|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
Fair Witnesses needed in Ecuador |
Current rating: 0 |
by Molly Brown
Email: jenny (nospam) cloudforest.org (unverified!)
Phone: 707-463-2482
Address: POB 1435 Ukiah, CA 95482-1435 |
13 Jul 2001
|
|
A first hand account of the scuttling of the "Celebrate Biodiversity" rave in Mindo, Ecuador. |
>From: \"molly brown\"
>Subject: depression in paradise
>Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 17:00:35
July 6, 2001 I am depressed. I am depressed because I see ignorance and pride eating away at people\'s brains, mine included, like some sort of cancer, causing us to do ridiculous acts and say even more incredulous things. Just thinking of the gross exaggerations, straight out lies and down right mean accusations that I have heard in the last two weeks makes me want to run away from this place as fast as possible and never look back. The weak leaders, the ignorant followers, the narrow-minded brutes, the lack of vision and creativity I see here is killing me inside.
The fact that for the last nine months there has been a dedicated group of young and informed citizens of Mindo working sincerely and honestly against a corrupt and truly greedy petroleum industry brings tears to my eyes. But what I have seen happen in the last week makes me want to scream and pull my hair out. Besides the previously mentioned individuals who have worked hard and selflessly as far as their power and resources can take them, this town has been totally deaf to the ensuing threat and destruction it will see in the future due to the proposed petroleum pipeline that is planned to pass through here. Meetings, forums, field trips, activities- a myriad of occasions to inform and stimulate this intellectually dead town have proven to be failures due to pure lack of interest among the majority of citizens of Mindo. But now that a group has offered to hold a weekend concert here in town in order to raise funds and consciousness towards the endless fight against the petroleum industry, the people finally decide it is time to make a fuss.
Rumors started about 15 days ago when town members realized this festival was really going to happen. Stages were being set up in the privately-owned hosterìa El Carmelo where the event was planned to be held. 3000 entrance tickets had already been sold in Quito, 120 artists including world renown Andean folklore groups as well as a group of 50 shamans who were coming exclusively to sit and pray for those who still have the power to reverse the decision of the pipeline route. The group \"Underave\" who plans these types of events arrived with long hair, tattoos and very little clothing. The people of Mindo started getting nervous. They say hippies are going to come and walk around naked and on drugs. \"They\'re going to rape our women and make our daughters part of their twisted lifestyle.\" \"They\'re going to steal and pillage and cause disgrace to our town.\" And when ignorant people start talking about something they haven\'t the slightest clue about it\'s amazing the way they can twist and bend and stretch to unimaginable lengths what were, to begin with, total lies. Then the master mother nun from the private Catholic boarding school decides to visit the town and scare people even more by calling a meeting with all the parents of the children in the school telling them that their kids are going to be corrupted if they let this group of drug-addicted, dangerous \"rock and rollers\" into Mindo. I know I am writing with a lot of emotion now, but believe me I am not exaggerating. This is what I have had to listen to for over two weeks. Meanwhile on the side of those involved in planning and arranging the concert, there is no worry because it is on private property with all of the correct permits and licenses. All of the hostels, hotels, resorts are filling up with reservations for the weekend. This concert is going to make Latin American protest history, and it\'s going to be right here in Mindo.
This morning, the day before the festival, Efrain and I get up at 5:30am to serve breakfast to 8 guests before they get on the 6:30am bus. We have a long day ahead. We have to do an almost complete turnover in the hostel and the cabins and wait for the weekend guests to arrive who have made reservations with us. We send off our guests and decide to go for a walk to see birds while it\'s still early. We encounter one of Efrain\'s many nephews who tells us the only entrance/exit to Mindo is blocked. There are rumors flying everywhere that there are 100 cops patrolling the area, that people are fighting. We are more worried about our tourists who have to get back to Quito to catch a flight. So we decide to catch a ride with a friend and see what\'s going on. That\'s where I made my first mistake.
Two nights ago there was a town meeting about the issue of the festival and I decided not to go and sent Efrain along because I knew it would be too hard for me to watch. I have been to too many of these meetings where people show up angry and resentful. Everybody yells and interrupts each other for hours on end and nothing is ever resolved. Instead of passing the evening with my stomach in knots listening to the mean and terrible things people say to each other in this town, I stayed at home writing letters listening to music and later went on a full moon walk. I was happy about my decision the next day when Efrain (he didn\'t come home until after midnight from the meeting) told me about the outcome of the meeting - nothing. They hadn\'t decided a thing after more than five hours of heated discussion.
We arrive at the fork in the road where the dirt road to Mindo curves off the main highway and find a large group of people already there in two groups facing each other and yelling face to face. The group of 15 men who were up there in protest of the festival had dumped four truck loads of dirt in the road and were standing in front of the impassible heap with sticks and machetes. As soon as we arrived, the 10:30 bus carrying two of our guests and about ten other tourists arrived to take passengers down to Mindo, but there was no chance. The tourists got off the bus and tried to cross on foot to walk down, but these men said they are not letting ANY tourists in until Sunday, until the festival is over.
