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 News from Around the Americas | February 2006 
Ecuador Declares Local Emergency After Protests
 Alonso Soto - ABC News
| | Residents of the Amazonian region of Napo clash with policemen in Baeza, Ecuador, Wednesday. Ecuador declared the state of emergency in the Napo province, a jungle zone, to quell oil protests that shut down the nation's two main oil pipelines, officials said on Wednesday. (AP/Dolores Ochoa R.) |
Ecuador declared a state of emergency in the Amazon province of Napo this week after soldiers fired on protesters occupying an oil pumping station and shut down one of the country's main private pipelines.
The state of emergency prohibits protests and marches in the province.
Leaders of the protest and a doctor at a local hospital said at least three people were wounded in the shooting. About 600 people were still occupying the Sardina pumping station in Napo, about 55 miles east of Quito.
"We will not allow anybody to damage state infrastructure," Jose Modesto Apolo, the government general secretary, told reporters in Quito. He said the occupation had to end before there could be any talks with the protesters.
A military spokesman declined to comment on the situation, but local television showed pictures of troops firing their rifles at dozens of rock-hurdling protesters.
Television stations also showed footage of wounded protesters lying in a local hospital who said they had been shot by soldiers.
"We want the government to talk to us because this situation is getting out of hand," Julio Perez, a spokesman for the protesters told Reuters. "We did not order people to invade this pumping station."
"The OCP (pipeline) suspended its operations after protesters invaded the station of Sardina," confirmed a spokesman for the company that operates the pipeline, which is owned by several Ecuadorean and foreign companies.
Ecuador is Latin America's fifth-largest oil producer, with an output of about 530,000 barrels per day.
The pipeline has the capacity to transport 450,000 barrels per day, but at the time of the stoppage it carried 160,000 bpd from the Amazon region to a port in the Pacific coast.
Hundreds of protesters were also outside the Baeza oil pumping station, which is owned by Petroecuador, the state oil company, a police spokesman said.
The activists are demanding that the government channel more than $100 million to their local communities to build roads, bridges and a new airport.
The police sent about 300 officers to the area to protect key oil infrastructure and more officers could be sent in if the violence escalates, the police spokesman said.
Protesters damaged another pumping station owned by Petroecuador on Monday, forcing it to shut down its main pipeline and suspend exports for several hours.
Negotiations between the government and protesters broke down late Tuesday after officials refused to meet the activists' demands until they end a general strike.
Interior Minister Alfredo Castillo, the chief negotiator, was meeting with Ecuador's President Alfredo Palacio to try to seek a way to end the protests, a government source said.
(Additional reporting by Carlos Andrade) |
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