Ecuador fears falling prey to kidnapping industry

QUITO - Ecuador fears kidnapping will become rife in the country if oil companies successfully negotiate a ransom to free eight foreign workers held captive after being seized in the Amazon jungle two months ago.

"If we continue to give in to the kidnappers in Ecuador, we will fall prey to an industry of kidnapping," Ecuador's Defense Minister Adm. Hugo Unda said.

The Ecuadorean Government, wary of the kidnapping epidemic in neighboring Colombia spilling over its border, is reluctant to get involved in negotiations to free the workers taken hostage at an Amazon oil field in October by a 40-strong armed group.

"We know they haven't been able to agree on an amount," Unda told reporters, adding that the armed forces were not involved in the negotiations.

According to oil industry sources, the companies for whom the captives work are trying to negotiate their freedom with the kidnappers.

Ten workers were kidnapped from an oil field owned by Spanish-Argentine giant Repsol-YPF.

Two French technicians escaped but eight - New Zealander Dennis Corrin, five Americans, a Chilean and an Argentine - are still missing.

It was the second time in just over a year oil workers have been kidnapped from Ecuador's Amazon region.

Thirteen months earlier, a group of Canadian oil workers was taken captive and released three months later. It was never clear who was responsible for the kidnapping.

Likewise, last week's bombing of Ecuador's only crude pipeline, in which six people died, has stirred concern among officials and locals about the increased security risk in the jungle region.

"We don't know who did it," Unda said, except that the explosion was triggered by "particular interests that seek to block the nation's progress."

Violence has increased significantly in Sucumbios province bordering Colombia in recent weeks and officials fear that Plan Colombia, Bogota's US$7.5 billion ($17 billion) US-backed plan to combat drug trafficking and the groups that reap its profits, could drive fighting across the 600 km border.

Colombia, the kidnapping capital of the world, has been suffering from warfare among left-wing guerrilla groups, rightist paramilitary organizations and the state's armed forces for several decades.

Ecuador, an Andean nation of 12.4 million people, is Latin America's sixth biggest producer of crude oil and its fourth biggest exporter.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: Kidnapped in Ecuador