Ecuador, Oil, Indians, the Amazon and NvA [Eds. The former Brazilian president, Collor, was impeached before Christmas,1992, mainly due to the millions of people who took people power to the streets, protesting the corruption of Collor. A great success story for nonviolent action. See Dean's Letter From Brazil in the previous issue of NvT.] Ecuador is an interesting place in many ways. Firstly half of the population are indigenous. In October last year when hundreds of thousands of indigenous people protested the 500 years since the Americas were invaded, the Ecuadorian indigenous people decided to blockade most of the public roads and bridges in Ecuador for a day, bringing the country to a virtual stop. Utilising a slightly different strategy, there was a march by 1000 Amazonian Indians, two months earlier, from the Amazon through the Andes to Ecuador's capital Quito, to ask for their land rights. Its easy to imagine they got a lot more support from the community with this one. The government knew this and granted them many of their requests, except land rights over their land near the border with Peru. The government is trying to move colonisers there, to clear the forests and occupy the land, to try to prevent Peru taking more of Ecuador's land. Yet when 100 spear waving Haurani came to Quito in October 92, to protest against the oil companies exploring and drilling oil on their land, it appears the 93% of the country's export dollars which come from oil was a stronger incentive than appealing the supporters of the Hauranis. The government also has the power to take the land titles (which don't include subsoil rights) it recently awarded to them away if they continue to protest. The government also issued a warning to the Hauranis that if they tried to physically stop the oil companies, they would send in the military and simply shoot those Haurani. So what can the Haurani do? Environmental and indigenous rights groups have been educating the public and lobbying governments to recognize the land rights of the Haurani and those unwritten rights of the forest itself for years. The last petrol company, Conoco, pulled out of the project because of international public pressure. But now Maxus, a shameless, non-public company is in there, full on, roading, exploring and drilling in Ecuador's largest, most valuable National Park, the Yasuni. I suggested a boycott of Maxus, but unfortunately Maxus doesn't have anything to boycott. And even if you could boycott their petrol, what oil company do you know of that extracts oil environmentally soundly, responsibly and ethically? Even if Maxus did pull out for some reason, there seems to be many other unscrupulous oil companies ready to fill their space. So what is the nonviolent solution? Does everyone need to stop using petrol and gradually stop the demand? This seems a logical process, like the campaign to boycott rainforest timbers. But how many people really would stop relying on internal combustion engines and completely change their lifestyle? Even if millions did, would that affect the oil companies that are presently destroying the Amazon and other pristine areas? Is there even time for that campaign? Or can we go back a stage to educating the world community about the importance of preservation, to maybe pay the Ecuadorian government to preserve these pristine biological areas and also pass legislation to stop the petrol companies buying presents for the indigrnous people to win their support? At a recent permaculture course in Ecuador, Bill Mollison suggested selling Amazon rainforest water instead of oil. Whatever the solution, and maybe in this present state of petrol dependency there isn't one that we would like, it appears there aren't enough people who feel this is an important issue to seriously act upon it and make a difference. The global temperature slowly rises, due to these fossil fuels being burnt, including the forests of the Amazon that are rapidly being burnt and converted to cattle farms. What will it take for people to act? To what extent do we have to take responsibility for what's happening on a global scale in our personal daily lives? How many nonviolent activists have become vegetarians as their personal protest to the carnage that cows create? Likewise how many have stopped or cut back as much as possible their dependence on petroleum products? Similarly, do you know where the gold in your computer comes from? The Amazon, perhaps? If you feel you somehow need to use these products to further your work in making the world a better place, what alternative action can you take to help justify their use? And how can the Third World people who are struggling simply to eat, be helped by nonviolent action to preserve their natural environment? In Ecuador, like most Third World countries, nonviolent action strategies are quite different from Australia. Where before I would be pushing for more nonviolent actions against the oil companies and government, now I'm wondering, with the world as dependent as it is now on petroleum products, is the hard reality of the situation simply to compromise and try to get the best solution possible, slowing the oil companies mining in National Parks and indigenous people's territory in the virgin Amazon. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, yet working and listening to Doug Ferguson, an Aussie who's been working here for six years and believes that is the only alternative. And more nonviolent action against the government and oil companies could jeopardise what land rights the Haurani have now. So, I would be interested in feedback and ideas from NvT readers. I hope this article provokes some thought and discussion in this area. Dean Jefferys c/- Post Restante, Quito, Ecuador. (till the beginning of April)