This is the first in a series of articles that break down the issue of criminalization in Ecuador and contextualize it at the Latin American level, showing the common thread that hides behind this policy.
Criminalization in Ecuador involves several actors. On the one hand, the victims: Defenders of Human Rights and Nature, that is, peasants, indigenous people, organizational and community leaders, all in some way opposed to extractive projects, such as mega mining or large-scale mining, dams, hydroelectric plants, monocultures.
On the other hand, the actors of criminalization: private corporate and transnational powers: transnational mega mining, oil, hydroelectric companies, and large national businessmen, who exercise criminalization in an astonishing concordance with another actor: the state power (government, ministries, justice operators)
Criminalization and its consequences cannot be reduced to a government-opposition issue; it is an issue that requires broadening our view of: What is the development model, the political model, the participation mechanisms that we want for Ecuador?
To address these concerns, this article opens a series on the “Criminalization of Human Rights and Nature Defenders in Ecuador” to contribute to a real debate on the subject, look at its historical origin, contextualize its implications and look for a way out from the deep respect for human rights and nature, enshrined in our Constitution.
1. Introduction
From Dayuma to Rio Grande
The reason for the interest of social organizations and activists in bringing this series to the attention of the public can be found in an analysis of the series of acts of repression that the government has carried out in five years of exercising power in Ecuador.
In November 2007, the national police and the army attacked the population of Dayuma, who had blocked access roads to oil wells in order to demand social benefits. This armed repression was harshly criticized by various political forces and human rights organizations.
The national government, at that time still consolidating itself and determined to block the political action of the sectors that have traditionally held power in the country, had no choice but to yield to the pressure of critics and organize a commission of inquiry, which determined that the actions of the police and the army were "unacceptable."
Before Dayuma, there had already been acts of repression that were ignored by social organizations because they still believed in the promise of change that Rafael Correa had brandished during his electoral campaign and the first months of his government.
It is worth remembering that in July 2007, two months before the repression of Dayuma, the police had already attacked the communities of El Descanso, Molleturo and Girón, which had risen up in defence of water, rejecting the presence of the Canadian mining company Iamgold, which was determined to execute its concession for gold mining.
After Dayuma, other repressive operations took place, during which the national government was perfecting its mechanisms of denial of the facts, denigration and criminalization of the leaders of the social protest. Thus, a new repression of the communities of Molleturo, El Descanso and Girón, in January 2009, already included the prosecution of the leaders of these communities. Similar trials were later instituted against leaders of Nabón, who also opposed mining activities in the vicinity of their water sources.
The use of trials against the leaders of the social protest, which had been unsuccessfully attempted to be carried out with citizens of Dayuma, was gradually emerging as the way in which the actions of discontent of the population against government policy could be controlled.
The 2009 mobilization had its greatest confrontation in Macas, where the Shuar professor Bosco Wisuma died. The national government, by then, had already learned a lot about how to distort the facts and criminalize the leaders; thus, it immediately instituted criminal trials against Shuar leaders, while, in order to demobilize the indigenous protest, it again appealed to the creation of an investigative commission, no longer with the good faith with which the Dayuma commission was able to consolidate itself, but with the objective of delaying the investigations and looking for a way to channel the investigation to the convenience of the government.
In the Wisuma Case Investigation Commission, the government delegates acted disloyally, since before any conclusion of this investigation was reached, they rushed to publish their own conclusions, which were aimed at finding a culprit among the indigenous ranks, even though they resorted to giving credit to two "witnesses" who openly lied.
The figure of sabotage and terrorism is now the preferred criminal figure for the national government to prosecute leaders, seeking to silence and demobilize them.
As can be seen, the national government was specializing in repression and in hiding the consequences of this repression; this was demonstrated again in the operation to evict the small miners from Zamora in September 2010. This operation was complemented by the criminal prosecution of Salvador Quishpe, Prefect of Zamora, who had not even been involved in the incidents that occurred during the eviction of the artisanal miners, but who, for the government, had become essential to silence.
This is how we arrived at the Rio Grande operation in October of this year (2011), after which the government was very clear in demonstrating what it had learned during previous acts of repression, and which can be summarized as follows:
The government has learned to control the information that can be provided by the repressed residents. In Rio Grande, the police confiscated the video cameras and still cameras that the residents had and erased the memories of these cameras before returning them.
In Dayuma, the cameras were not controlled and that is why the images that we all know about came to light, which showed the violence with which the military acted and the violation of the human rights of this population. In Río Grande, with great efficiency in erasing reality, the information that supports the testimonies of its inhabitants was confiscated and erased; thus, a reality favorable to the government began to be constructed, but perversely distant from reality itself.
In Dayuma, the government did not control the information that the media could disseminate, but in Río Grande, this matter was not left unchecked, which is why the written press, radio and television reporters were prevented from accessing the site of the repression; the delegate of the Ombudsman's Office, or delegates from other social organizations, were also not allowed to enter.
A third great lesson that the government has learned in this journey of repression from Dayuma to Río Grande is to immediately show the supposed popularity that the government proposal enjoys and the pernicious mistake that the repressed inhabitants are also supposedly in.
In Dayuma, everything turned against a government that failed to respond with a mobilization of support, so it had to give in to the investigation of the case to quiet the voices that claimed the violation of the human rights of the inhabitants of Dayuma.
With this knowledge, he was now able to get ahead of the criticism by consolidating a highly media-driven response, such as broadcasting on television the videos of testimonies about the questionable utility of the dam that is to be built in Rio Grande; he has also organized a march, although incipient, but if shown on television with a closed camera, it is good for surprising those who still believe him.
The fourth lesson learned by the government is the art of denigration, the art of discrediting critical voices and silencing them in favor of trials and more trials. This is why, with this investigation, we propose to put government repression and the use of justice as an instrument of repression into the public debate; not only to warn about what is happening in the country, but to revive critical voices, because in order to resume the political project of social change that Ecuadorian social organizations have wagered on, it is necessary to resume the critical voice and denounce how the political project of social change has become a repressive government.
In order to uphold its lie, the government will have to silence thousands of voices and hundreds of organizations. We do not doubt that it will try to do so, but we also do not doubt that those of us who defend human rights will maintain our voices at any price.
Luis Angel Saavedra
Executive Coordinator of INREDH
Fountain: lalineadefuego.info
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