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ECUADOR: Native Groups Poised for Nationwide Protests Over Water Bill

Gonzalo Ortíz

QUITO, May 6 2010 (IPS) - Indigenous organisations in Ecuador opposed to a water reform bill that they say would give mining companies and agribusiness privileged access to water have threatened to extend their protests around the country in order to keep the legislature from passing the bill without certain modifications.

This week, native demonstrators blocked traffic on highways in three provinces and surrounded Congress on Tuesday as legislators were debating the bill on the regulation of water use, which is sponsored by the government of centre-left President Rafael Correa.

The protesters blocked the doorways for several hours, keeping lawmakers from leaving the building. In the clashes that broke out when police showed up to disperse them, “two indigenous people and 11 police were injured,” said police chief Jaime Vaca.

After the way was cleared for people to leave the building, demonstrators threw stones at the vehicles of lawmakers and legislative staff as they drove away, causing extensive damages in some cases.

At least 1,000 protesters are now camped out in a park near Congress, where they expect to be joined by delegations from several provinces.

Indigenous people account for an estimated 40 percent of the population of this Andean nation of nearly 14 million people.

In late February, the largest association of native communities, the powerful Ecuadorean Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE), announced that it would launch a “progressive escalation” of protests, and urged workers and students to join them in rejecting what they called Correa’s “neoliberal” policies, including the water reform bill.

CONAIE, formerly an ally of Correa, is demanding that the order of priorities for water use be respected, as established by the new constitution, which states that water resources shall be destined first to human consumption, then to irrigation for food production and adequate levels of flow in the country’s rivers to keep ecosystems alive, and finally productive activities.

The list of priorities has significant implications for sectors like the mining industry or agricultural exports ranging from cut flowers to bananas.

Indigenous Congressman Pedro de la Cruz told IPS in late April that the government’s draft law would allow “large farmers and agroexport businesses to continue to monopolise the lion’s share of the water.”

The protesters plan to camp out near Congress until their demands are taking into account. “We’ll stay 10 days, 15 days, however long is necessary,” Marlon Santi, the head of CONAIE, told the press.

On Wednesday, delegates of CONAIE, the National Federation of Peasant, Indigenous and Black Organisations (FENOCIN), the Federation of Evangelical Indigenous Peoples and Organisations of Ecuador (FEINE) and local water administration councils met with the president of Congress, Fernando Cordero.

At the meeting, the native leaders suggested that a high-level committee be set up “to work out the controversial aspects of the bill,” particularly the question of the creation of a national water authority.

The government bill empowers the president to appoint a ministerial-rank national water secretary to head the new agency.

But CONAIE wants a “plurinational council” to govern the rights to water, with a majority of representatives of indigenous and peasant organisations and the local water boards that supervise irrigation, and a minority of government delegates, Delfín Tenesaca, the head of CONAIE in the Andes highlands region, told IPS.

Although the government bill includes a plurinational council, it would be made up of equal numbers of government and community delegates and its mandate would be limited to policy-making and oversight of enforcement of the water law, with the national water secretary having the casting vote in any actual decision-making.

“That’s not what we want,” Tenesaca told IPS when he came out of the meeting with Cordero, who promised to review the functions and authority of the plurinational council.

In Cuenca, the third-largest city in Ecuador, indigenous demonstrators blocked highways Tuesday to protest the rights that the bill would supposedly give mining companies to divert water for their own use.

The police cleared the roadblock and arrested five leaders of the local water boards of Girón and Tarqui, two towns outside of Cuenca.

Social and community organisations held a protest to demand their release in Cuenca Wednesday, which was broken up by the police.

Tenesaca also said that CONAIE would not budge in its demand for the cancellation of the only water concession currently in effect in Ecuador, which is in the hands of Interagua, a private company owned by a consortium made up of French, Spanish, Colombian and Ecuadorean firms.

Interagua supplies drinking water to the coastal city of Guayaquil, the most populous city in the country.

According to parliamentary observers, the government has agreed to leave the concession in place, as a result of negotiations with conservative Mayor Jaime Nebot — a leading critic of Correa — aimed at obtaining right-wing votes needed to push the water bill through Congress.

The legislature was set to continue debating the bill Thursday. “We are open to dialogue, but we aren’t going to modify a single thing under pressure,” said Rolando Panchana, a legislator from the Movimiento País governing coalition.

Proponents of the water reform say it will regulate private water use and guarantee access to water by all citizens.

Vaca said around 25,000 police would be deployed nationwide “to protect the peace and guarantee citizen safety,” and that the necessary measures would be taken to maintain public order around Congress and elsewhere in the country.

The police chief said that protesters from outside Quito would not be kept from entering the city and holding peaceful demonstrations, but that the police would use the necessary force in the case of disturbances.

According to Tenesaca, if the high-level committee demanded by CONAIE is not set up, the protests will spread to the rest of the country.

“This is the final battle. We aren’t going to back down,” he said.