Ecuador:
Amnesty Exposes Unjust Criminalization of Environmental Activists
The Constituent Assembly formed to discuss
and draft a new Ecuadorian Constitution resolved on 14 March 2008
to grant an amnesty to 357 human rights activists who had been
“criminalized for their protest and resistance actions in defence
of their communities and the environment,” according to an official
press release. Most of the 357 are community and peasant leaders,
some of them indigenous, from communities throughout the country.
The criminal charges against them stemmed from their involvement
in grassroots opposition to mining, oil, hydroelectric and logging
projects, as a means of protecting water supplies and the environment
and defending their communal lands and collective rights. Their
crime: defending life, human rights, and nature.
Local human rights organizations, such
as the Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU), have documented
countless cases of the criminalization of social protest in Ecuador.
CEDHU has compiled a list of over 100 cases involving a much larger
number of individuals, since many of the charges are collective,
encompassing entire families, groups or communities. But the dimensions
of this problem are even greater, since many of these cases remain
shrouded in anonymity, unknown and ignored as cases of common
crime. “We celebrate this event as a victory of collective causes
over the attempt to individualize the socio-environmental struggle
through the prosecution of leaders and community members,” said
a joint statement released by human rights organizations right
after the amnesty was announced.
Among those cleared under the amnesty
there are a large number of residents of the Intag valley, an
area of incomparable natural wealth covered by a subtropical rainforest.
The valley forms part of the Chocó bioregion, one of the most
biologically diverse regions on the entire planet. The local communities
face the constant threat of extermination by a transnational mining
megaproject but have continued to struggle unconditionally in
defence of the rainforest. As a result, many community leaders
have been brought up on criminal charges, and close to 100 peasant
farmers from the area have faced legal prosecution. During the
course of their trials, held in local courts, evidence emerged
of strategies concocted by the companies, false statements made
by witnesses and irregular proceedings. In the end, all of the
defendants were acquitted.
The recently announced amnesty represents
a further step and is viewed as highly important by local communities.
It implies the full clearance of guilt on the part of community
and peasant leaders for their participation in legitimate acts
of community resistance. Through the amnesty, an official body
is openly and clearly acknowledging the existence of the unjust
criminalization of defenders of the environment and of human rights,
a phenomenon that up until now had been almost completely ignored
by the general public.
The amnesty has also served to expose
many of the dirty tactics to silence community resistance used
by numerous companies with powerful economic interests in natural
resources and raw materials. These tactics include punishing those
who get in the way of environmentally destructive business projects
by legally prosecuting them for common crimes established in the
country’s Criminal Code. The resulting trials are typically “rigged”
by buying witnesses and sometimes by bribing public officials.
It is not unusual for those accused to end up behind bars. The
crimes they are most frequently sentenced for include sabotage
and terrorism, rebellion and attacks against public officials,
aiding and abetting criminal acts, illicit association, crimes
against property (such as theft) and crimes against persons (such
as kidnapping), among others. “It is not possible that they can
violate the rights of communities, destroy their natural heritage
and evict them from their lands under the pretext of generating
income for social development, from which these communities are
excluded outright,” declared CEDHU.
For these reasons, this major victory
in Ecuador has become a reference point and a successful precedent
for other communities facing similar situations. Moreover, these
are not isolated cases in Latin America.
Through this amnesty, the systematic
persecution of those who oppose extractive projects that deplete
natural resources, the destruction of tropical rainforests and
the violation of human rights has been exposed and made visible
to society and to the national and international public. Civil
society organizations should follow this lead to demand that other
governments adopt similar measures for victims of the criminalization
of social protest in their own countries.
The significance of this amnesty transcends
the borders of Ecuador, setting an important precedent for peasant
struggles criminalized in the same way in other countries. Many
Latin American communities and members of social or human rights
organizations have suffered or are currently suffering the criminalization
of acts of legitimate struggle and resistance in defence of life
and nature (for an overview of the situation in December 2007
see WRM Bulletin Nş 125 at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/125/viewpoint.html). This phenomenon,
relatively unknown and systematically silenced, has been exposed
and brought to public attention through the amnesty granted by
the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly.
Peasant communities throughout Ecuador
are celebrating this encouraging development. The amnesty is the
result of determined efforts by the communities affected and human
rights and environmental organizations who continue to work vigilantly
to ensure that truth and justice prevail. We congratulate all
of them for this new victory. The amnesty is a sign that when
people fight for it, change is possible.
For more detailed information, see the
website of the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly and the statements
by its president, Alberto Acosta (in Spanish) at:
http://asambleaconstituyente.gov.ec/boletines/
amnistia-para-defensores-de-los-derechos-humanos-criminalizados-aprueba-asamblea.do,
http://asambleaconstituyente.gov.ec/blogs/alberto_acosta/
2008/03/14/acosta-“se-ha-hecho-justicia-con-los-perseguidos
-politicos-por-defender-la-naturaleza”/
By Guadalupe Rodríguez, Salva la Selva,
www.salvalaselva.org
