Ecuador renounces trade benefits from US Congress

[Divernan]

50. Your post does not prove what you claim it does.

The final outcome depends upon how the govt. spends the income - as in relocating, educating, providing medical care for impoverished indigenous peoples.

"In an interview, Ecuador's secretary of hydrocarbons, Andrés Donoso Fabara, accused indigenous leaders of misrepresenting their communities to achieve political goals. "These guys with a political agenda, they are not thinking about development or about fighting against poverty," he said.

Fabara said the government had decided not to open certain blocks of land to bidding because it lacked support from local communities. "We are entitled by law, if we wanted, to go in by force and do some activities even if they are against them," he said. "But that's not our policy."

Now let us consider how the US Big Oil companies raped Ecuador's environment and the indigenous populations for decades! Texaco was the primary international oil company exporting oil from the coast of Ecuador. This company managed the oil operation from 1971 to 1992, when it was nationalized by Ecuador.

Texaco's contract for oil production in Ecuador expired in 1992. PetroEcuador then took over 100% of the oil production management. 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil was reported to have been extracted while under the management of Texaco. There were also reports of 19 billion gallons of waste that had been dumped into the natural environment with the absence of any monitoring or overseeing to prevent damages to the surrounding areas. In addition there was a report of 16.8 million gallons of crude that was dispersed into the environment in relation to spillage out of the Trans-Ecuadorian pipeline.

In the early 1990s a lawsuit led by Ecuadorian government officials of 1.5 billion dollars was presented against the Texaco company with claims that there was an immense pollution epidemic that led to the demise of many natural environments as well as an increase in human illnesses.

A cancer study was conducted in 1994 by the Centre for Economic and Social Rights which found a rise in health concerns in the Ecuadorian region. In 2002, it was found that there was a notably higher incidence of cancer in women and men in the countries where there was oil production present for over 20 years. Women also reported increased rates in a copious amount of psychical aliments such as skin mycosis, sore throat, headaches and gastritis. The primary argument against these findings were that they were weak and biased. Texaco decided on jurisdiction in Ecuador.

The case put against Texaco remained in the works for some time. In 2001, Texaco was taken over by Chevron, another oil company, which assumed the liabilities left by the previous production. On February, 2011 Chevron was found guilty after inheriting the case left by Texaco and was said to be required to pay 9 billion dollars in damages. This is known to be one the largest environmental lawsuits award recorded

http://www.counterspill.org/article/ecuador-vs-chevron-texaco-brief-history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_in_Ecuador