By Haider Rizvi
WASHINGTON, Aug 20 1996 (IPS)

Occidental Corporation, a U.S.-based petroleum giant, is under fire from environmental groups here who charge that the company is using “illegal and coercive” methods to acquire land from indigenous people in Amazonian rain forests.

“Occidental is stealing from Amazon Indians,’ says Shannon Wright of the U.S.-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a coalition of over 100 environmental and indigenous rights organisations currently campaigning against Occidental’s oil exploration activities in the Amazon region of Ecuador.

Currently, Occidental is developing an oil project on the traditional territory of Siona and Scoya tribes, despite strong opposition from these rain forest natives.

Last month, the company secured an agreement that allows for all types of oil development operations in the territory of Scoya and Siona people. But tribal elders say they were forced into signing the agreement.

Scoya leaders say that in order to assess the potential impact of these proposed operations on their land they wanted local environmental activists to take part in the negotiations with the company. But, they add, the Ecuadoran Army and local Occidental bosses did not allow them.

“The company warned us not to speak with any environmental organisation,” a Scoya leader said in a recent letter to RAN, adding that the company officials also threatened tribal elders with Army intervention.

“We will call the Army, if you did not sign the agreement,” another letter from the Organisation of Siona Indigenous Nation of Ecuador quoted Occidental official Manuel Echevarria as saying before the agreement was signed.

Scoya and Siona leaders say Army Major Heran Altamirano was present at the time of signing the agreement and he pressured the elders to permit the company to use their land.

Despite the country’s return to democratic system more than a decade ago, the Ecuadoran military still wields considerable power. Its continued power stems from the fact that a fixed percentage of the nation’s annual oil revenues are earmarked for military spending.

Protests from indigenous groups and their international allies so far have failed to move the civilian political leadership in Ecuador, which remains indifferent to the cause of protecting rain forest natives.

“They are more interested in foreign investment than protecting the rights of indigenous people of Amazon,” says Melina Selverston of Amazon Coalition, another U.S.-based umbrella organisation involved in the fight to protect the rights of indigenous people.

Oil revenues in Ecuador account for nearly half of the country’s export earning, with the government spending 80 per cent of these revenues to pay interest payment on the national debt, which totals more than 12 billion dollar.

Small tribes of Scoya and Siona people have been living in the Ecuadoran rain forests for centuries. They see oil exploration activities in the Amazon as being detrimental to their traditional ways of living and the forests.

Environmental studies show that oil exploration and drilling have already caused massive damage to Amazon’s rain forests. According to Ecuador-based Accion Ecologica, indigenous people in many parts of Amazon can no longer use local water supplies due to pollution caused by oil operations.

“Drinking, bathing and fishing waters contain a lot of cancer- causing compounds which 10 to 1,000 times greater than permitted by the U.S. Environmental Protection agency,” Ecologica researchers report.

Occidental officials tried to allay fears of environmental damage by promising Scoya leaders that their operations would be limited to seismic testing, according to tribal elders.

“We have been cheated,” complained a Scoya representative in a recent letter to Amazon Coalition. “We fear the company would do all kind of activities, including drilling.”

The agreement with indigenous leaders permits Occidental to carry out its oil exploration activities for 20 years with no major benefit for Scoya, Siona and Quichua communities living in the Amazon.

When asked, the company spokesman Roger Gilot neither admitted nor denied the charges leveled by Scoya leaders and environmentalists. “We’ll look into it,” he said.

But a copy of the agreement obtained by IPS reveals that, in exchange for the oil exploration rights, Occidental will merely provide raincoats, outboard motors, chain saws, medicine and similar items.

The company may decide to employ some members of the community in future, but the agreement does not make any definite promise about jobs.

“This type of negotiation is paternalistic and immoral,’ says Selverston, who recently returned from Amazon. “This is time for Occidental and other oil companies to respect the rights of indigenous communities.”

Experts say indigenous people’s apprehensions about environmental devastation are quite justified as oil development in Amazon has already resulted in massive deforestation.

Ecuador has the highest rate of deforestation in South America, they say. According to World Resources Institute, the country is loosing 45,000 hectares of its forests every year due to drilling and other oil-related operations.

Apart from Occidental, dozens of other transnational companies are currently exploring for oil in the Amazon basin. The growing competition among them, opponents say, is not only adding to the devastation of rain forest, but the culture and way of life of its ancient inhabitants.

Three months ago, the Dutch oil company Shell also moved into Amazon to explore new oil fields in Camisa region. Like Occidental, it secured an agreement from the local indigenous people, who later protested and accused the company of having cheated them.

Other oil companies engaged in oil operation in Ecuadoran Amazon include British Petroleum, Amoco, Arco and Orix.

Environmental groups campaigning against Occidental’s operations in San Pablo area are demanding of the company to stop its operations immediately saying that the agreement the company procured was signed “under duress.”

“Companies like ‘Oxy’ think they have the right to destroy the environment and disregard the will of whole population to make quick profits,” says Wright, “but we will not let them do this.”

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