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Sonya Mustad Bjorn-Hansen <bjorso00@usfca.edu>

URGENT CALL FOR LETTERS - URGENT DEADLINE. WILL YOU PLEASE
SUPPORT THE SECOYA PEOPLE IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON?

PLEASE SUPPORT THE SECOYA PEOPLE IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON

If you believe the Indigenous people(s) have the right to have
the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions,
histories and aspirations, appropriately reflected in all
forms, and if you foster the appreciation for, and an
understanding of, the value of indigenous traditions,
cultures, and institutions and their right to preserve
and develop their identity and culture, please read on.

The following is an update on the latest situation
occurring with Occidental (Oxy) Oil Company, based in
Los Angeles, California, and the Secoya People of the
Ecuadorian Amazon. Occidental has effectively managed
to divide the Secoya community. The Secoya People
urgently need support from the international community.
Please sign the letter at the end of this message
and send it to the addresses provided.

Your letters will be most effective if sent as soon as
possible because reports say that Oxy is anxious to
start drilling on Secoya lands because its contract
with Petroecuador says it must drill three new
test wells in Block 15 by December 31, 2000.
A decision might take place any day now.

The Secoyas and Oxy are negotiating a Code of Conduct.
Oxy resisted this at first, but is now willing to
compromise on the issue although basically the
Secoya delegation achieved many of its points concerning
the code of conduct. Negotiations concerning the
three test wells will probably commence after
October 31 after a written agreement on the Code of Conduct
is supposed to go into effect. If it is ratified by the various
Secoya villages - the voting will be- maybe - in October.
Therefore, will you please write your letters and
send them as soon as you can?

The Secoyas in Ecuador are an ethnic minority living
in 100,000 acres of the northern Ecuadorian Amazon,
in the province of Sucumbios, along the Aguarico River.
They live in two communities, San Pablo and Sehuaya.
They are represented by OISE, the Secoya Indigenous Peoples'
Organization of Ecuador. The leaders of OISE are
democratically elected by the entire tribe.

However, the community is divided over Occidental's presence.
The elders and women are totally opposed to any and
all petrol activities. Even with these Secoya voices expressed,
Occidental has completed its seismic operations.
Whether oil is really there can only be determined by drilling,
which hasn't occurred yet. If oil is found in Secoya land,
it will, without a doubt, leave the Aguarico River
- a tributary of the Amazon River - polluted,
affect the uniqueness of the forest and leave the Secoya spirit
troubled. Your letters of concern are important before
irreversible consequences occur, locally and globally.

OISE has stood strong against Occidental to insure proper
compensation to the Secoya People. In September 1998,
Oxy negotiated a contract with the Sehuaya community
for one test well. The contract with Sehuaya divided the two
communities, San Pablo and Sehuaya, mainly between
September-December 1998, undermining the democratically
elected OISE Secoya Peoples' representatives. The contract
Occidental signed with the Sehuaya community was for US$85,000.
OISE protested and sought to annul the contract, saying the
company had to negotiate with OISE, and not a single "centro".
In December 1998 Oxy issued a letter acknowledging that the
contract with Sehuaya was annulled. More recently, Oxy has
accepted the OISE argument that it must negotiate with OISE.

Currently the Secoya negotiating commission includes
representatives of all of the Secoya "centros", including
Sehuaya, and they are acting in a 'unified' manner as they
dialogue with Oxy. Negotiations on the three test wells
probably won't occur until after the Code of Conduct takes
effect - if it is ratified by the Secoya "centros" [villages]).

These negotiations could start in November. If an agreement
on the three test wells is reached, Oxy says it would use helicopters
to the three proposed well-sites and extract the oil over a
20 year period all for a mere 14 days supply of oil.
Yet without a doubt, serious damage, spiritually,
culturally and environmentally, will occur.

Just fifteen days after Occidental constructed its first base
camp in the Secoya communal center of Sehuaya in 1977,
a Secoya woman was raped by an Occidental employee.
There was no criminal investigation. Occidental simply
dismissed the man. In 1997, in exchange for petroleum-related
activities on the last 45,000 acres of pristine Rainforest on
Secoya land, the president of OISE was promised: 1 outboard
motor, 1300 sheets of tin roofing, 44 sets of aluminum pots,
5 rolls of plastic, 50 rolls of chicken wire, 200 pounds of nails,
and 200 plastic tubes, to be distributed evenly among all his
people. The agreement also stated that the Secoyas would
receive 1,000 Ecuadorian sucres - about US30 cents per meter
of seismic test tracks cut - or about US$36,000. Despite
tremendous pressure from Occidental - including bribes,
trickery and lies - the President of the Sehuaya community
realized his error in signing the contract with Occidental.
At the end of 1998, at a community council, it was agreed
that the Secoyas would stand strong against Occidental to
protect and respect their culture, human rights and
communal lands.

OISE, the Secoya People's Organization, rejected a contract
allowing Occidental to drill on Secoya land, but Occidental
has refused to honor this decision. However, if signing
equal rights of access is agreed between OISE and Oxy, and
if a future agreement is reached between the two, Oxy would
have limited rights of access for certain petroleum-related
activities on Secoya lands.

But still Occidental isn't listening.

