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Global Exchange Newsletter, Spring 2006
By Zach Hurwitz
As its name implies, Ecuador is a land where North meets South—literally. Thanks to the Ecuadorian Indigenous movement and resistance to big oil, the South is teaching the North a few lessons about trade justice, human and environmental rights, and how to bring down big energy corporations.
The capital, Quito, has been the frontline in the fight against “free trade” in the Andes since 1992—so it is no surprise that organizations like CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) and Acción Ecológica (Ecological Action) have been working to stop the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), which promises to sharpen trade policies that will further erode sovereignty, environmental and labor standards, reduce prices for crops and lead to increased migration of farmers.

In addition to fighting back free trade, for the past three years, 30,000 indigenous people from the northern Ecuadorian Amazon have been battling an historic legal case against oil giant Chevron. If successful, Aguinda v. Texaco will be the first-ever class action lawsuit to hold a multinational company accountable for environmental destruction and its resulting health effects. In buying-out Texaco’s operations in 2002, Chevron assumed responsibility for 18.5 billion gallons of oil that has seeped throughout the soil and water basin over the last 20 years, and it now faces $6 billion dollars in damages and clean-up costs.

Living through this ecological disaster, the plaintiffs suffer from cancer, birth defects, and neurological toxins as well as loss of livelihoods. Despite Chevron’s heavy-handed counter campaign and media spinning, scientific evidence supports the linkages between the environmental hazard and the community’s health problems.  Even as Chevron conspired with the Ecuadorian military to threaten human rights groups such as the Frente de Defensa de la Amazonía (Amazon Defense Front), Ecuador’s Indigenous movements and their international partners have only become more determined to win. As lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Cristobal Bonifaz, says, “This case has the potential to establish a new accountability for US oil companies that think they can operate abroad without adhering to responsible environmental practices.”

Ecuadorians are replacing the harmful model of free trade and environmental destruction with social projects that value the needs of communities. In the Amazon, the Sarayaku have built community-run schools, nature preserves, and tourism projects while battling against oil drilling by the company CGC (Compania General De Combustibles) in the Inter-American Court for Human Rights and the United Nations. In Intag, farmers are conserving mega diverse cloud forest from Mitsubishi and Ascendant Copper mining activities by creating Fair Trade coffee cooperatives and teaching environmental education to youth. And in highland Salinas de Guaranda, campesinos are building a solidarity-based economy based on dairy, textile, and meat cooperatives that produce for the needs of the community, not for export. Global Exchange Reality Tours to Ecuador highlight these important projects and issues first-hand.

Ecuadorians are showing us that another kind of development is possible. Travel with us to see it for yourself and take action—it is our responsibility to stop Congress in 2006 from imposing a failed trade model on the Andes, and to hold corporations accountable for their toxic “bi-products.” Let’s start listening to the South.