ABSTRACT
On 22 April 2008, a large crowd of campesinos gathered in front of the gazebo in the central park of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-largest city. They came from different corners of the southern coast and highlands to respond to the Mining Mandate – a historic piece of legislation emitted by the Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (ANC, National Constituent Assembly) three days earlier. The Mandate was a culminating moment for anti-mining lobby efforts given that it suspended all large-scale metal mining projects and promised to annul the majority of mineral concessions. Passed by an overwhelming majority, it also promised to put an end to North American imperialism. On the day it passed, President of the ANC, Alberto Acosta, said that the mandate would recover national sovereignty by putting an end to the ‘haemorrhaging of concessions’ that were handed out ‘irresponsibly’ under the neoliberal mining law of 2000. 2
