[News] Ecuador: Politics Closes Indigenous Shuar Radio

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Ecuador: Politics Closes Indigenous Shuar Radio

Written by Jennifer Moore
Wednesday, 20 January 2010 09:49
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2327-ecuador-politics-close-indigenous-shuar-radio


"On January 28th 1995, when the cry went out that Peruvian troops had 
attacked the Ecuadorian border, the whole country went into motion 
with one heart. Now, when the Amazonian peoples cry out that 
multinational corporations have invaded our territory, the rest of 
the country is indifferent, apathetic, having declared a cold war..." 
- Father Juan de la Cruz, following protests in late September, 
written October 2009

Father Juan de la Cruz is a Salesiano priest who has worked among the 
Shuar indigenous people in Ecuador's southern Amazon for the last 
twenty three years. Born in the area, De la Cruz accompanied the 
Shuar when they fought for Ecuador against Peru in a border war in 
the 1990s. Today, he says he "cannot remain silent" as they fight 
against oil and mining multinationals that would threaten the health 
of their natural environment and which has strained relations between 
the Shuar and the government of President Rafael Correa.

De la Cruz calls a recent decision by Ecuador's Communications 
Commission to revoke a Shuar radio station's frequency "a grave 
error" and an effort to undermine their struggle against oil and 
mining interests. He says the radio 'Voice of Arutam' is the only 
station in the area "where you can talk about the potential impacts 
of multinational companies and the plunder of our territories."

On December 17th 2009, the National Communications Commission 
(CONATEL) emitted a resolution deciding to cancel the contract for 
the frequency belonging to the 'Voice of Arutam' station. 
Broadcasting from the town of Sucua in the southern Amazonian 
province of Morona Santiago where the Interprovincial Shuar 
Federation (FISCH) has their office, they first began broadcasting in 
1972 with support from Salesiano priests and with a focus on 
bilingual education. The FISCH represents about 120,000 Shuar in the 
southern Amazon. Arutam is the name of their spiritual guide.

CONATEL based its decision on statements broadcast live during 
interviews with Shuar leaders in the context of mobilizations which 
took place late last September. According to CONATEL, remarks 
broadcast on Radio Arutam incited the Shuar people to violence and 
contravened an article in the Radio and Television Law which 
prohibits "the promotion of physical or psychological violence using 
children, women, youth or elderly people, or that provides incentive 
for, carries out or motivates racism, sale of sex, pornography, 
consumption of drugs, religious or political intolerance and other 
analogous acts that affect the dignity of human beings."

Protests in September took place across the country in opposition to 
proposed water and education laws. The Shuar were also protesting 
proposed oil and mining projects in the province of Morona Santiago. 
The Shuar have long opposed the presence of US oil interests 
including ARCO and Burlington Resources, as well as mining companies 
such as Vancouver-based Corriente Resources which recently announced 
its sale to a Chinese joint venture between the Tongling Nonferrous 
Metals Group Holdings Co. Ltd. and the China Railway Construction 
Corporation. The Shuar propose that the province of Morona Santiago 
be declared "ecological" and that Corriente immediately leave the 
area, that all mining concessions be annulled, and that indigenous 
territorial circumscription be made effective.

During police attempts to dislodge Shuar road blockades near the city 
of Macas, one Shuar bilingual teacher, Bosco Wisum, was shot and 
killed and over twenty police reportedly wounded.

President Rafael Correa commended CONATEL's decision during a 
national radio address in late December saying that "Radio Arutam 
called for violence during the latest indigenous uprising, telling 
people to come out with their lances laced with venom, and this cost 
us a death. How many more deaths have to take place before certain 
community media are held responsible?"

Lawyer Mario Melo, an advisor to the Pachamama Foundation in Quito 
which accompanies indigenous organizations in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 
challenges the legal basis of the decision to close Radio Arutam. He 
asks why the investigation targeted the radio station rather than the 
individuals who made the remarks. Furthermore, he questions the 
quality of the "extrajudicial" translation, which he says fails to 
consider how "the Shuar language, like many others, incorporates 
metaphorical expressions in everyday speech and that has to be 
understood in context." He draws a comparison with a soccer player 
being interviewed on a sports program who says their team will "play 
to the death" in an upcoming game being literally interpreted as 
inciting his team to violence.

On Monday, the commission established to investigate the 
circumstances leading to Bosco Wisum's death also published a 
critical response to CONATEL's decision. They observed that the 
recordings upon which CONATEL has based its decision were made by 
third parties, are of only a few minutes in length and that their 
authenticity cannot be verified. They add that two translations of 
the available tape differ significantly from each other and that 
based on the available information "it is not possible to determine 
whether or not the editorial line of the radio station has promoted 
violence." The commission urges the ordinary justice system to 
consider the available evidence to see whether or not it might 
implicate those who made the remarks.

The Interprovincial Shuar Federation (FISCH) has appealed CONATEL's 
decision. The results of its first appeal upheld the communication 
commission's decision last week. Now, the FISCH await a further 
pronouncement from the Constitutional Court of Pichincha, anticipated 
this week. Should CONATEL's decision not be overturned, the national 
indigenous movement led by the Confederation of Indigenous 
Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has threatened the government with 
further mobilizations. FISCH has said that they will make a decision 
about what to do during their annual assembly in coming days.

 From the point of view of Father Juan de la Cruz, "The radio station 
has never been subversive." He concurs that individuals who may have 
made inappropriate remarks be investigated, but that the entire 
station should not be held responsible.

Considering what other local radio stations were broadcasting in late 
September, he further recalls an "extraordinarily racist and violent 
radio program" intended "to denigrate the Shuar people." He says a 
radio spot was produced to pressure the Shuar to abandon their road 
blockades without consideration for what motivated their protests and 
was stunned by the manner in which they tried to "undermine, 
ridicule, and maliciously criticize" them.

Furthermore, for Father Juan, the radio station has become "part of 
the identity of the Shuar people"  and an essential part of daily 
life as a means of transmitting messages between remote communities.

Challenging insinuations that the Shuar seek to undermine national 
interests, he believes, on the contrary, that "[Radio Arutam] has 
served to forge the Ecuadorian nationality and to help the voice of 
the Ecuadorian people be heard through the Shuar people, even beyond 
our borders." In recent years, the radio station has amplified its 
signal through the installation of repeater towers that allow it to 
reach the entire southern Ecuadorian Amazon and parts of northern 
Peru. In the near future, it had plans to increase coverage toward 
the north as well.

"The radio station has always supported the spirit of our peoples and 
their organization, so to take the radio away from them is to take 
away their voice and a strength that they have," concludes De la 
Cruz.  For this reason and given their critical stance in the face of 
future oil and copper and gold mining, he sees multinationals at work 
behind CONATEL's decision since they will be among the first to benefit.

The 'Voice of Arutam' continues to broadcast, pending implementation 
of a final decision.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20100120/583f369c/attachment.htm>