Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Continental Commission Abya Yala: Communique to the Government of Ecuador and the International Monetary Fund



Continental Commission Abya Yala
October 15, 2019
Cecemilhuitl Ca Nican Tlaca Ilhuitl


"There can be no development for indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent and without them being involved in every step. These fundamental principles are enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples."  


UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

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In consideration of the recent cancellation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity package for Ecuador under Decree 883 issued by President Lenin Moreno, following protests led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador CONAIE and supported by a broad base of popular constituencies, it is imperative to clarify the underlying structural elements of disparity, dispossession, discrimination, and marginalization that led to the popular uprising of the past month.

This is not the first nor last time such uprisings have become the instruments of popular power in challenge to the injustices institutionalized by the apparatus of the state of Ecuador.  We recall the Gran Levantamiento of 1990 in our own lifetime, but we also carry forward the spirit of resistance of our ancestors such as Rumiñahui.

Today the racist regimes of colonization that Rumiñahui battled in courageous rebellion in 1533 were once again challenged in the public squares of Quito and once again the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Tawatinsuyo, with battle and blood, reaffirmed and proclaimed our resistance, rebellion, and regeneration as Original Nations of Mother Earth.

In 1533 it was the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom and the Papal Bulls of Pope Alexander VI Inter Caetera (1493) and in 2019 it is the same colonial regime of cultural, political, economic domination that persists. Except that today colonization is not called colonization, it is called development. And today it is not only the Vatican Bank and the royal families of Europe who plan to expropriate an exploit our territories and natural resources, today it is the International Monetary Fund and the corporate capitalists of the World Bank.

This past Tuesday Gita Gopinath, director of the IMF’s Research Department, said the agency welcomes the attempt “to bring in all stakeholders and to make decisions about macro reforms taking into account the various communities that are going to be affected by it.”  Gopinath did not address the status of the $4.2 billion loan Ecuador received in March during a press conference kicking off the annual meeting.

We have yet to be informed regarding the discussions among the United States-Ecuador Trade and Investment Council (TIC) between  U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador C.J. Mahoney, and by Ecuador’s Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, and Investment, Mr. Pablo Campana Sáenz in disclosure of how these negotiations impact the present and pending developments in Ecuador.

In light of which we call for the government of Lenin Moreno of Ecuador to endorse and require that any and all economic arrangements between the state and the international agencies of the states and international financial institutions institute the requirement of Free, Prior and Informed Consent as stipulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in all financial packages and economic development projects which impact the Territorial Rights and Human rights of the Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador. The Indigenous Peoples are not merely stakeholders in this regard, but possess a rights holder's position.  This point is not negotiable.

We call for the repudiation, abrogation, and cancellation of the nefarious Doctrine of Discovery in the state apparatus of justice and jurisdiction in Ecuador as it violates the inherent Human Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, including the purported claims to “sub-soil” property interest by the state in violation of the right to Self Determination of Indigenous Peoples as Peoples, “Equal to all other peoples…”


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In invoking the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we denounce the mechanisms and processes of international trade agreements among the states that systematically violates our right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent on projects that impact our territories and collective rights. In the same regard, we include international financing package agreements that do not respect this right of Consent of our Indigenous Peoples.  A prefabricated state manipulated consultation is not the same as the Free, Prior and Informed Consent.




Continental Commision Abya Yala

Maya Vision - Techantit

TONATIERRA

Secretaria




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