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Weekly Report - 22 August 2013 (WR-13-33)

Correa takes big risk by bailing on Yasuní

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has taken several gambles since coming to power in 2007 - but none bigger than now. Correa signed an executive decree on 15 August paving the way for the exploitation of oil in the Yasuní national park. He blamed “the world” for failing to back his government’s innovative proposal to pay Ecuador to leave the oil untapped, but in truth he had long since split from the “infantile leftists” with which he co-founded the ruling Alianza País (AP), and departed from the spirit of Pachamama which infuses his constitution. He has embraced extractive industries to spur Ecuador’s development even more than his neoliberal forebears. Yasuní, however, was the last redoubt, a source of national pride cultivated by his government. Indigenous groups and an emasculated opposition now have a rallying point for protests.

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