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Lagniappe
Civilizing” the
Ecuadorian Amazon: Colonial Corporatism (III)
Oil
fires on indigenous land in the Amazon
By
Agneta Enström
Oil fires on indigenous land in the AmazonSwedish construction
company Skanska’s extensive and environmentally destructive
operations in Latin America are little known in Europe. Far
from the environmentally friendly company it claims to be,
the cosmetic discourse on development and progress that pervades
the all-Swedish company is racist and colonialist in practice.
For
slightly more than a year and a half, the Skanska base has
been located outside the oil town of Coca in Ecuador’s
ravaged rainforest province of Orellana. The company’s
activities conducted in cooperation with the oil companies
in various oil fields in the region are controlled from here.
One of Skanska’s regional managers in the Amazon basin
is Milton Diaz, a man with many decades of experience in
the oil industry. He used to work for Skanska in his native
land of Argentina, where the company’s continental
headquarters are located.
From
a series of meetings and interviews with Diaz and his colleagues
conducted in Ecuador (from spring 2006 on) by
the political scientist Hanna Dahlström and myself,
we pieced together a cohesive picture of Skanska’s
leading figures. The opinions Diaz expresses represent a
cultural racism, in which Ecuador’s population in general,
and the indigenous peoples in particular, are described in
sharply pejorative terms. “People here in the bush
should be grateful to industry instead of just complaining
and making unreasonable demands,” he argues. “If
it weren’t for the companies, they would still be living
on bananas and not know anything other than the jungle – just
like apes. In spite of everything, this is an undeveloped
banana republic.”
Unfortunately,
Diaz’s opinions are not unusual. The racist
discourse he gives voice to is in line with conventional perspectives
of Northern companies in the global South on culture and development.
Concepts like “blockheads,” “banana republic” and “low
culture” are taken to symbolize the Others, who are the
local and so-called undeveloped. “All people here think
about is lazing about and seeking pleasure. No-one takes any
responsibility for anything…They don’t realize
that the companies have given them everything. Roads, bridges – everything
we see around us,” says Milton Diaz, spreading his arms
wide to indicate a vast industrial area where the rainforest
once stood.
The
corporate myth of sustainable development
According
to Skanska, their aim is to promote “sustainable
development” by practising the most environmentally friendly
of possible alternatives. However, these visions are obviously
and entirely dependent on external regulation. Victor Vazquez
is Skanska’s environmental manager in the same region
in which Diaz works. Vazquez claims that Skanska burns toxic
gases (slag products) in the open air, even though that is
an extremely polluting procedure. Vazquez’s explanation
of this behaviour is that the Ecuadorian state lacks the resources
to execute environmental laws pertaining to such an absence
of environmental consideration. “Ecuador is not that
developed yet, and there is no incentive to invest in better
technology. In other countries, however, such as Argentina,
naturally we use the best techniques available,” he says.
According
to oil workers from oil block 18, where the Swedish company
works with the oil giant Petrobras, gas burning in
the field is so extensive there are no living things in view.
That, if anything, confirms that the environmentally friendly
technology and sustainable development with which Skanska
wants to be associated is nothing more than propaganda.
Another
Argentinean in a management position at Skanska in the Amazon
region is Oswaldo Contreras. He, too, frankly
admits that oil extraction always has a number of dirty downsides. “Oil
drilling can never be environmentally friendly...However,
it’s one of those things you just have to live with,” he
says with a shrug.
Unlike
the local population, which is forced to live with the pollution,
Contreras does not have to be concerned about
oil in his drinking water. Nor does he have to worry about
the high risk of developing any of eight oil-related forms
of cancer or several other serious health problems associated
with emissions from the oil industry in the Amazon region.
And just like Milton Diaz, Contreras argues in terms of benefits
that accrue to the population from the industry’s presence.
“
Skanska,” he boasts, “has built a road for the
local population in Campo Bermejo on the Columbian border.
That’s the kind of thing we call social responsibility
and compensation…”
Extortion
and lies
According
to environmental inspector Marcos Baños, head
of the environmental authority in the oil town Coca and the
province of Orellana, Skanska has behaved in a suspicious manner
and shown a great lack of respect in the region. Baños
says that company representatives have visited the authority
to offer to perform “projects.” “I considered
it extortion,” the environmental inspector explains.
