...The strike was called off on August 21 when the government agreed to release some of the leaders from jail with the caveat that they negotiate their demands with the government...
...On the other hand, the government is under tremendous pressure to make payments on its $26 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other financial institutions...
...Protesters also demanded the improvement of local infrastructure such as roads and electricity, the construction of medical service centers and immunity from prosecution for leaders of the mobilizations...
...At the negotiations, which included government and oil company representatives, negotiators acceded to all the protesters’ demands except the expulsion of the multinationals...
...But the President has also pushed out more than 90 members of his Administration in just five months in office, leading critics of the government to accuse Palacio of purging only leftwing cabinet members and other top officials as the government enters the final stages of debt negotiations with the IMF and trade talks over the U.S.-backed Andean Free Trade Agreement...
...Fraticelli said the agents were unsure whether there were explosives in the house and waited for explosives experts to arrive from Virginia before finally searching the building...
...Neighbors reported that helicopters were used in the operation...
...They reportedly found Ojeda Ríos’ body lying face down, armed only with a pistol...
...Palacio declared a state of siege on August 17 and brought in the military to retake some of the installations and put down the protests...
...the FBI reportedly refused because the nationalist asked for an unidentified reporter to be present—as a mediator, according to one source...
...The ensuing talks lasted nine days...
...According to Amazon Watch, an advocate for environmental and indigenous rights, between 1964 and 1992 Texaco (now owned by Chevron) “dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste directly into the rainforest...
...Outrage over the killing cut across the political spectrum in Puerto Rico...
...The strike cut Ecuador’s oil production in half and cost the government an estimated $180 million...
...Ojeda Ríos was released on bail in 1988, but in 1990 he cut off an electronic monitoring bracelet and went underground...
...About 20 FBI agents had staked out the house since September 20 before closing in on Ojeda Ríos...
...The resulting ecological disaster has reportedly affected some 30,000 people...
...Fraticelli admitted that Ojeda Ríos had offered to negotiate...
...The residents of Sucumbíos and Orellana have a long-standing list of grievances against big oil...
...Pro-statehood strategist Oreste Ramos called the killing an “immoral act” and “ murder...
...Fraticelli claimed one agent was wounded...
...With the backing of the provinces’ regional and local governments, protesters blockaded roads leading to oil fields, dynamited pipelines, disabled pumps belonging to the state firm PetroEcuador, seized two regional airports and took control of oil wells...
...The organization estimates this to be 30 times the amount of pure crude that was spilled by the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989...
...In 1990 a U.S...
...The August 13 strike, led by residents of the northeastern Amazonian provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana, successfully crippled Ecuador’s oil industry, forcing both the notoriously oil-friendly national government and the foreign oil companies to capitulate to many of the protesters’ demands...
...ECUADOR: OIL STRIKE IN THE AMAZON A major strike in ecuador’s main oil-producing provinces in August dealt a heavy blow to multinational oil corporations operating in the country, sending a stern message to the hobbling government of President Alfredo Palacio...
...court convicted him in absentia for robbery, conspiracy and transportation of stolen money and sentenced him to 55 years in prison...
...We went to arrest him, but when the gunfire started we had to defend ourselves...
...The case will likely drag on until early 2007...
...He opened the front door of his house and opened fire on the agents,” Luis Fraticelli, special agent in charge of the FBI in Puerto Rico, told a press conference the next day...
...PUERTO RICO: FBI KILLS MACHETERO LEADER Agents of the U.S...
...Alexis Ponce of Ecuador’s Permanent Assembly of Human Rights (APDH) told a reporter: “It seems the interests of those in economic power are stronger than the government’s desire for independence and sovereignty...
...government with the Puerto Rican people...
...Citing record oil prices, Palacio called for a renegotiation of foreign oil contracts, saying the 20% of profits now received by the government should be raised to 50...
...Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá—whose Popular Democratic Party (PPD) supports continuing the island’s current status as a “free associated state”—criticized the FBI for refusing to provide information about the death until September 24 and said Puerto Rican authorities would investigate whether the killing could have been prevented...
...And according to an Amazon Watch press release, “Several studies published in peer-reviewed journals have demonstrated skyrocketing cancer rates and other health problems in the area...
...After 10 years of wrangling between the United States and Ecuador, an Ecuadoran court is hearing a class action lawsuit against Chevron...
...Given that Palacio has no political party affiliation and no base of support, he has little room to maneuver...
...In the aftermath of the August unrest, Palacio has continued to give mixed signals...
...The government agreed to allocate 66% of local oil income tax revenues directly to the Sucumbíos and Orellana governments, while the oil companies agreed to hire 80% of their workforce locally and to pave 162 miles of roads in the two provinces...
...Ecuadorans have repeatedly demanded that the president abandon the neoliberal economic policies that proved so unpopular under the previous government...
...Court reports indicate that out of 105 water samples brought by both sides in the case, 98% contain levels of toxins and poisons that exceed the country’s lax environmental laws...
...Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shot dead fugitive Puerto Rican nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos on September 23 at a farmhouse in the western town of Hormigueros...
...The most contentious demand of the protests was the expulsion of the two major foreign energy companies in the region: Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and EnCana, a Canadian firm...
Vol. 39 • November 2005 • No. 3
