At the end of September, courageous Indigenous rights and water defenders from the Amazon and high-mountain regions of Ecuador travelled to Canada on mission: to speak out against free trade talks aimed at increasing Canadian mining activity in ecologically sensitive regions of Ecuador.
Starting in Toronto, shifting to Ottawa and then culminating in Montreal, the seven-day ‘Why We Say NO’ tour saw the Ecuadorian defenders – all women – meet with government officials and MPs, forge alliances with Indigenous leaders and civil-society organizations, and move audiences at public talks. Their impassioned calls for rights protection reverberated loudly in the Canada media in the first week of October, just two weeks before the fourth round of free trade negotiations between Canada and Ecuador were set to kick off.
‘We are here to reject the destruction of our environment’
Members of the delegation were interviewed by journalists from some of the most respected and influential news outlets about their concerns regarding Canada’s warp-speed negotiation of a free trade agreement with Ecuador.
‘It’s going to destroy everything we depend on’ was the headline of a story about the delegation in The Hill Times, quoting Fanny Kaekat, a leader of the Shuar Arutam people and Amazonian Women Defenders of the Rainforest. The story also quoted Zenaida Yasacama, vice-president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE): “We say a clear ‘no’ to this [free trade] agreement and ‘no’ to extractivism that is the cause of very serious problems in terms of violations of human rights, in particular of Indigenous peoples’ rights to the lands and the territories.”
Yasacama amplified her concerns about harms from the activities of Canadian mining companies in a story that appeared in both print and online versions of The Globe and Mail. “Canadian companies cause a lot of trouble for us because our organizations are there to defend the land and we will continue to defend the land,” she said. “If necessary, we will give our lives to defend our land because we want to preserve the land for future generations. We are here as protectors of the rainforest, and we are here to reject the destruction of our environment.”
In a Oct. 2 press conference on Parliament Hill, the Ecuadorian delegates reiterated their opposition to Canadian mining on their territories without the free, prior and informed consultation and consent that is required under international rights covenants. They underscored the threats they already face for taking such a public stand. CBC Indigenous’s Brett Forester covered the press conference, and the public-affairs channel CPAC streamed it live.
“The Ecuadorian government has not consulted with us and is hiding information about its free trade negotiations as it turns our territories into sacrifice zones,” Kaekat declared. “We are already facing very grave social and environmental impacts from mining. We are being threatened and our territory is being expropriated. Speaking out here puts my safety at risk.”
That evening, the storied CBC Radio nightly interview program As It Happens played a clip from the press conference and interviewed Amnesty International Canada Secretary General Ketty Nivyabandi about the women’s testimony (segment starts just after 27:25).
“I get goosebumps,” said Nivyabandi when asked about the risks the delegates are taking by raising their voices in Canada. “Because yesterday in one of the meetings we had with the women, one of them told us very clearly… ‘I do not know whether I will stay alive once I go back to Ecuador. People know that I have come here. They will hear about it.’ And people have died while doing exactly what she’s doing.”
Ecuadorian defenders win attention in Francophone, Spanish media
Aiming to reach a large and diverse audience, the Ecuadorian delegates also participated in interviews with Francophone and Spanish-speaking journalists. The daily Quebec-based Francophone outlets Le Devoir and Pivot covered the tour, as did Radio-Canada, the French language public broadcaster. Paloma Martinez-Mendez, of Radio Canada International, produced a standout report in French and Spanish about a moving meeting between the women from Ecuador and members of the First Nations Women’s Council of the Chiefs of Ontario.
“Sharing experiences with the sisters from Canada has been very important for me, because the situation we are experiencing is really the same as theirs,” Kaekat told Martinez-Mendez after a meeting with Indigenous leaders including Kukpi7 (Chief) Judy Wilson, of the Neskonlith Indian Band, and Deputy Grand Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum, of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. “I feel less alone.”
Background
Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Labour Congress, MiningWatch Canada, and KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives organized the ‘Why We Say NO’ tour. In addition, 13 Canadian trade unions and other civil-society organizations provided support and echoed concerns about the free trade negotiations that are advancing at breakneck speed without human rights due diligence.
While Canada and Ecuador have pledged to secure an inclusive trade deal respecting democracy and human rights, there has been no consultation with Indigenous nations and rural communities in Ecuador, even as they report serious and ongoing abuses tied to existing Canadian projects. This failure violates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Canada adopted UNDRIP in 2016 and later passed legislation integrating it into domestic law.
Header photo credit: Danilo Ursini/Amnesty International Canada
