The communities of the Intag zone reject the manipulation and misrepresentation of information by Enami EP and CODELCO in their publicity campaign. Contrary to what these videos by Enami EP and CODELCO maliciously suggest (see videos here and here,) in the following video prepared by the Zonal Coordinater (http://cordinadorazonalintag.blogspot.com/) we see that the communities in the area impacted by the Llurimagua project, legitimately represented by their presidents, publicly demand that these companies stop their campaign of disinformation.
Also, in a public statement they express dissatisfaction with the process of socialization and the Llurimagua mining project.
The position of Intag communities toward the mine is publicly known Attempting to hide this through publicity tricks simply provokes indignation and rejection of the state company.
Since their way of proceeding is similar to other
multinational mining companies, Enami EP and CODELCO are not going to change their approach. Instead we can expect an increase in the campaign of disinformation.
With a high level of certainty, the following steps of Enami EP – CODELCO and the Ecuadorean state will be:
-The management of a public company that distributes enormous amounts of money in communities, co-opting leaders, manipulating peoples dreams, making false promises, and offering public works that are conditional on the acceptance of the mining project.
-The finance of election campaigns for the parish governments and the municipality of Cotacachi.
-The crimilization of the leaders of communities and organizations through acts of provocation, in which the police and army, increasingly present in Intag, will surely intervene.
-The growth of the companies’publicity campaign, the publication of polls carried out by the companies themselves.
-The direct intervention of president Correa to address confrontation in communities.
-Use of Decree No. 16 to ban social organizations in Intag and Cotacachi the support the resistance of communities.
We hope we are wrong, but if these predictions come true, there will likely be an increase in social confrontation, and a scenario of dispossession and violation of human rights.
We call for sanity in the government. We call to the people who are in government, who know and believe in a model of development that does not bring violence to rural communities and the environment. These initiatives, already present in Intag, deserve to be strengthened.