– Ecuador: Propaganda as News – with Rebuttal from Amazon Watch:
At the end of January a news article appeared, “Ecuador To Sell A Third Of Its Amazon Rainforest To Chinese Oil Companies,” and has resurfaced again and again on the internet. Posted on progressive websites such as Reader Supported News, Daily Kos, “The PeoplesVoice.org”, “ThinkGlobalGreen.org”, the story often comes with maps of the affected area, and include pictures of indigenous peoples living peaceably with nature or protesting against oil drilling.
Almost all these stories refer back to one article three years ago, in March 2013, in Australian online journal Business Insider:
“Ecuador is planning to auction off three million of the country’s 8.1 million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, Jonathan Kaiman of The Guardian reports.” And, “Ecuador owed China more than $7 billion — more than a tenth of its GDP — as of last summer. In 2009 China began loaning Ecuador billions of dollars in exchange for oil shipments. It also helped fund two of the country’s biggest hydroelectric infrastructure projects, and China National Petroleum Corp may soon have a 30 per cent stake in a $10 billion oil refinery in Ecuador.”
The rest of the article becomes a platform for Adam Zuckerman of the US based NGO Amazon Watch to spin his tale of China colonizing Ecuador, with President Correa willingly selling out the environment and the indigenous peoples to pay off his China debt.
The problem is that the story is an invention. This same story slamming Ecuador President Correa and China for forcibly displacing indigenous people and destroying the rainforest for the sake of oil profits reappeared in June-July 2015. This just happened to coincide with right wing protests in Ecuador against Correa, over his raising taxes on the rich.
…
H/t reader squodgy:
“Ongoing.
Classic example of John Perkins’ “New Confessions of an Economic Hitman”.
Disinformation, Propaganda and copious amounts of US Media Bullshit.
The US are hyping a fairy tale about China grabbing the Ecuadorian Oil & Forests to repay debt, which isn’t true.
In fact the US have already raped Ecuador and killed thousands of tribal Indians through pollution.
Long live David Rockefeller’s TEXACO-CHEVRON….in hell!”
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