Rafael Correa do Equador vs. índios

Spearheading dissent, em The Economist:

Indigenous groups accuse a radical president of selling out 

(...)


WHEN Rafael Correa is mentioned in the foreign press, he is usually bracketed with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales as part of the leftist Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). Yet whereas Mr Morales is Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Mr Correa has turned Ecuador’s indigenous movement against him. Last month, at an ALBA summit in Ecuador on racial diversity, Mr Chávez and Mr Morales saw hundreds of protesters bearing wooden spears break through security cordons and chant “Correa, racist, false socialist”.

(...)

During the 2006 election, indigenous groups gravitated to his anti-imperialist rhetoric. But they have since rebelled over his policies on resource extraction. Mr Correa supports open-cast mining to raise public revenues, which he says would be spent on social programmes. Indigenous leaders, citing a court case against Chevron, an American oil company, for up to $27 billion in environmental damage, fear further pollution. Similarly, Mr Correa backed a proposed water reform that would have given a new state agency control over irrigation resources. This caused a backlash from villages that manage their own water.

The combative Mr Correa has treated his former supporters little better than he does foreign bondholders. He has called Marlon Santi, the president of the indigenous umbrella group, “incompetent”, and referred to protests over potential oil exploration as “foolish”. His government tried to shut down the Shuar people’s radio station last year after it allegedly encouraged listeners to “bring their spears” to a protest. And following the skirmish at the ALBA summit, where a policeman lost a pair of handcuffs in the mêlée, the demonstrators’ leaders were called to testify in a terrorism inquiry.

Diga-se que este me parece o género de conflitos que há uns anos atrás servia visto como uma oposição entre a "velha esquerda" (pró-industria pesada, estatista) e a "nova esquerda" (ecológica, comunitária/autogestionária).