[Marxism] Ascendant Copper Threatens Ecuador's Toisan Range

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Ascendant Copper Threatens Ecuador’s Toisan Range

Written by www.DECOIN.org
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
A Canadian mining company project violates human rights, threatens  
four communities with forced relocation, and endangers thousands of  
hectares of primary cloud forests, pristine rivers and streams and  
dozens of species facing extinction.

The Junín mining concession, situated in the biodiverse Toisan Range  
of northwest Ecuador, contains hundreds of millions of tons of copper  
ore lying beneath some of the most biodiverse and endangered forests  
on Earth. The distinguished biologist E.O. Wilson says of these forests:

"The extraordinary value of the Ecuadorian western forests, including  
the larges remaining remnants that include Intag, is well known to  
biologist around the world and often cited in the scientific  
literature… I am personally even more impressed by the uniqueness and  
the rich biodiversity in the remnant forests, and the potential value  
of their flora and fauna to Ecuador and the rest of the world. I have  
believed in the past, and am more convinced now, that these  
endangered habitats should be given the very high priority in  
conservation worldwide…"(personal letter to DECOIN 10/10/1997)

In the 1990’s Bishi Metals, a subsidiary of Mistsubishi, tried  
exactly what Ascendant Copper is trying to do—build an open-pit  
copper mine in an area where a majority of residents are opposed to  
mining. The company refused to honor the wished of local Ecuadorians,  
while a corrupt and inept Ecuadorian government prioritized the  
interests of a foreign corporation over its own citizens. After what  
proved to be fruitless legal and political lobbying, local community  
members decided to demand that their human rights be recognized as  
they burnt down the company’s mining camp. (No one was injured and  
all property was returned to the company.) Unfortunately it took this  
kind of measure for Bishi’s executives to recognize that their  
proposed mining project was not only unwanted but not viable.

Since then resistance to mining has dramatically increased. Today,  
the opposition is supported by all the communities potentially  
impacted by the proposed mine, most neighboring communities and  
NGO’s, as well as nine local governments. Local community members  
have organized many initiatives to prevent the mine from going ahead,  
including legal remedies to uphold their constitutional rights, such  
as their right to prior consultation.

The opposition is based not only on the social and environmental  
impacts outlined below, but also on the violence unleashed by the  
mining company, the numerous documented human rights violations and  
the deep divisions created since Canada’s Ascendant Copper arrived in  
Intag.

A 1996 preliminary Environmental Impact Assessment prepared by two  
Japanese organizations for the Junín copper-molybdenum mine revealed  
the following devastating impacts:

§ Relocation of hundreds of families from four communities

§ Massive deforestation, which would dry up the local climate (almost  
literal citation from EIA)

§ Impacts to the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, one of the  
world’s most diverse

§ Damage to the habitat of dozens of threatened mammals and birds,  
including: jaguars, ocelots, spectacled bears, pumas, brown-headed  
spider monkey, and the plate-billed mountain toucan

§ Contamination of rivers and streams with toxic elements including  
lead, arsenic, chrome and cadmium

Since these impacts were based on a much lower estimate of the copper  
ore discovered by Mitsubishi, the impacts for Ascendat’s project can  
be expected to be much greater and more widespread. For example, as  
many as seven communities may have to be relocated and thousands of  
additional hectares deforested if mining was to go ahead.

In May of 2004 Ascendant Exploration (now Ascendant Copper) bought  
the Junín mining concession. Ever since, anti-mining activists have  
had to endure numerous (documented) human rights violations,  
including death threats, physical assaults, trumped-up criminal  
lawsuits, and have twice repelled paramilitary personnel trying to  
enter their communities. As part of a smear campaign, several web  
sites have been created exclusively to try to defame local  
organizations, but especially targeting Defensa y Conservacion  
Ecologica de Intag (DECOIN), a local grass-roots organization  
supporting Intag’s communities. In the meantime, the company has  
relentlessly and aggressively tried to secure the area’s "social  
license" by offering communities anything from roads, bridges,  
clinics, and computers, to medical services and high-paying jobs. And  
when local government opposition seemed insurmountable, it even  
funded initiatives supporting the creation of a new Municipal  
government! Their divide-and-conquer strategies have also included  
purchasing thousands of hectares of agricultural and forested land,  
provoking land grabs in primary forests and severe conflicts between  
neighbors. These tactics have tragically succeeded in creating deep  
divisions between families and communities, and in creating a toxic  
atmosphere of insecurity and hostility in an area previously known as  
being exceptionally peaceful. That division in no small way helped  
spark the communal action resulting in the burning of Ascendant’s  
mining camp in December 2005. (Sound familiar?)

Most communities and all of the region’s local governments continue  
to overwhelmingly oppose the project, in spite of Ascendant’s  
unrelenting execution of underhanded and divisive tactics. Those  
tactics include the use of local courts to criminally charge dozens  
of community members in relation to the burning and other collective  
actions taken to stop the unwanted mining project.

In October 2006 Carlos Zorrilla, a leading anti-mining activist, was  
falsely charged of robbery by someone believed to be employed by  
Ascendant. In addition to the testimony of dozens of witnesses, there  
is video footage showing that absolutely nothing happened to the  
accuser. As a result of this frame-up, Zorrilla’s house was violently  
raided and searched by a squad of 19 policemen, one of whom planted  
drugs and a gun inside his home. As he was never notified of the  
accusation, he was unable to defend himself and had to go into hiding  
over a month until the arrest warrant was revoked. As of April 2007,  
all charges have been dropped against Zorrilla, but there’s a  
possibility of a third lawsuit (for the planted drugs).

Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Global  
Witness as well as the office of the UN Commission on Human Rights  
have requested information from Ecuador’s government and expressed  
concerned with the government’s actions regarding the court’s actions  
against. Zorrilla.

The company has also been responsible for provoking several very  
violent confrontations, including the use of dozens of heavily armed  
"private security guards", or paramilitaries as a leading human- 
rights organization labeled them, who tried to shoot and tear-gas  
their way into the company’s mining concessions in December 2006.  
Armed with only sticks, the community successfully repelled the  
violent incursion. Later, it was confirmed that the all of so-called  
private security guards were ex-military personnel (the confrontation  
was filmed).

From the start, Ascendant has been involved with the military. For  
example, in a November 2006 violent confrontation which left several  
children tear-gassed, a high-ranking Ecuadorian ex-military officer  
led Ascendant’s workers against the local communities. Likewise,  
Ascendant’s first community-relations employee was a retired army  
general with connections to military intelligence, and the company  
used an army helicopter in the events of December.

These are only a few of the dozens of grave human-rights violations  
associated with the presence of Ascendant Copper Corporation.

It’s also important to point out that in addition to the social  
upheaval outlined above, the mining project also threatens a number  
of sustainable economic initiatives just starting to flourish in the  
area, such as shade-grown coffee production, agro-forestry, community  
ecological tourism, and several women’s artisan projects.

We sincerely hope the Canadian people will actively participate in  
putting an end to this ill-conceived and destructive project, which,  
even without mining a single ounce of copper has already trampled  
human rights, and caused so much heartache and social upheaval.

For more information, please visit: www.decoin.org,  
www.miningwatch.org, www.intagsolidarity.org, and www.ascendantalert.ca.



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