This is not the United States folks where civil action works in a neat and organized manner. You can\'t just call up your local representative and tell him that a few ignorant men are blocking access on a public road, could he please do something about it now thank you very much. These men have come there ready to fight all day, convinced that this festival would be the end of Mindo. There was no hope to reason with them at this point. And I kept telling myself that, that I don\'t have to lower myself down to their level and start yelling and insulting them in the middle of the road like everybody else was. But somehow it didn\'t stick and when Efrain and I tried to squeeze by with two of Efrain\'s friends who had come to visit, a man who I know slightly well, who has been a friend, steps in front of me and tells me I cannot bring them pass that point. Something snapped. Maybe it had to do with all the food we had bought in anticipation of a busy weekend, maybe it had to do with the fact that I knew this man had never been to a music festival in his life and had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Or maybe it was just because I had kept quiet for too long. But I broke my pact with myself and started yelling. I told him I demanded to know who was in charge of this ridiculous attempt of a protest so that I could go to that person and demand that he pay me the amount of money I will lose by not being able to receive our guests. I asked him what threat posed these two small American women at my side. What were they scared of? This town already suffers from drug addiction, adultery and crime even without the presence of conscious people who want to help preserve this precious area that the people from Mindo so take for granted. And further more, if you all are so concerned about the welfare of this town, doesn\'t it worry you if something were to happen down there and they wouldn\'t be able to leave because you asses are up here holding up a road block? I knew I had to get out of that heated situation when he started saying \"I don\'t hear you, I don\'t hear you\" exactly like how I used to sing when I was six years old and my brothers harassed me. I could have punched somebody hard in that moment. But instead I left everybody who had circled around and went to be alone to cry.
I cried for the self-projected ignorant fear that drives people to do hurtful and crazy things. I cried for this town that has so much potential and opportunity but keeps digging a hole bigger and bigger to drown itself in. And I cried for the trees and birds of the area that are most definitely going to see destruction and suffering in the form of a thick, black substance that is valued more than life itself because this town can\'t get it\'s act together no matter how many people want to try to help.
So, here I am with an empty house, trying not to feel angry and resentful towards a particular group of people. I truly want to understand, to have clarity and to be able to forgive those people with whom I absolutely don\'t agree. But for know I can only be depressed and feel hopeless when I think about the future of this town and the people in it, and thankfully I can keep praying for understanding and enlightenment.
July 8, 2001 Things have gotten worse. The men up at the road block have been drinking since Friday. They have become totally unreasonable. Harassing and insulting tourists trying to pass, claiming to reporters that the \"pueblo entero\" is behind them and their protest. The police have come to \"keep order\". All I have seen them do is play basketball, do tricks on their motorcycles and pick up on the girls in town. Their was a whole special operations squat team here yesterday with their fancy riot gear, patrolling the town as if we were some sort of threat. Threat lies at the top of the road where there are drunk, righteous men with machetes and other weapons ready to go at anyone who crosses them. But the police explained to us that really this is an \"internal problem\" that we need to work out ourselves. Right after an innocent bystander\'s head was split open with a metal pipe for photographing the scene the police told us that these men present no threat and therefore they will not make them leave and open the road. The feeling of helplessness and absolute loss of hope for this town is overwhelming.
July 10, 2001 The rumors continue. Some prominent activist members are trying to keep a low profile now that the police are openly in favor of those who protested the festival. The road opened yesterday morning. They still haven\'t even taken the dirt away, people are just driving over it. Efrain went to buy bread this morning and the woman at the store asked him why he was coming to buy there, like he was not welcome there. There was another town meeting and, breaking another personal pact, I decided to go. I got up and left half way through because I was crying too hard to pay attention to what was going on. It was basically a celebration of all those who had apparently \"won\" the battle. The man who had attacked the photographer had spent four years previously in jail for having killed a man with a hatchet. He received a round of applause during the meeting for having defended the interests of those present. One after another they went up to the microphone and spoke their words of appreciation and thanks to those who fought so hard against the preservation of the town. Those of us who had the courage or the energy to attend stood lined up against the wall with our jaws dropped and tears in our eyes watching the town members condone violence and rejoice in an ignorant victory. We felt so beat and hopeless that we stayed quiet throughout the whole meeting. What is left to say? How can we continue to defend our right to live a free, healthy life if all the local authorities and community members are out to get us? Where do we go from here? |
See also:
http://www.cloudforest.org
|
|
More from Mindo |
by Freeda Alida Burnstad
alida (nospam) cloudforest.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
13 Jul 2001
|
Commentary on the sabotage of the "Celebrating Biodiversity" rave in Mindo, Ecuador by ???
We in Mindo are in the middle of a civil war incited by the oil interests who have played on the ignorance of a people who are confused by a changing world and searching desperatley to lay blame on somebody. OCP, via the Catholic nuns, have succeeded in convicing them to lay the blame on the ecologists/hippies. For those of you who read my essay on the effects of cultural globalization last year might agree that this situation in a continuation of the same lack of understanding and comunication. The situation is further complicated by the fact that some stupid north american "Trust-a-fundian" (a "concious" rasta who has never worked a day in his life because mommy and daddy support him) took it upon himself to combine his own agenda with the oilpipeline issue and pass out fliers in Mindo with the title "Up with Marijuana (legalization), down with OCP" speaking to the valid point of alternative energy sources, but linking two issues that aren't related. Now the opposition in town is convinced that all against OCP are "Marijuaneros" especially the foreigners. This combined with the fact that the officials are bought by OCP is causing many of us to fear that they will try to eliminate the opposition by planting drugs on us for a reason to arrest us. Believe me the rumors flying around town are endless and nobody really knows what is true and what is just small town gossip.
In anycase, Instituto Bosque Nublado is being effected in two ways, the sustainable living workshops that the Caravana Arcoiris were going to offer in Mindo will no longer happen there, and two, Dara has given up on the town and is looking at working elsewhere, creating a split in our energies. So this week calls for pause and contemplation on what our next moves will be both for IBN and in regards to the OCP issue. It is sure that we need to inform all International Human Rights Organizations to please keep there eyes on this issue as OCP and the Ecuadorian Govt. has entered into the levels of dirty work.
Freeda Alida Burnstad
An update and good source of Ecuadorian news can be found at:
|
See also:
www.goecuador.com
|
