Ecuador
has come under fire for scrutinizing non-profits like Accion
Ecologica, many of whom get millions from Europe and North America.
Part
2 - Silent Action Meets Loud Reaction
This
government is the first to scrutinize NGOs, but their scrutiny has
not been limited to Accion Ecologica.
In 2012,
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa boldly declared that NGOs have
been entering the country like never before during the previous
decade. Many, backed by foreign states and foreign money, are out to
destabilize the state, Ecuadorean leaders stated.
“Their
interest is not the country, impoverished sectors, natural resources
or strengthening democracies,” said Paola Pabon, director of
the National Ministry of Political Management, which is responsible
for tracking NGOs, in an interview with teleSUR last year. “What
interests them is having control over governments, having influence
over civil society to create elements of destabilization.”
Executive
Decree 16, which went into effect in 2013, created a system to
catalogue the financing, decision-making and activities of every
registered social organization — a total of over 46,000 in the
country, including non-profits, unions and community organizations,
among others.
The
resulting action saw 26 foreign NGOs expelled from the country for a
lack of transparency and compliance with national law; in brief,
for declaring themselves “non-governmental organizations” while
acting on behalf of foreign governments. Among the more high-profile
cases was Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical missionary relief
organization that received funding and support from USAID.
Fifteen others were given two weeks to get their activities in order.
A handful of
Indigenous organizations, which had previously mobilized against
Correa's government, attacked the decree via the Constitutional
Court. Two years later, Ecuador reformed the regulations with
Executive Decree 739, which fine-tuned the reasons for closing an NGO
— the main one, “diverting from stated objectives” — and,
caving to demand, eliminated the requirement for organizations to
register projects financed from abroad.
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