"Counteract those minuscule groups that want to harm us greatly and that
want to impose their agenda on us regardless if they haven't even won the
elections of the local parent board at their children schools." - Rafael
Correa. Ecuadorian President Correa dramatically defended mining activity
against the protests of what he says is 200 people. "I am not in favour of
the mining activity; I am in favour of good judgment. If the mining
activity was bad then why does Norway, the most developed country in the
world, have mines? If the mining activity is against ancestral indigenous
rights, then why does Evo Morales in Bolivia, the first indigenous
President of the continent, with an indigenous population of more than 60%,
have the mining activity as the basis of its economy?...I will not continue
to allow a handful of irresponsible people who are not representative of
anybody to install the chaos in the country without any legitimacy or
legality, and to try to impose their agendas - agendas that are insensate,
absurd and irrational."