Indigenous leaders from the Achuar, Shuar, and Zapara peoples have been staging protests outside the international headquarters of Burlington Resources in unified opposition to the company’s oil exploration and extraction policies in their territories. Purchaser of the oil concession referred to as Block 24, Burlington Resources owns blocks in the primary rainforest of the southern Ecuadorian Amazon, overlapping with the ancestral territories of the Achuar, Shuar, and Quichua peoples.

The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights issued an order of precautionary measures in favor of the Sarayacu indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The Commission ordered the Ecuadorian government to put in place all the necessary measures to protect the life, safety, and territories of the Sarayacu people. 

On April 10, the Specialized Commission of Human Rights of the National Congress of Ecuador decided to officially visit certain territories, including Sarayacu, to investigate allegations by indigenous leaders against CGC and other oil companies. The principal objectives of this visit are the gathering of testimony from inhabitants of Sarayacu and inspection of areas where CGC has been active, and accused of violating the human rights of the local Kichwa people. This visit will take place on April 25, and a report regarding the situation in the region will follow.

Sarayacu community leaders, who continue to oppose the entry of oil companies onto their land, are now threatened by an order to "locate and detain" them, apparently from the Presidential office of Ecuador. They claim they face trumped-up charges of taking hostages, theft, and the destruction of goods. This order means that at any time leaders can be detained and kept in jail until the end of lawsuits between Sarayacu and CGC Oil Company.

Communications on the morning of March 22, 2003 from the Shell company’s security agents are reported as suggesting that the dispute over seismic oil testing on Sarayacu territory will be resolved in 15 days or the oil company will enter by military force. The military entered the Shaimi and Montalvo area of the Sarayacu territory, and the Kichwa say that they desperately need moral and financial support to help them mobilize against the illicit incursions.

The Ecuadorian government is now using the term “force majeure” (literally “major force” or “Cause beyond control”) to describe the opposition to oil concessions on indigenous land in the Amazon. The term is usually used to describe natural catastrophes or major upheavals like war, which can void a legal contract. Because of this change in provision, two transnational companies have been allowed to cancel their oil concession contracts with the Ecuadorian government.

Representatives of CGC and ChevronTexaco, the companies conducting oil exploration on the territory of the indigenous Kichwa people of Sarayacu, claim that Burlington Resources, another corporation, has bought all of ChevronTexaco’s interests in Block 23. The people of Sarayacu claim that they have received information indicating that the interests have only been leased, suggesting that ChevronTexaco still expects to make a profit from their activities in the area.

In a radio declaration on February 17, Ecuador’s Minister of Energy and Mines guaranteed government support of CGC, a foreign corporation conducting seismic exploration on the territory of the Kichwa people of Sarayacu. The minister claimed that 28 communities in “Block 23” – the area demarcated as an oil concession by the government - also support the company’s activities, and that resistance was only coming from two people from Sarayacu.

Business News Americas reported today that CGC, the company performing seismic exploration on Sarayacu territory known as “Block 23”, is pulling out of the area due to “safety concerns”. The news comes just days after a commission from the Kichwa Sarayacu community in the Ecuadorian Amazon met twice with representatives of the national government. Government officials visited Sarayacu on February 3, and the Kichwa people had an opportunity to reiterate their opposition to all oil operations in their territories.

The Kichwa community of Sarayacu located in the Pastaza province in the Amazonian region of Ecuador has a population of about a thousand people. Its name means “River of Corn”. The Sarayacu maintain their traditional lifestyles and culture, but the threats to that continuity have never been greater.

The Sarayacu people of Ecuador are facing new challenges in their struggle against the oil development activities of ChevronTexaco on their ancestral lands. They have been fighting to protect their at-risk environmental and social heritage from the degradation of oil development since 1989. ChevronTexaco's latest action is the creation of a new camp on Sarayacu territory; it claims that the camp is protected with landmines. It is unclear whether they have actually deployed land mines, or whether it is a bluff to keep the Sarayacu from trying to stop this latest encroachment.

Four hundred leaders, elders, and delegates of the organizations FINAE (Federación Interprovincial de la Nacionalidad Achuar del Ecuador), FIPSE (Federación Independiente del Pueblo Shuar del Ecuador) and FICSH (Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar) resolved to maintain their opposition to extractive industries, specifically to the oil contract in Block 24 in the southeast Ecuadorian Amazon. The constituent communities are composed almost entirely of the Shuar and Achuar peoples.