Ecuador proclaims state of emergency as protests rage on

Ecuador a state of emergency in the Amazon province of Napo on Tuesday after soldiers fired on protesters occupying an oil pumping station and shut down one of the country's main private pipelines.

The state of emergency prohibits protests and marches in the province. Leaders of the protest and a doctor at a local hospital said at least three people were wounded in the shooting. About 600 people were still occupying the Sardina pumping station in Napo, about 90km east of Quito.

"We will not allow anybody to damage state infrastructure," Jose Modesto Apolo, the government general secretary, told reporters in Quito. He said the occupation had to end before there could be any talks with the protesters.

Protesters a bigger cut in oil profits for the Amazon region took over the privately owned pipeline pumping station on Tuesday, even as another group abandoned another government-owned pumping station.

The Sardina pumping station in Napo province was "violently" taken over by protesters, halting operations on the Heavy Crude Pipeline, a spokesman for the consortium of oil companies operating the line said.

The oil line can deliver up to 450,000 barrels of crude a day from the Amazon jungle to the Pacific coast for the US-based Occidental Petroleum, Spain's Repsol and Canada's Encana.

The spokesman said the takeover "did not affect yet" the crude exports of the companies that share the line, but did affect the delivery of the equivalent of 160,000 barrels of crude.

A military spokesman declined to comment, but local television showed troops firing their rifles at dozens of rock-hurdling protesters. Television stations showed footage of wounded protesters lying in a local hospital who said they had been shot by soldiers.

"We want the government to talk to us because this situation is getting out of hand," Julio Perez, a spokesman for the protesters told Reuters. "We did not order people to invade this pumping station.

The takeover of the Sardina pumping station coincided with the re-starting of pumping operations on a separate oil pipeline owned by the government oil consortium Petroecuador. Protesters damaged a pumping station on that line in the Amazon, causing an US$11 million loss in oil sales, according to Petroecuador.