When Defending Your Community Becomes a High Crime

Carlos Zorrilla
Not too long ago I was asked the impossible: to share my experience as an activist in Intags two
decades long anti-mining struggle in 600 or less words. Needless to say, a lot will have to be left out
and I'll definitely run over the allotted words, but if this motivates you to look into the issue deeper,
then the frustration will have been worth it.
It will be impossible to understand my activism, however, without knowing where I live and what is
at stake. For example, knowing that I've live full time in Ecuadors Intag region since 1978 and that
my home is surrounded by primary and secondary cloud forests, clean rivers, waterfalls, stunningly
beautiful vistas and wonderful neighbors will help. Without this context it will be impossible to grasp
why I and others like myself have fought so hard and for so many years to oppose the open-pit
copper mine threatening us.
Intag is just not biodiverse and beautiful, it is also populated with some of the nicest people I have
come across my wide-ranging travels, all living in small, tight-knit agricultural communities. And,
until the mining companies came looking for copper, the area was exceptionally peaceful with very
low crime rates. It is in this setting that Ive raised my children, learned how to farm, and deepened
my love for nature. In other words, this is a place I love and care for deeply.
The recurring nightmare
It's December 13, 2013, and the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, lashes out against me in a
nationally televised and radio address heard by- supposedly- millions, in which he falsely accuses me
of, among many other things, of destabilizing his progressive government (emphasis on quotation
marks). He makes several false and slanderous accusations related to a manual I helped write to help
communities understand what they face when large-scale mining companies come knocking at their
door. The manual, co-written with three other authors, includes steps communities can take to
minimize or avoid the impacts. At the end of his speech, he asks his countrymen to react to the
fabricated threat.
The speech was a follow-up to another xenophobic (I am Cuban by birth and US citizen) and
slanderous televised speech he gave 90 days earlier in which he named me and other local activists
opposed to a mining project, saying we were opposing the development of the whole nation. In this
particular speech he showed my photograph to the world as well as that of several other activists
opposed to the proposed open-pit copper mine that Intag has been successfully fighting for the last
2 decades.
The December threats against me by Mr. Correa, in which I was practically declared an enemy of the
state, got the attention of Amnesty International, prompting them to issue an International Action
Alert to safeguard my safety. At the time I felt threatened enough that I went into in hiding for a few
weeks.
It was not the first time I had to go into hiding for my activism.
Flashback to 2006
Now it is dawn, October 17 2006, and 19 heavily armed police are breaking into my home. A minute
before, I received a phone call from a neighbor and was able to melt into the nearby forest and avoid
arrest. Had it not been for the phone call, I would not be alive today to write this*.
After intimidating my teenage son and a neighbor, the police ransacked my room looking for
evidence as a consequence of a judicial set up meant to land me in jail. Not surprisingly, the police
found nothing, though they did steal cash and a few valuables. Ironically, its been the only time Ive