Occidental is one of the world's largest oil companies, with
corporate assets totalling nearly $18 billion and annual
revenues of over $9 billion. It produces oil and gas in twelve
countries, and it is exploring for oil in twenty-three others.
It is Occidental Petroleum's plan to drill for oil on the traditional
land of the U'wa People(s) in Columbia whose opposition to oil
exploration is so strong that they have vowed to commit collective
suicide if Occidental and the Columbian government proceed to
drill on their land. They prefer death by their own hand than the
slow death to their environment and culture that oil will bring.

Oxy has racked up a notoriously poor record on environmental
and indigenous rights issues, particularly in the Upper Amazon
River Basin. Their incursions into Block 15 have begun to impact
Ecuador's Secoya and Siona peoples, who live on the banks of the
Aguarico River in the northeastern province of Sucumbios.
There are only about 350 Secoyas and 250 Sionas remaining in Ecuador.

The Secoyas ask the global community to please
support them against Occidental Oil Company because
they cannot do this alone as they interface with the pressure
from the cash economy, and encroaching, powerful modern
technologies. This is a very confusing time for the Secoyas.
They need and want international support as oil exploration
on Indian Lands in the Amazon has proven to be a disaster.

Sustainable use of local resources is simple self-preservation
for people whose way of life is tied to the fertility and natural
abundance of the land. Indigenous peoples frequently aim to
preserve not just a standard of living but a way of life
rooted in the uniqueness of a local place. Indians often say
that the difference between a colonist (a non-Indian settler) and
an Indian is that the colonist wants to leave money for his children
and that the Indians want to leave forests for their children.

Since World War 2, the culture of petroleum and
its petro-dollars have devastated the Amazon Rainforest.
The world's Indigenous people(s) expend much of their energy
simply trying to secure their resource rights. At the end of the
20th century, the Secoya people are resisting the pressure
from the cash economy and the encroaching powerful modern
technologies as they struggle to preserve a precious global resource.
They have the fundamental rights of indigenous people(s)
to be acknowledged and respected, the right to preserve and
develop their identity and culture, and to stress
the importance of the right to self-determination.
We all do.

We, the people of the world want to act upon our social and
moral obligations towards all of life. Without a doubt,
the travesty resulting with Occidental's activities affects all of us.
Without our support, Occidental oil company will devastate the spirit
of an ethnic minority of at least 350 people and yet another rainforest.
The Secoyas are an authentic Amazon nation with a precious
cultural heritage and invaluable wisdom and guidance for the world.

Please Note:
Occidental's plan will ravage the Rainforest
over 20 years all for a mere 14 days supply of USA oil.

For half a century of criminal violations against Humanity
rather than in relief of it, can we really settle for petrol companies
to continue to act as lords of our earth and people(s)?

We trust this report will ignite your passion to
write a letter or send the sample letter below
so that the Secoya People, represented by OISE, will receive a strong
response of solidarity from the international community.

The power of your pen is essential in this struggle.
The Secoya People must not be pressured.
Please sign and send a copy of the following letter.

Thank you very much,
>From a concerned global citizen.

Enclosed is a sample letter in English and Spanish.
Please send a Spanish letter to Ecuador.

________

Dear
Every day unconscionable destruction of the Amazon
Rainforest moves forward. If we understand ourselves
as human species, stewards of the Earth, we must do
whatever we can to protect the life of our planet and
all its peoples.

I am writing to demand a nondisputed moratorium for 5 years
on all Occidental Petroleum Corporation's activities in
Block 15 in the Ecuadorian Rainforest, imposed on the
Secoya homelands. The Secoyas cannot be pressured.
It is not the Indigenous way. In most native cosmologies,
nature is more than a store-house of resources. Amid the
endless variety of Indigenous belief, there is striking unity
on the sacredness of ecological systems.

What is happening to the Secoya People in Block 15
of the Ecuadorian Amazon profoundly affects the Indigenous
people living there and ultimately all people everywhere.
We must safeguard the cultural heritage of the Amazon to
keep our world diverse. To lose the Indigenous knowledge
is to have lost forever something precious and irreplaceable
in our human family. To harm the Rainforest itself, we endanger
all life on our planet. Petrol activities in the Amazon Rainforest,
undoubtedly, continue to destroy a priceless human resource.

I stand next to the Secoya voices, especially those of the elders and
women, to support the safeguarding of the cultural heritage of
the Secoya people. I want to insure the survival of this unique
and fragile tropical ecosystem to keep our world diverse because
I respect the wisdom of our ancestors 7 generations past and
I respect our children and grandchildren.

I want our children to know, 7 generations into the future,
that my signature in this letter stands for a command to halt
activities that will endanger life on our planet - in this case -
the social, cultural and environmental tragedy, revering petrol
above human spirit, caused by Occidental's
refusal to listen and obey the wishes of the Secoya People,
especially those of the elders and women. It is they who know
that petro-dollars can never supersede nor replace the sacred
Amazon forest or their culture or their ancestral inheritance.

Please join me in this commitment to safeguard the Secoya Amazon
forest and culture. I urge you to do everything possible to stop
Occidental's activities in Block 15 for 5 years.
Thank you very much. Muchas gracias.

(Your signature)

(Date signed)

__________________