Ecuador proposed ban on blood sports is narrowed
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:
QUITO–Ecuadorans may vote to ban Spanish-style bullfighting on
May 7, 2011, as part of a 10-point set of constitutional amendments
proposed by President Rafael Correa, but the measure before them
appears to be narrower than the total ban on blood sports that Correa
promised before the ballot language was finalized.
“The question concerns spectacles in which the goal is to kill
the animal. Cockfights are not affected by this problem and will be
allowed,” Correa told Radio Huancavilca in Guayaquil. But Correa
muddled the matter in statements to the government news agency Andes.
“Cockfights are not banned,” he told Andes, “but killing the
rooster in a fight is-which I am told frequently happens. I did not
know,” he said.
Also appearing to wobble on bullfighting, Correa “has tried
to appease aficionados by saying they are welcome to have bullfights
if the animal is not killed,” reported Jim Wyss of the Miami Herald
on April 1. This would allow Portuguese-style bullfighting, in
which the bull is tormented but is killed after the fight, outside
the ring.
The other nine amendments sought by Correa would give his
office more control over the judiciary, form a commission to
regulate media content, and prohibit financial institutions and
media conglomerates from investing in other industries.
Correa is believed to have included the amendment on blood
sports to help attract voters to the polls. Introduced to Ecuador by
Spanish conquistadors in 1536, bullfighting and cockfighting remain
mostly pursuits of the relatively affluent Spanish-speaking minority,
but are shunned by the Andean majority as contrary to the teachings
of the nature goddess Pachamama, and as symbols of ethnic
repression. The principle of respect for Pachamama was added to the
Ecuadoran constitution by referendum in 2008.