ever been robbed in the almost four decades of living in Intag. Before the police left, however, a
lone police entered my home and found a gun and a packet with something that looked like
drugs. The planted evidence gave rise to another arrest warrant for illegal possession of a firearm, a
serious crime carrying a minimum eight year jail term. Now I had two arrest warrants, and in order
to avoid arrest, I went into hiding over a month. Two years later, the courts ruled that the lawsuit
that started the whole farce, which was filed by an American woman paid by the mining company,
was malicious. My supposed crime?: stealing her camera and money and instructing several people
to beat her up. The incidence had supposedly taken place in a public anti-mining demonstration in
broad daylight in Ecuador's capital amidst hundreds of protesters from Intag, plus a squad of police
looking on. Neither the District Attorney nor the judge involved in the case ever asked for the police
report before ordering the arrest and search warrants. I dont blame you if you think I am making
any of this up. Unfortunately, I am not.
Seven months after the raid I received an email from a company insider who told me that the
ultimate goal of the police raid was to jail me and then have someone kill me there.
The raid, it turned out, was part of a master plan to neutralize the opposition drawn up by Honor
and Laurel, an international security firm founded by an ex MI6 agent. Two weeks after raiding my
home, the company sent in 50 paramilitaries armed with attack dogs, machetes and tear gas to try
to access their mining concession. The communities turned them back then, as they did on
December 2006 when they sent in even more paramilitaries to the Junn community, this time
armed with pepper spray, shotguns and .38 caliber guns*.
Though I am one of the most targeted by the mining companies I am not alone. One such recent
case is that of Javier Ramrez, a campesino anti-mining leader from the Junn community who was
recently released from jail after serving ten months for a crime he did not commit. After much
national and international pressure the courts finally let him go, but not after sentencing him for the
time he had served in jail. His alleged crime?: Supposedly hitting a company employee from Enami,
Ecuadors state-owned mining company and breaking the cars windshield during a confrontation
between company employees and community members. Almost a year later, his brother Victor Hugo
is still in hiding accused of the same crime.
Since 2012 Ecuadors state-owned mining company, Enami, along with Codelco, the world's largest
copper producer, also state-owned, are trying hard to continue where Bishimetals and Copper Mesa
failed. For the past almost three years the companies have pretty much been following the script
used by most mining and petroleum multinationals for steamrolling the opposition: Offer everything
to everyone, especially high paying jobs to key people, improve or offer to improve basic
infrastructure (like roads) , and so forth. When that fails, then the tactics get nastier. Thus, just as
the Canadians sent in their armed goons in 2006, the Ecuadorian government sent in a 300-strong
elite police force to, basically intimidate the hell out of the communities. And, what, you might ask,
was governments justification for this gross violation of rights? To guarantee the safety of a handful
of technicians who were taking flora, fauna, water and other samples so they could write up an
environmental impact study in order to comply with the letter (if not the spirit) of the law as a
prelude to the start of advanced exploration. Similarly to the timing of the raid on my home and the
sending of the goons to the communities, the police assault took place a few weeks after arresting
Javier Ramrez, who was president of the Junn community at the time. Coincidence no doubt.
What is at stake?
The other main facet needed to understand the struggle is to know what is at stake. Based on a
preliminary study undertaken for a small open-pit copper mine, which would supply the world with
only a few days worth of copper, the proposed mine threatens the whole Intag region with
profound environmental and social upheaval. The study predicted, among other things: massive
deforestation which would lead to a process of desertification (in their own words),
contamination of rivers and streams with lead, arsenic and other heavy metals, and impacts to

primary forests harboring over a dozen species facing extinction-including Jaguars, Spectacled Bears
and the Brown-faced Spider Monkey (the last one in critical danger of extinction). It also said that it
would impact the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, the only protected area one of any
significant size in all of Western Ecuador, and one of the planet's most biologically important (rating
even higher than the better known Yasun National Park). If that wasn't bad enough, the study also
predicted some grim social impacts, including an increase crime and the relocation of four
communities. Junn, the community Javier is from, would be the first one to be wiped off the map.
And then, the year after publishing the impacts, they found five times more copper.
If allowed to go ahead, given the exceptional steep terrain the mining site is located at, the
composition of the mining deposit, combined with the areas high rainfall, the presence dozens of
pristine rivers and streams as well as abundant underground aquifers and primary forests harboring
endangered mammals and other species, and the seismic risks, this would be one of the worlds
most environmentally devastating mining projects. The threat could not be clearer nor grimmer,
and are more than enough reason to do all one can to keep it from happening.
Why Bother?
It's not infrequent that I am asked how it is that we can keep opposing the opening of the mine after
so many years and after so much harassment and hardships. The above impacts go a long way to
explain it: the thought of so much beauty and biological and cultural diversity transformed into yet
another open-pit mine hemorrhaging heavy metals helps to sustain many of us. This, in spite of the
death threats, the tremendous and incessant stress, the economic hardships, the heartbreaks and
disappointments of witnessing so much injustice and apathy, and the short-sightedness of
politicians, as well of being dragged through the mud by the highest elected official of a nation.
Even after experiencing these horrible things I find the question of how I can keep opposing the
mine baffling. I find it baffling because it is impossible for me to grasp that anyone who feels part of,
and loves his community, wouldn't want do anything else but defend it against such a clear and
imminent threat. The alternative is to pack up and leave.
And, Im not about to do that.

*This confrontation, was filmed and forms part of the documentaries on: Under Rich Earth, When Clouds Clear
and In the Open Sky- Rights Undermined.
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