“We felt displaced in our own homes,” says Rosa Masapanta, the President of the small farmers’ cooperative Associación Flor de Caña in northern Ecuador. On March 11 and 12, 2024, a reported 1000 members of Ecuador’s state security forces descended on Rosa’s community of Palo Quemado and the neighbouring community of Las Pampas, militarizing the area to advance an environmental consultation for the “La Plata” project – a proposed open-pit gold and silver mine owned by the Canadian company Atico Mining.
“La Plata” has been designated by the Ecuadorian government a “Security Zone,” granting the government powers to use military and police forces to secure mining projects in early stages of development, effectively cracking down on community protest. Since March, over 70 people who have spoken out against the proposed mine have been slapped with unfounded criminal charges of terrorism and organized crime, in line with a pattern of criminalizing land defenders across Latin America.
As President of Flor de Caña, Rosa is one of 92 members who have diligently worked these past 15 years to organize sugarcane harvesters to produce organic panela (concentrated unrefined cane sugar), caring for the soil and harvesting sustainably while protecting the region’s water supply. The “La Plata” mining concession was granted without prior consultation or the free, prior, and informed consent of affected Indigenous communities, and has been actively opposed by many people across the region including members of Flor de Caña.
“Some of our members live within the boundaries of the mining concession, who will lose years of work,” says Rosa Masapanta. “Our water provides for the rest of the province. Our community lies at the headwaters of the Esmeralda River, which flows to the Pacific Ocean. It is an entire chain of production, a chain of life, that will be affected by mining.”
Yuly Tenorio is a lawyer providing legal counsel to the Associación Flor de Caña. She works for the Coordinator for the National Citizens’ Observatory for Monitoring the Fulfillment of Human Rights and the Rights of Nature with regards to all phases of mining, a body which – among other things – examines the human rights and rights of nature impacts of all phases of mining, including exploration.
“What caught our attention was how fast this project was advancing and being permitted,” says Yuly Tenorio. “We were very concerned, not only for the situation of violence [in the region], but because of the systematic process of criminalization specifically aimed at immobilizing the work of defenders so this mining company could operate absent local resistance.”
As president of Flor de Caña, Rosa Masapanta represents members of her association who are among the more than 70 people who have been criminalized for speaking out against this proposed mine. She has simultaneously faced other acts of harassment and intimidation, including a wave of attacks on social media attempting to slander her reputation and disempower her struggle. She says, “I fear for my life, physical safety, and psychological health. During previous attempts to advance the environmental consultation, we noted a significant uptick in attacks on social media, especially threatening towards me. There were calls to violence, putting a price on my head.”
The mining company has also been accused of installing security cameras near the town centre. Yuly Tenorio says the company is “implementing surveillance and monitoring strategies by installing these cameras under the pretext of security to create an atmosphere of fear in the communities.”
Rosa and Yuly spoke with MiningWatch about the daily and long term impacts of criminalization and the broader struggle to protect land and life from Canadian mining. We invite you to watch their full interviews below. Excerpts follow.
BACKGROUND
The last several years have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of Canadian mining companies in Ecuador, and with a Canada-Ecuador Free Trade Agreement in advanced negotiation, that presence is likely to only increase. “La Plata” is a test site for a new controversial process for environmental consultation that seeks to fast-track permitting and advance more mining. This new process, imposed by the previous administration who bypassed Congress and ordered environmental consultations through Executive Decree, has been widely opposed by human rights organizations and mining-affected communities across the country, including by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) who say it’s an unconstitutional rubber stamp to impose more mining. Following a failed attempt to impose the consultation in 2023, efforts resumed in 2024.
Increased tension, militarization, and criminalization
“From what we know, there were over 1000 armed officers in the parish ensuring the environmental consultation took place with only the supporters of the mining company, preventing the participation of those who wanted to participate and those who were against,” says Rosa Masapanta. She describes the government’s effort in March 2024 to carry out the environmental consultation. “During this time, state security forces – the police and military – were under orders to not let us pass through. This led to clashes with elderly people and even children. In a display of community support, the whole population was there to assert ourselves and make our presence known. That was when [state security forces] began launching tear gas and firing on us.”
In the days that followed, over 70 people were slapped with unfounded criminal charges. “People are being criminalized because there exists no basic guarantee of the right to protest,” says Yuly Tenorio. “The Ecuadorian government is failing to uphold its international responsibilities to protect defenders. What’s more, the State is treating them as common criminals, allowing third parties – like these same mining companies or public institutions – to charge them with terrorism, unlawful association, even vandalism. There are many instances of intimidation. They are criminalizing small-scale farmers who don’t have the financial resources to access justice and who also don’t have the means to organize and travel far distances. It’s a strategy to wear people down. It’s a burden with economic, physical, emotional, and psychological implications, both for the collective in resistance and on the individual level for the defenders’ families.”
The right to consultation and consent
“As a national human rights organization, we have come together to show massive support and solidarity for the people facing charges, and we have joined their legal defense as interested third parties to provide amicus briefs, to ensure the judge understands everything that is behind this socioenvironmental conflict – taking place as a result of a lack of consultation in free, prior, and informed manner, and above all, in good faith,” says Yuly Tenorio. “Consultation is a constitutional right included in the 2008 Constitution, with some additional analysis and advancement since 2008. Environmental consultation is a human right [related to the rights] to be informed and, above all, give consent to economic activity that could harm the environment. This means all of the mestizo people [mixed ancestry] have a right to be consulted. But there is no law governing access to prior consultations or environmental consultations. Nor do adequate regulations exist to guarantee the participation of a majority of the population who are directly or indirectly affected by mining concessions, can participate in some way or another in these processes, to gather their opinions and observations to be able to implement a management plan, and the environmental permits.”
“Behind the statistics, behind the numbers, there are people, human beings who will continue to resist, human beings who are ready to give our lives to ensure our lands remain free, and to ensure we protect the environment we have,” says Rosa Masapanta. “We want to ensure these projects don’t go forward in populated areas, in agricultural areas, in areas where people are organized. It took us 15 years for the people to organize, to get to a point where people had a product suitable for export. Our panela is recognized the world over. We want life to be valued and respected.”