A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza

Pastaza province is on the front line of the struggle against oil. The Amazon province with the highest percentage of indigenous population, it has an impressive resume of community resistance that goes back to the 1970s. At 15,000 the Quichua, descendents of the Incas, are by far the most numerous nation of Pastaza. Correspondingly, their representative body OPIP is one of the most well-organized advocacy groups in the province.

Cesar Cerda.

OPIP strives to establish what activists call the "collective rights" of its constituency: the right to full participation in decisions regarding the use of all the land and resources in their territory, and the right to share equally in the benefits resulting from that use. To these ends, over the past twenty years OPIP has led an ongoing campaign to gain title to indigenous lands, to prevent environmental destruction, and to promote sustainable alternative development. At present OPIP works with around 135 communities of Pastaza, comprising approximately 20,000 members.

With the next round of oil block leasing, much of Pastaza province will be subjected to the same assault on the environment that the northern part of the Oriente has endured in recent decades. But OPIP, which has been struggling to defend the rights of the people of the Amazon in Pastaza for the last twenty years, is determined to prevent this great damage.

Pastaza in 2001 is not Sucumbios in 1970. The destruction caused there by Texaco, and the brutal way it was carried out, cannot be repeated today in the central and southern provinces of the Oriente. Representatives of OPIP and other indigenous organizations have visited the northern provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana to see the destruction that was caused by oil development there. With the help of the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Pachamama, and other advocacy groups, grassroots organizations of Pastaza such as OPIP have made great strides in the preparation to defend their communities.

However, the same problems exist in Pastaza and the southern Oriente that have plagued activists in the north. Oil companies are doing their best to divide communities by bribing and threatening people, despite the best educational work of activists. They reward communities that allow drilling, while offering nothing to the surrounding region. Entire distinct indigenous cultures are still threatened with sickness, impoverishment, displacement, and extinction.

In April of 1992, OPIP led one of the strongest and most effective direct action campaigns ever to come out of Pastaza province. When thousands of people rallied in front of the Presidential Palace in Quito, the government decided to grant the title deeds. Documents for title to two million acres of land were drawn up, and in this way, over 70 percent of Pastaza was deeded to the indigenous communities. The 1992 accord was a victory in that it gave the indigenous communities back some control over their territory, a tool with which to impede colonization of their land.

OPIP is presently negotiating with the Ecuadorian government over what happens in Block 10 and the adjacent Block 23. OPIP is calling for a study on the environmental impact of drilling in this territory, as well as for support for local sustainable development projects. The organization declares that these projects should be supported by the profits from oil extraction.

The next round of oil block leasing, due to take place early in 2002, threatens to open the entire remaining untouched territory of Pastaza to oil exploration. But OPIP staff members expressed to the Advocacy Project their determination to prevent further development as long as the organization’s demands are not heard. They warned that direct actions that they have carried out in the past may be organized again at any time.

OPIP activist Cesar Cerda said, "Our people are very angry. We are blocking airports. Staff of the oil companies arrive, but we don’t permit them to work. Block 23 is now paralyzed. Our first condition is that the government comply with promises that they signed regarding Block 10, for example, distributing the benefits of production, including a percentage for development."

Pablo Ortiz, another OPIP activist, was optimistic: "I think they won’t press further exploitation without our approval. They know that they have to be more careful. We have the capacity to mobilize forces to resist."

Mr. Cerda concluded, "There will be much pressure from the government, and we will continue to resist. We won’t give in easily."

OPIP -- Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza
e-mail: allpamanda@yahoo.es
tel/fax 593-3-885 461