Dec 4th Update: Junin’s Siege
Monday, December 04, 2006
dec 4 update- 53 armed hired guards were arrested by community members today while they were trying to build a camp in the forests close to the community of Cero Pelado, and will be turned over to authorities on Wedensday. Details are sketchy at the moment.
In the pre-dawn hours of December 1st, a group of about 50 heavily armed persons attacked a road control post set up by the community of Junin to limit access to their community and forest reserve. The armed individuals at first used tear gas to try to force their way through the control, but at seeing the campesinos and campesinas would not retreat, they fired hundreds of rounds from their handguns and machine guns indiscriminately, wounding one of the community members. The invaders were forced to retreat once their ammunition had run out.
The communities had won the first battle.
Soon after the military-type incursion, a 25 member pro-mining group, made up mostly of people from Intag who were accompanying the armed personnel, were apprehended, and held in the community of Junin. Later that day, a delegation made up of local government officials and journalists who were headed to Junin to try and defuse the situation were stopped at the community of Chalguayacu Alto (close to Junin), where they were assaulted and detained by the pro-mining crowd that had gathered there. Both groups were released towards the evening, in large part due to police intervention, which had by then started to make stronger presence (we believe the police presence to be around 100)
The Army’s Involvement
On the first day of the operation, the company hired a military helicopter to fly over the communities, as confirmed by CEDHU, the Quito - based human rights organization. It is worth noting that the day before the brutal military-type operation took place, the head of Ascendant in Ecuador said, when interviewed, that they had nothing to do with the training of local workers in what was seen as paramilitary skills. He said to take the issue up with Empresa Falericorp, the organization that Ascendant supposedly contracted with to carry out agricultural projects in the company’s lands. But this isn’t the only instance of military involvement with the mining company. On November 1st another pro-mining group transported by Ascendant Copper vehicles tried to violently access land Ascendant claims belongs to them. The so-called agricultural workers used tear gas against the local population, and ran over an anti-mining activist. According to legal documents, an active-service Army Major took part in the operation (later it was confirmed he was retired)
At their first defeat at the hands of the community, the company reacted by bringing in two busloads of what they are calling ‘security personnel’ from other private security firms. In their December 3rd news release, CEDHU used the term paramilitary to describe these so-called security guards, and warfare tactics when referring to the December 2nd incursion. In total, it is believed that close to two hundred of these ‘hired guns’ from other parts of Ecuador are roaming around the Intag region trying to get access to Ascendant’s mining concessions.
On the second of December, after seeing their town overrun by paid thugs and upon hearing of the shooting confrontation, the local government of Garcia Moreno, where the concessions are situated, unanimously decided to withdraw all support for the company, and asked the rest of the area to support the communities. The communities and organizations responded by sending hundreds of people and provisions to support the areas at risk.
The Garcia Moreno government also revoked the agreement the Parish government’s president had signed with the company on the 20th of November.
As things stand now (morning of Dec 4th), the rest Intag’s communities and organizations are sending their people and supplies to support the community of Junin and others at risk. On the other hand, a group of what are believed to be part of the armed organization slipped through the community’s control and are reportedly making a camp somewhere in the forests close to the community of Cerro Pelado, a few kilometers east of Junin. It’s one of the properties the company claims legal possession to.
The communities, meanwhile, are complaining bitterly at the lack of action by the police, who have been asked to evict the armed people in Intag, but have not taken any steps to remove this THREAT.
WE JUST RECEIVED WORD FROM JUNIN THAT COMMUNITY MEMBERS CAPTURED AND ARE HOLDING APPROXIMATELY 60 GUARDS CAPTURED IN THE FOREST CLOSE TO THE COMMUNITY OF CERRO PELADO AND ARE WAITING FOR THE GOVERNOR OF THE PROVINCE TO TURN THEM OVER.
