Globalization in Ecuador

Globalization in Ecuador
by James Ficklin, Quito Ecuador, Jan 7, 2005

The situation here in Ecuador is dire. Oil drilling and road building are about to begin in the world's most biodiverse rainforest, in the northwest Amazon - in the heart of Yasuni National Park, along the Tiputini River in Ecuador. Yasuni seems to be a National Park in name only. There has already been one road built through it by a Texas oil company called Maxus, 12 years ago. This is the ancestral territory of the Huarani Indians, once the most fierce and feared of Amazon tribes, who have since been culturally decimated by American Evangelists (funded by Rockefellor grant money) & Catholic missionaries who have historically worked hand in hand with oil companies. The companies needed to pacify the "savage" Indians before stealing their land and contaminating their water. (See Joe Kane´s book "Savages" published by Knopf) Nelson Rockefellor and Standard Oil figured out this scheme over a half century ago. ( See "Thy Will Be Done, the Conquest of the Amazon" by Colby & Dennett, HarperCollins)

After 32 years of oil exploitation, and even longer of missionaries and corporate globalization disguised as “development”, this country is rampant with despair, poverty and pollution. There is plenty of graffiti in the capitol city of Quito denouncing the current Andean free trade agreement called "TLC", for TRATADO DE LIBRE COMERCIO or “Free Trade Agreement”, between the US, Ecuador, Peru, and Columbia. My favorite spray painted message that is common here says: " menos TLC - mas THC" (less TLC - more THC) Thanks to massive protests against the FTAA (or ALCA in Spanish) in Quebec, Quito and most recently Miami, The corporatocracy has changed strategy and has come up with smaller, regional free trade agreements instead of the hemisphere–wide scope of FTAA or ALCA. CAFTA was another example of this. For an Ecuadoran analysis of the TLC (en Espanol) see: http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/12/7421.shtml.

The TLC would further the global corporate empire, or "corporatocracy" as John Perkins calls it in his recent bestseller "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". Perkins should know, he was one of the main empire builders who negotiated massive development loans to countries such as Ecuador, Indonesia, Panama, Iran and Columbia. see http://www.JohnPerkins.org The purpose of these loans was, and is still, twofold. First off, the loans enrich American corporations such as Bechtel, Haliburton and others, who win giant construction contracts to build dams, pipelines, roads and electrical power grids, all paid for by World Bank, IMF, or USAID loans, whereby the money is transfered from the Washington DC based development banks, straight into the US corporations bank account, often without even leaving DC.

The developing country then is saddled with debt, while only seeing a small percent of the cash (which is meant to pay-off the corruptible leaders of that country.) So the second purpose is simply to enslave the poor country in massive debt. Since the loans are so large, they are never expected to pay them off. The whole idea is to thereby gain access and ultimate control of the countries resources, as well as their economy and government policy.

Most leaders of Ecuador have happily taken the generous international bank loan/ bribes and allowed the corporations to have their way in the Amazon, some have even taken the money with them into exile in Panama and Miami. One president in the early 80’s, Jaime Roldós, who failed to accept the lucrative bribes/loans, and actually attempted regulate the oil companies, kick out the missionaries and help the poor; was mysteriously killed in a fiery helicopter explosion that was widely blamed on the CIA. John Perkins explains how the CIA “jackals” step in like mafia thugs whenever the “economic hitmen” fail to persuade leaders to accept the deals.

In Ecuador the result has meant cheap oil for US companies (like Texaco and Oxy) and other multinationals with minimal regulations. Unfortunately, most of this oil is located under the lush Amazon rainforest on the East slope of the Andes Mountains, which has already led to an environmental catastrophe, with contaminated water, soil and air and the resulting cancer epidemic for the indigenous. Now they are about to open up thousands of acres of pristine rainforest to oil drilling and road building, especially under Yasuni National Park where massive oil fields have been discovered.

Multinationals also have nefarious plans in the Indigenous territories of Pastaza, where Shuar Indians and the Quichua from Sarayacu have vowed to fight, with guns if necessary, to protect their homes from the corporate invaders. The Ecuadorian military, with help from the US special forces counter-insurgency specialists, have set up a new base in the jungle just south of the village of Sarayacu, while a new road is proposed into an existing drilling site (Villano) only 13 kilometers to the east. Marlon Santi, who represents the Sarayacu, received death threats just a few days before Christmas when he travelled to Quito to address Congress.

A newly completed pipeline (the OCP) runs from the Amazon over the Andes and out to the Pacific port of Esmeraldas. There, oil tankers line up to be filled with raw crude for the northern refineries in California and Europe. But the pipeline is only running at one third capacity. The consortium of multinational oil companies and banks who built the high tech OCP pipeline, amidst constant grass-roots resistance, are now anxious to fill it with Amazonian crude, and therefore the pressure is increasing to open up new oil fields in the untouched rainforest.

The missionaries are still at work persuading the indigenous that oil development will help them. The new road into Yasuni Park will start from the Quichua village of Churu Isla on the Napo River. The oil company, Petrobras, with help from the missionaries, has promised the indians that the new road will bring tourism to the community. But tourists come here to see the mega diverse wildlife, indigenous cultures and pristine rainforests, not oil roads, pipelines, gas flares and drilling platforms, all of which do anything but attract toucans and monkeys.
The TLC will surely worsen this situation, due to it’s neoliberal, pro-deregulation, pro-privatization, pro-corporate bias. One of the trademarks of all free trade agreements is that they make “barriers to free trade” illegal or at least punishable by sanctions. So, a much needed law, such as the banning of oil drilling, road building or gold mining in National Parks in Ecuador, would not be allowed under conditions of the TLC (or ALCA/FTAA).

A photograph on the cover of an anti-TLC pamphlet I picked up in Quito is compelling and disturbing. It shows the naked body of a pregnant woman painted entirely in solid Yellow, Blue and Red, the colors of the of the Ecuadorian flag. Around her neck is a noose and in her two hands she holds the rope. It suggests that if she (Ecuador) pulls the rope, she will hang herself. The Text Reads:
“TLC Ecuador: El futuro no se impone, se construye”
which translates: “The future is not imposed on us, we create it”