deegrace

I found it an interesting perspective. However the film did nothing to show who commissioned the missionaries there in the first place. The oil industry after having found oil under the indigenous land sent missionaries to tame the indigenous. Sinse then the indigenous have had their water poisoned from oil spills and the dirty oil extractive process. As well as the influx of settlers on oil roads and disease that follow. The film is an example of one major tool of culturecide; religion. Religion is all too often used to pacify the indigenous while natural resources are extracted or otherwise conquered. (Remember the Spanish Inquisition?) The indigenous have found hardwood spears ineffective against oil companies like Texaco, CEPE, PetroEcuador, OPEC. It is a grave injustice to leave out the role of the oil industry in this film. In 1987 an earthquake ruptured the pipeline, out of the Napo Amazon region to the pacific ocean, spilling 16.8 million gallons of crude oil into a delicate web of water. Little of the mess was cleaned up. Exxon Valdex by comparison spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude. (Indians oil and Politics c2003, Allen Gerlach P. 57)