From earlec@water.ca.gov Fri Jul 31 08:28:07 1998 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id IAA81096 for ; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:28:05 -0700 Received: from cd-eso.water.ca.gov (cd-eso.water.ca.gov [136.200.172.76]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW98.06) with ESMTP id IAA32409 for ; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:28:05 -0700 Received: from cdeso18 (cdeso18.water.ca.gov [136.200.172.18]) by cd-eso.water.ca.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA16591 for ; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:30:22 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980731082836.2a1fa3fc@cd-eso.water.ca.gov> X-Sender: earlec@cd-eso.water.ca.gov X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.1 (16) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:28:36 -0700 To: indknow@u.washington.edu From: Earle Cummings Subject: Dispatches from the front Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A clipping from the Environmental News Service: Oil Company Hostages Released in Ecuador Posted to the web: July 30, 1998 QUITO, Ecuador, July 30, 1998 (ENS) - Oil workers are being evacuated from the remote rainforest area of Villano in the wake of the kidnappings of seven workers during the past week. All the workers have now been released without injury. Employees of the United States oil company Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) and of the Ecuadorian company Conduto, subcontracted by ARCO to build pipelines, are being evacuated. The oil companies have agreed to halt operations until Ecuador's newly elected President Jamil Mahuad has time to formulate his energy policies. In a statement from Witawa Urco, the Confederation Of Indigenous Nationalities of The Amazon of Ecuador said, "Three transnational corporation workers were held as ransom in exchange for the guaranteed protection of the famed and legendary Curaray River Headwaters Region. Atlantic Richfield's broken promises have caused its Brazilian subcontractor Conducto to have three of its employees to be held as ransom." The indigenous people say they held the oil company workers, to get the oil companies to exchange their hostages for beginning to "clean up the rivers that they are polluting. Pipeline construction has not even begun yet they are already polluting the rivers and people are already getting sick." The Indian group has demanded direct talks with officials of Arco, the Energy Ministry and state oil firm Petroecuador. Local ARCO manager Herb Vickers told Reuters news service he is willing to participate. "The Curaray Headwaters region is supposed to be a sacred protected indigenous land preserve and Arco agreed that it would respect its unique quality as one of the world's premiere seed banks possessing untold quantities of precious medicines," the indigenous peoples' statement said. The Indians said the oil companies promised, "that they would reroute their pipeline through an area that would not endanger seven complete unspoiled river systems. The unaffiliated Traditional Autonomous Leaders from the Curaray Headwaters Region say that the oil companies must stay out of their area altogether. They vowed to continue and protect their sacred land. "The Nushino and Curaray rivers are already disturbed by the construction of road improvements miles away and survey crews continue trying to foolishly choose the most destructive route for their pipeline despite repeated protests from local native peoples," the indigenous people complained. Earlier this week, a coalition of indigenous peoples released the four oil company hostages held in the town of Villano along with an 11 point plan listing their demands. They are asking that the people of Pastaza receive an unprecedented two dollars per barrel for all petroleum extracted from beneath their homelands, and that the moneys be used for community health and education programs. They demand that development of all government-mandated hydrocarbon extraction activities be done with state-of-the-art technologies. They want citizen representatives from Pastaza be there as witnesses during every stage of operations. .