Ecuador spied on Amazon oil plan opponents, leaked papers suggest
Source: The Guardian
Ecuador spied on Amazon oil plan opponents, leaked papers suggest
Government spies may have illegally targeted political and environmental
opponents to president Rafael Correas plan to extract oil in Yasuni national park
John Vidal
Monday 3 August 2015 12.00 BST
Ecuadorian spies may have broken the law by obtaining personal information on MPs, environmentalists, indigenous groups, human rights activists, academics and political opponents of president Rafael Correa who opposed the exploitation of oil from an Amazonian wilderness, according to leaked papers.
Nearly 200 pages of internal documents that appear to be from Ecuadors spy agency, the Secretaría Nacional de Inteligencia, seen by the Guardian, show that information was collected between 2010 and 2013 about bank accounts, debts, the value of peoples cars, foreign travel and partners.
The documents, marked secret, include emails, photographs taken at rallies and public meetings, aerial photos of demonstrations and the suspected political and financial links between different groups and individuals. There are also attempts to trace the foreign sources of finance for NGOs and indigenous organisations.
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The documents suggest that the spies were targeting political groups and individuals seeking to conserve the forest, even though Correa and the government were officially in favour of the plan to keep the oil in the ground, along with most Ecuadorians.
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Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/03/ecuador-spied-on-opponents-amazon-oil-plan-documents-rafael-correa