The (Other) War for Oil

The (Other) War for Oil:

Dispossession and Violence in the Amazon River Basin

In the global market, the corporate world obtains resources through dispossession: that is, corporations take from local people what is rightfully theirs. There are endless examples of foreign companies exploiting, often violently, indigenous peoples who happen to live in resource hotbeds. It seems that in the global market, resources and profit are more important than human integrity or cultural preservation. The Amazon region is a perfect example of how the global market is employing dispossession and exploitation for capital gain. The Amazon River basin is home to the world’s highest concentration of natural bio-diversity; not to mention lumber, gold, and oil.

I read an article a couple of days ago titled “Ataque a Indígenas” (Attack on Indigenous people) released by the BBC. The article recounts a massacre of 15 Waorani people. The Waorani people live in and around the Yasuní National park in Ecuador, and recently had tried to detain illegal loggers who trespassed in the area. The logger detainees aggressively resisted the people’s right to protect their land and its recourses. The loggers killed 15 women, men, and children by decapitation. This atrocious violence is sadly familiar in the region, as the surrounding area is rich in valuable lumbers and the oil reserve could potentially yield over 1,000,000 barrels. (BBC Mundo).

This case is certainly not isolated, as much of the felled lumber in Ecuador is illegal, but Ecuadorian police say that it is simply impossible to patrol theses areas. In thinking about the violent dispossession exemplified in this story, and other similar cases, I reflect not only one the causes of such atrocities but also on the brutal loss of human life and systematic oppression in the region. There is a larger structure in place here that perpetuates this situation, and simply stated: it is a war for resources. Oil drilling and processing, timbering, and crop spraying for the “war on drugs,” are rapidly destroying virgin forest and the people who live there. Unregulated pursuit of oil, lumber and other resources in the region is destroying the culture, its people, and not to mention the environmental integrity of the region.

Working in the Amazon River basin this past summer, it became quite apparent to me that the global market has indeed penetrated the region. The fable of the mysterious and isolated Amazon is a lie that disseminates ignorance about what is really happening in the region, and also perpetuates exoticism of the people and the culture. I saw that the daily passing of lumber barges quickly eroded the shoreline of the river and it tributaries while rocking the small boats of people fishing, washing clothes, or crossing the river to farm. Theses subtle changes and annoyances in daily life reflect the much bigger problem at hand. Seeing the piles of lumber stacked atop a ship spewing black smog into the pure air made me feel completely disheartened. I wondered about the lives of the people working in the industry, wondered where that lumber would eventually end up, and consequently felt shame and embarrassment for being a part of the global market that is so quickly alerting the world.

The recent massacre of the 15 Waorani people is not an isolated case, nor does this problem have a simple solution. The problem is that many corporations that come into the Amazon region form strong alliances and business partnerships with the government owned industries, freeing these corporations from regulations. It is an entangled relationship. As corporations profit on low operational costs, many governments in the Amazon region have developed a strong dependency on the outsider investment. The government, under the pressure of their reliance on foreign investors, often develops laws to protect unlimited resource extraction. However, there is little legislation protecting the rights and lives of the people who live in the Amazon River basin.

Unlike the arguments in support of a free market, these corporations actually do more to harm than good for the people in the Amazon River Basin. In fact, since the commencement of commercial oil activity in 1967, the overall number of people living in poverty in Ecuador has actually gone up from 47%-67%, while 45% of Ecuador’s export income comes from oil (Kimerling 62). Looking at the numbers, there is no denying that the quality of life in the region decreases while the corporations’ profits increase.

The recent Waorani massacre reminds us of the direct brutality that these industries bring into the region, but oppression comes in other forms as well. These industries bring pipe-lines that require mass deforestation and drilling that pollutes ground water and food sources. People and entire communities working for these companies also experienced a severance from a sustainable lifestyle. For example, Chevron-Texaco operating in the Amazon produces five million gallons of toxic waste leaking into the groundwater everyday (Kimerling 64). Various on-going class action law suits have been filed, none of them resulting in Chevron-Texaco initiating any clean-up or changing their operational procedures. In the midst of all the environmental destruction and human rights violations in the name of profit, Chevron-Texaco has earned a total thirty billion dollars in profit in Ecuador alone (Amazon Defense Coalition 2). In this case, the oil extraction and pursuit of capital yields results more like that of a war than the results promised by the free market.

Resource depletion in the Amazon region exemplifies how globalization and multi-national corporations run unchecked destroying human lives and the environmental condition of our planet. The solution lies in the hand of an informed public to reduce consumer needs for such resources, demand legislation for fair business practices, and to promote an empowered voice of the peoples living in the Amazon River basin.

References

Amazon Defense Coalition. “Chevron’s Dirty Business in Ecuador: 13 Examples That

Expose a Corporate Cover-Up.” Published report. 2006.

“Ataque A Indígenas.” BBC Mundo. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/

newsid7245000/7245354.stm. Accessed February 14, 2008.

Kimerling, Judith. “Oil, Lawlessness and Indigenous Struggles in Ecuador’s Oriente.”

Green Guerrillas. Nottingham: Russell Press, 1996. 61-73.