Baños relates further that Skanska is one of the most
slippery companies he has to deal with in his work. And it
is difficult to doubt him, since his information about Skanska
undeniably complements the picture of a company that will try
to fake its way around laws and regulations at any price. He
is not alone in giving this picture of Skanska in the Amazon
region.
Raul
Vega, in the provincial environmental office in Coca, fills
in the story about Skanska with more scandals. He,
too, is very disappointed at Skanska’s mode of behavior
in Ecuador – showing no consideration for environmental
laws or people, and complete lack of respect for the country’s
government agencies and its indigenous people. “Oswaldo
Contreras was the first Skanska person we contacted,” Vega
explains, “and he refused to give us the information
we required. If they had only shown us they’d done
an environmental study, we would have given them a permit… But
it was not until a subsequent occasion that Skanska submitted
any information. That information, however, turned out to
be false. The company claimed it had conducted an environmental
study, which was a complete and utter lie.”
When
Business created the Earth
According
to Skanska’s regional managers, it is thanks
to the companies that the indigenous people finally have the
opportunity to become civilized. This view is not unique to
corporate leaders in developing countries, but is rather shared
by neoliberal ideologues in Europe – such as Swedish
Johan Norberg, whose attitude to non-industrialized cultures
is equally crass and prejudiced. Norberg’s book, När
människan skapade världen (“When man created
the world,” Timbro: 2006) expresses a frightening lack
of understanding for non-industrialized cultures whose homes
are occupied by western companies like Skanska and unscrupulous
oil giants. According to Norberg, globalization, the free market
and industrial production are a universal recipe for happiness
and welfare. Because, in Norberg’s world, human history
has consistently been a “story of bottomless misery” – a
perspective that is not only ignorant but also leads to lethal
ethnocentrism when adopted by large companies seeking to justify
their rapacious behaviour in the southern hemisphere. “In
the beginning, we were all developing countries,” argues
Norberg, without concerning himself about the imperialistic
dominance that regularly destroys aboriginal cultures struggling
desperately for survival against multinational corporations
and corrupt governments.
However,
Norberg’s and Skanska’s attitude is both
incorrect and racist. According to the indigenous people, their
culture is not under-developed and their lives were not miserable
before the companies launched their “operation civilization” campaign
in the jungle. On the contrary, it is the western concept of
development that stands for death and destruction in the Amazon
basin.
Unlike
Johan Norberg, who despite his successful career as a writer
can only distort perspectives, companies like Skanska
unfortunately have a physical power over the cultures unlucky
enough to stand in their way. And under the unequal relationships
between large companies, states and civil society, particularly
in the southern hemisphere, Skanska has shown itself to represent
cultural and ecological regression, rather than the “social
responsibility” and “sustainable development” it
clams to offer the world.
Today,
there is an important struggle and for the future crucial
resistance against oil exploration in sensitive ecosystems
and on indigenous territories. Networks fighting against
the devastating industry in Latin America are the international
Oilwatch, the Ecuadorian Accion Ecologica and Frente de Defensa
de la Amazonia (FDA). Survival International is an other
organisation working with and for tribal people all around
the world.
Sources:
Oilwatch - http://www.oilwatch.org/
Accion
Ecológica: http://accionecologica.org/webae/index.php
Frente
de defensa de la Amazonia (FDA): http://www.texacotoxico.com/
Survival
International: http://www.survival-international.org/
Agneta
Enström is
an editor and reporter at www.yelah.net.
Yelah is a Swedish independent media group, uncovering activism
and politics worldwide. She has recently worked in Ecuador,
researching Skanska and oil exploration on indigenous land.
(nettila@hotmail.com).Petroleumworld
does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
note: This commentary was originally published by Upside
Down World, on 30 October 2007. This article is part 3 in
a series by Agneta Enström (Part
1) (Part
2) Petroleumworld
reprint this
article in the interest of our readers. Petroleumworld does
not necessarily share these views.
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