(MintPress) – For Ecuador’s indigenous people and peasant farmers, the fight against mining and oil corporations doesn’t stem from a political philosophy or a calling to do what they believe is best — it comes from their innate reaction against policies that will separate them from their land, water, resources and livelihood.

Without an accessible legal realm to challenge corporations, Ecuadorians have taken to the streets to protest what they see as an attack on their land and people. Yet now, according to an Amnesty International report, those exercising their right to demonstrate are being unfairly targeted by law enforcement and legal officials, who are clamping down on Ecuadorians with fraudulent charges and unfair sentences.

“After they extract all that gold, there will only be rock left, and then where will I plant my crops and where will my children live? Where will my grandchildren live? What water will they drink if there is no water left, if they (the mining companies) are where the natural water springs are? For this, yes, I do protest,” a Molleturo community member told Amnesty International.

With Ecuador and the U.S. enjoying close relations, the attack on democratic principles is causing alarm in the United States and the international community.

Abuse of criminal justice system

Amnesty International’s report specifically cites ways in which the criminal justice system was being used against indigenous populations. The report included evidence of unfounded charges, restrictive bail conditions, the use of terrorism charges, appeals to extend sentences and protracted investigations — all of which the organization concludes were done to suppress freedom to assemble.

Throughout Amnesty International’s investigation, which spanned from 2009-2011 but was not limited to that time frame, the organization followed the cases of 24 indigenous people facing charges stemming from protests. All of those documented by Amnesty were considered leaders of opposition movements.

The organization discovered that the 24 leaders faced a collective 20 charges for terrorism. Ten sabotage charges were handed down, along with four charges for blocking roads and one charge for homicide. Amnesty noted in its report that there were many more cases of people facing “questionable” charges, but due to the danger such people could face, they were not included in the report.

In its final draft, Amnesty illustrated protests where arrests were made, including one in March 2006 in which three provinces — Sucumbios, Orellana and Nap — were declared states of emergency. This allowed the government to call the National Security Law into play — all civilians arrested while protesting within those zones were tried in military courts, a clear violation of international law, including the right of individuals to fair and public trials.

Wilman Jimenez Salazar, who works for the Orellana Human Rights Committee, was at the 2006 demonstrations, in which indigenous people were asking that an oil pipeline be placed underground, as it had burned civilians when it sat above ground. Salazar, who was taking photos, captured images of police using tear gas and rubber bullets. He was eventually arrested and charged with terrorism and sabotage. In 2008, he was granted amnesty and all charges were dropped.

In 2007, residents were protesting against oil extraction in Dayuma and Orellana, claiming that, if the companies were working there at the risk of local farmers, more of them should be given the opportunity to work with the oil company.

The protests resulted in the temporary shutdown of oil leaving the area, as demonstrators blocked the road needed in order to move oil out. According to the Amnesty report, a state of emergency was declared and 26 people were arrested for terrorism charges — 11 were immediately detained.

Fighting for constitutional rights

While the indigenous people are outraged over the devastating impact mining and oil extraction would have on its land and people, they’re also upset with the failure of such companies and the government to follow through with the Ecuadorian constitution (article 57.7), which asserts that indigenous populations are consulted before potentially environmentally degrading practices are carried out on their land.

“It is just to scare us, to silence us, to curb our freedom of expression,” former president of Campesino and Indigenous Federation of Imbabura, Marco Guatemal, told Amnesty International. “They don’t want to hear our demands, which are above all that our rights be respected: our right to water, our right to territories, and our right to claim and demand respect for biodiversity. The constitution and international conventions require that we be consulted and we have never been consulted.”

Amnesty International’s report gives one example of this practice, carried out in 1996. According to the report, the government gave an oil company the right to extract resources from lands occupied by the Sarayaku, an indigenous group of people. At no point were the people consulted before such actions began. By 2003, oil drilling operations took up 29 percent of the Sarayaku land, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The report cites that oil drilling has now stopped, but “over a ton of unused explosives remain on their lands.”

Clearly, the Sarayaku people have had a hard time petitioning their own government for justice. They are instead seeking such through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, although it’s not clear how a favorable ruling will work against the Ecuadorian government.

Companies at work in Ecuador

Chevron, formerly Texaco, has had a major presence in Ecuador for 30 years. According to Amazon Watch, an environmental watchdog organization, the oil company’s policies have had devastating impacts on wildlife, with “dump and run” methods that have spilled toxic waste into the rainforest.

“Local indigenous and farmer communities are poisoned at virtually every turn and face a public health crisis,” Amazon Watch states on its website.

The new era of mining in Ecuador is bringing in a new group of companies. In March, the government in Ecuador signed a deal with Ecuacorriente, a Chinese mining company, to the tune of $1.4 billion. The company seeks to mine copper near El Pangui. This agreement sparked protests among indigenous people who argued the same side they always have — that mining could hurt their water supply and take up habitable portions of their land.

Despite efforts to reform mining regulations and channel some profits back into government programs that presumably benefit residents, the concern of indigenous people remains.

The most recent development in Ecuadorian mining is with a Canadian company, Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corp. The company has plans to drill for gold in the country’s largest gold mine, Fruta del Norte.