Western Applause for Yasuni Vote in Ecuador Reeks of Imperial Hypocrisy

By Joe Emersberger – Aug 23, 2023

Rich countries created the climate crisis and should pay up to solve it

It has angered me watching people based in the Global North (including two people I respect, Linda McQuaig and Steven Donziger) applaud a referendum result on Sunday in Ecuador that outlawed oil extraction in Yasuni National Park.

I would have applauded the ban myself – if rich countries were picking up the tab – not just the lost annual oil revenue but the cost of canceling contracts with the companies involved. As presidential candidate Luisa Gonzalez noted days after the vote, negotiating an end to those contracts could saddle Ecuador with billions of dollars in additional debt. [1]

Luisa Gonzalez is the leftwing candidate who won the first round of the presidential election which was held at the same time as the referendum. She is the candidate of the movement led by former president Rafael Correa who was in office from 2007 to 2017. [2] Unlike the foreign environmentalists applauding the Yasuni vote, if she wins the presidency in October (and she has a good chance of doing so) her government will have to deal with the consequences.

What Climate Debt Does the North Owe the South?

While Correa was in office he offered to outlaw drilling in Yasuni if the rest of the world paid $3.6 billion. The New York Times reported days before Sunday’s vote that “Correa spent six years in a campaign to advance the proposal but never managed to persuade wealthy nations to pay”. The Times didn’t mention that while Correa was in office Ecuador’s Supreme Court also ordered Chevron to pay thousands of victims of its pollution in Ecuador $9.5 billion in damages. Led by the US, “wealthy countries” responded even more contemptuously to the ruling against Chevron than they did to Correa’s Yasuni proposal. None of the many countries where Chevron is based (including Canada) have forced it to pay.

And in the US, its fanatically corporate-serving judiciary jailed Steven Donziger, accusing him of victimizing the oil giant in Ecuador. The New York Times maintained a farcical blackout for several years on Donziger’s case even when it became obvious that he was headed for jail.

The Case of Steven Donziger: Supreme Court Liberals Help Turn Judges Into Prosecutors

It’s certainly true that the provinces where oil extraction has taken place in Ecuador since the 1970s have been stuck with contamination and very few of the benefits which flowed to more politically influential parts of the country. But voters in the province of Orellana, where the Yasuni oil extraction has taken place, voted overwhelmingly on Sunday against the ban. Voters in the neighboring province of Sucumbios also voted against the ban.

Environmental discourse has been weaponized against progressive governments in the Global South. To say some sectors of the western left have been suckers for it would be an understatement. If you can’t see through pseudo-left reactionaries like Yaku Perez and Manuela Picq, as many western progressives have failed to do in recent years, then you are an easy mark.

The world’s wealthy countries created the climate crisis, to say nothing of the many other legitimate claims the Global South has to reparations. They should pay to solve it, including alternative paths of development for developing countries. Of course westerners do not have control of their own governments. Justin Podur sacrcastically made an obvious point

But if you can’t force your own governments to behave in a civilized manner at home or abroad, then you should be extremely reluctant to jump on an “anti-extractivist” bandwagon.

Note:
[1] Gonzalez made the remarks during the last miniute of this interview

[2] Over the past six years, Correaists have been subjected to a blatant level of political persecution by the very arch-conservative pro-US governments that have ruled Ecuador since 2017. Correa himself has political asylum in Belgium. Jorge Glas, former Vice President under Correa, spent over five years in prison based on a case that was an obvious political scam. Another prominent Correa era official, Ricardo Patiño, has asylum in Mexico, as does Gabriela Rivadeneira, a popular former legislator, among others.

The governments that have ruled since 2017 have created a catastrophe, especially in violent crime which has quadrupled since Correa left office. Despite relentless vilification, Correa’s support has remained extremely solid in about a third of the electorate and successive reactionary governments have not dared to outlaw the movement entirely. Hence much less prominent people who served under Correa, like Luisa Gonzalez and Andres Arauz, have been allowed to run for office.

(Substack)
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