Andean Group - November 2011 (ISSN 1741-4466)

President Rafael Correa’s aggressive attitude to press criticism has attracted the attention of international campaigners for press freedom. At the beginning of November Christoph Riess, the chief executive of the World Association of Newspapers & News Publishers (Wan-Ifra), visited Ecuador to discuss the reforms going through congress that affect the media. Reiss met congressional and government figures.

Even some government supporters, such as Mauro Andino, head of the assembly’s justice committee, say that they oppose some specific bits of the government’s proposed reforms while supporting most of the rest. Andino opposes Article 119 of the new media law which makes libellers of the authorities liable to up to three years in jail and stipulates fines of up to 10 times the minimum wage (US$264 a month). Andino argues that such a regulation breaks the constitutional rule that all Ecuadoreans are equal before the law.

Reiss said that he was concerned about the hefty fines that had been levied on El Universo, a Guayaquil newspaper, which alleged that President Rafael Correa had ordered soldiers to shoot in order to rescue him from a police mutiny on 30 September 2010. El Universo was fined US$40m. Correa is also suing the authors of El Gran Hermano. This book makes what Correa claims are unwarranted accusations of corruption against him and his elder brother Fabricio, who, the authors allege, won several lucrative government contracts following Correa’s election victories, starting in 2006. Reiss pointed out that the highest amount of compensation ever paid by the Ecuadorean government was US$2m to the father of the Restrepo Arismendi brothers, who were disappeared by the police in 1988.

Andino asked Reiss to comment on a Unesco study, published this year, which claimed that eight families effectively controlled Ecuador’s private radio and TV channels. Reiss replied that the state also had a strong position in broadcasting.

Fernando Alvarado, the presidency’s communications secretary, met Reiss and argued that the Organization of American States’ Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) did not need an official invitation to assess the state of freedom of expression in Ecuador because there was a standing invitation from 2008.

César Ricaurte, the director of a local NGO, Fundamedios, claims that without a formal invitation the CIDH cannot send a mission.  Fundamedios, and other media organisations in Ecuador, claim that the Correa government is systematically undermining and intimidating the press in Ecuador.

At the end of October, Correa himself said that the government reserved the right to choose what CIDH recommendations to adopt and that it would only accept what was not based on “lies”.

Yasuní fund hits US$70m

Ivonne Baki, the official responsible for raising the money to allow Ecuador to leave 800m barrels of oil lying under the Yasuní-Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini (ITT) national park unexploited, said on 6 November that the fund now stood at about US$70m. President Correa has said that unless the fund gets to US$100m by the end of this year, drilling will start. Baki admitted that she was including promises as well as money that had already been committed. The biggest single contribution is US$50m from a debt swap with Italy: instead of paying Italy back, the money is going into the Yasuní-ITT fund.

• Deadline not set in stone

President Correa has been hinting recently that he might relax the deadline for getting to US$100m in the Yasuní-ITT fund, if there were substantial promises. Baki said that she was confident that the fund would get to US$100m.