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03/19/2006:

"Indian Leader Nixes Call to End Protests"

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- The leader of Ecuador's main Indian movement on Thursday rejected President Alfredo Palacio's call to end protests against free-trade talks with the United States.

''We will continue to mobilize and radicalize the protests in favor of life and against the free-trade agreement,'' Luis Macas, leader of Ecuador's main Indian movement, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, said in a statement. ''There will be neither dialogue nor contact with the government.''

Police, however, said the protest was slowing as provincial governors called for an end to the protest following government pledges to invest more on social spending and public works in their areas.

In the face of the unrest, Palacio went on national television Wednesday and urged Ecuadorans to ''close ranks'' to defend the country's democracy. The president said the protests were ''the culmination of deceptive politics that seeks to perversely tear apart the nation.''
nytimes.com


Offer Made to Settle Ecuador Oil Dispute
QUITO, Ecuador, March 17 (Reuters) — The Occidental Petroleum Corporation is offering Ecuador up to $1 billion in disputed taxes, investments and extra revenue from its crude output to resolve a legal dispute.

The Energy Ministry is studying whether to carry out a recommendation to revoke Occidental's contract over charges it transferred part of an oil block to EnCana, a Canadian company, in 2000 without government authorization.

Occidental denies the charges and has proposed renegotiating the disputed oil field, investing to develop areas where it has operations and financing new projects for the state oil company, Petroecuador.

Petroecuador said it had received the proposal and had until next week to respond to Occidental.

Occidental's proposal foresees renegotiating the block to hand the state at least an extra $600 million in oil revenues over the next 13 years if Ecuador abandons its legal challenge and extends the contract life seven years, to 2019.