President Chávez set his newly formed council of state the task of counselling him on whether to pull Venezuela from the IACHR, which he has criticised for years as a body serving the interests of the US and intent on destabilising his government. His latest criticism follows the publication of a report by the IACHR condemning Venezuela’s human rights record and the lack of independent state institutions to hold the Chávez administration to account.
A week earlier judges from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights met government officials and visited Sarayacu, in the Amazon province of Pastaza, to meet members of a local indigenous community who have mounted a legal challenge against an Argentine company Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC) before the Court. In 1996 a previous government granted CGC the right to exploit oil in the lands of the Sarayaku without consulting them. The army supported CGC, which was eventually driven out of the area by the Sarayaku. The government recently compensated CGC to the tune of US$20m, but now it has accepted responsibility on behalf of the State for the violation of the rights of the Sarayaku and offered compensation.
President Correa conceded on his weekend media broadcast that this case was affecting Ecuador’s image. He has not really been too perturbed by other issues affecting Ecuador’s image however, which suggests this could have more to do with reaching out to indigenous sectors ahead of elections next year: indigenous organisations staged a nationwide march last March [WR-12-11] and Correa suffered a defeat in provinces with a high concentration of indigenous inhabitants in last May’s referendum.
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