Luis Alberto Macas Ambuludí
Dr. Luis Macas, president and co-founder of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), is a Quichua Indian from the Saraguro region in the Andean highlands.
A linguist and lawyer by training, he has been instrumental in leading the Indigenous people in Ecuador through their struggle for human rights. On May 28, 1990 he led the Inti Raimi a peaceful uprising or levantamiento where more than a million indigenous people around the country stopped working, highways were blocked and food supplies to the capital were cut off that made visible indigenous presence and demands.
Dr. Macas succeeded in opening the door to discussions between indigenous groups and the Ecuadorian government. In April 1994, Dr. Macas was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, given to "grassroots heroes," for his role in negotiating a land transfer of 3 million acres of rainforest back to indigenous control, the single largest return of land in the Amazon region.
Since then, however, these same communities have been under intense pressure from multi-national companies that have been drilling for oil in the Oriente for twenty years. As the leader of CONAIE, Dr. Macas has been at the forefront of an effort to get the oil companies to make provisions to protect the Oriente, a region that biologists believe may be the world's most biologically diverse.
In 1996 Dr. Macas earned the distinction of being the first indigenous person elected to Ecuador's National Congress. In 2003 he joined Lucio Gutiérrez’s government as Minister of Agriculture, and quit because of disagreements with his neoliberal policies.
Dr. Macas is the founder and director of the Scientific Institute for Indigenous Cultures, co-founder of the first Indigenous University in Ecuador, Amautay Wasi legally constituted in 2004.
Again in March 2006 he led the Indigenous peoples which in collaboration with workers, students and peasants paralyzed the country for weeks with their "Defense for Life" mobilizations where they demanded an end to free trade (TLC) negotiations with the US, the expulsion of U.S. oil giant Occidental, the nationalization of the oil industry, and a call for a constituent assembly.
Dr. Macas was the presidential candidate for the Pachacutik, Indigenous party in this past October 2006 Ecuadorian elections.
