What is behind the murder of indigenous leader Eduardo Mendúa in an area coveted by oil companies?

The leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) was shot dead in his community.

In an interview with Sputnik, Mendúa’s colleagues in defense of indigenous rights pointed against the government of Guillermo Lasso and the oil companies.

Eduardo Mendúa, leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and his wife went to cut bananas on their farm located in the Kofán de Dureno community near the Colombian border.

There they were ambushed by two hooded men who fired 12 bullets at the leader of the Kofán people while his partner managed to escape.

“Among Eduardo’s family and the families of this community, there is no doubt that this murder derives directly and exclusively from the attempts to start oil exploitation, which generated division in the community and year after year deepened until it led to this event,” Jorge Acero, a human rights defender who knew Mendúa, 40 years old, told Sputnik.

Between 1972 and 1992, the Texaco oil company extracted this resource from the Kofán territory.

But their departure did not end the damage caused to these people, as they left tonnes of environmental liabilities that will remain for many years in their soils and rivers, from which the indigenous families obtain their food.

In the last decade, the state-owned oil companies Petroamazonas and Petroecuador tried to resume operations but met with resistance from the Kofán people.

One sector of the indigenous people supports oil activities, especially because they would have jobs in the companies, but another group, which included Mendúa – who was also responsible for International Relations for CONAIE – is opposed.

In the words of Jorge Acero, this conflict escalated to the events of last January, when both sides of the community clashed, even with firearms, leaving one person wounded by gunshot.

Supported by the police, the group in favor of the oil company tried to open the way to begin construction of the three platforms.

Acero, a member of the environmental defense project Amazon Frontlines, affirmed that in the last eight months, the conflict has deepened due to the plans of Guillermo Lasso’s government to extract oil in this area of the Ecuadorian Amazon, close to the border with Colombia.

“Petroecuador has tried to enter to install three new oil platforms in the ancestral territory, with 30 wells in total plus an access road to the territory,” described Acero.

He recalls that since 2018 the resolution of the Ombudsman’s Office that states that in Kofán territory, the right to Prior, Free, and Informed Consultation, contemplated in Convention No. 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), within the scope of the law in Ecuador, was violated.

A METHOD THAT REPEATS ITSELF

According to indigenous and human rights organizations, the case of the Kofán people is not unique.

The same method is used in other territories: dividing the communities to advance with their extractive plans, whether mining or oil.

Xavier Solis is a lawyer, human rights defender, and member of the Alejandro Labaka Foundation in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon.

He works primarily in the province of Orellana, located 150 kilometers from the province of Sucumbíos, where Mendúa lived.

“It is a murder in the context of oil production that is being promoted very intensely. Through some decrees, the president proposed expanding oil production from the current 400,000 barrels per day to one million barrels per day,” Solis explained to Sputnik.

For him, this would imply “not leaving a single indigenous territory without oil exploitation in the North Amazon, in Sucumbíos and Orellana. This was established in one of the first decrees signed by the Lasso government when it came to power, despite the resistance of the indigenous communities” affiliated to CONAIE and other organizations.

The lawyer stressed that the procedure in all territories is the same.

“Processes of community division are initiated, and the companies approach the leaders so that they accept the installation of the oil platforms. It is a modus operandi already established and similar in other extractive areas,” he explained.

With information from Sputnik