Amazon Frontlines

After Historic 2018 Victory in Court Against Gold-Mining, A’i Kofán of Sinangoe Demand Ministry of Environment Grant Title to Ancestral Lands

Contact: Sophie Pinchetti, sophie@amazonfrontlines.org, Whatsapp: +593 98 148 4873
Photos and spokespeople available upon request.

Quito, Ecuador, 19 October 2021. — Over one hundred A’i Kofán traveled to Ecuador’s capital today to demand a meeting with the Minister of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAATE) and personally deliver their land claim for 63,775 hectares of ancestral territory.

The A’i Kofán have lived on and protected these lands continually for hundreds of years, yet after the government unilaterally declared Sinangoe’s ancestral homelands part of the Cayambe-Coca National Park in 1970 the law prohibited them from holding land-title. For decades, the A’i Kofán have been forced to renew five-ten year temporary land-use agreements at the government’s discretion. Recent legal reforms in Ecuador now allow Indigenous Peoples to obtain land-titles within national parks, but the MAATE has failed to act on the new laws.

For the past four years, the A’i Kofán community of Sinangoe has undertaken an extensive community mapping initiative of their land’s history, also demonstrating how A’i Kofán stewardship is necessary not only for the protection of this key biodiversity hotspot but also for the very survival of the A’i Kofán of Sinangoe as a people. Sinangoe’s Guardia Indigena, with support from the organizations Ceibo Alliance, Amazon Frontlines and Digital Democracy, collected over 5,000 GPS points of historical, spiritual, ecological or dietary importance. This evidence was presented to MAATE and is available online at Sinangoe’s new digital platform. 

The A’i Kofán argue that not only is it their constitutional and international right to hold formal title over their lands, but that time and again they have proven to be the land’s best defenders and stewards. Despite the declaration of the Cayambe-Coca National Park as a protected-area, the government has shown little ability or interest in actually protecting it. Satellite imagery shows over 1,800 hectares deforested within the Park over the last twenty years, while Sinangoe’s land remains free of deforestation (images available upon request). The historic absence of budget-allocation, State-park-guard effectiveness or even minimal coordination with the A’i Kofán by MAATE was exacerbated in 2018 when the Sinangoe Guardia Indigena found heavy gold-mining machinery along the Aguarico river in their lands.

After discovering that the government had actually granted 20 mining concessions along the river without their knowledge or consent, and were about to grant another 32 concessions the same year, the A’i Kofán of Sinangoe sued and won a historic legal victory annulling the concessions. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador selected the case for review and has indicated it will hold its first-ever hearing in Indigenous territory in November of 2021 to set national precedent on Indigenous Peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent. With President Guillermo Lasso promising to double oil production and rapidly expand mining in the Amazon, the Sinangoe case provides a historic opportunity to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ right to make the final decision on any extractive project that affects their territories.

For now though, Sinangoe is focused on permanent land-title and hopes to pave the way for other Indigenous nations in Ecuador trapped within the same colonial legal frameworks and lack of political will by MAATE, currently impacting at least 1.5 million hectares of Indigenous homelands within unilaterally declared protected-areas nationwide.

Discover Sinangoe’s territory through this interactive map: https://bit.ly/SinangoeEcuador 

Declarations: 

Viktor Quenama, President of the A’i Kofan community of Sinangoe:

“We are the owners of our ancestral territory and we need the Ecuadorian government to title our territory immediately. Even though our territory is in a protected area, the government does not help to protect it. We have cared for our territory for thousands of years. We protect our rivers, our forests, our animals, and our plant medicine. We have also organized our own community guardia to defend our territory from invasions. Once we have a land title, we will be able to protect our territory more effectively. It is time for the Ecuadorian government to respect our rights to our territory, because our territory belongs to us and our future generations.”

Jorge Acero, Lawyer from Amazon Frontlines: 

“Today the Indigenous A’i Kofan community of Sinangoe is demanding respect for their right to a land title. This is particularly significant because the territory of Sinangoe is located within a protected area. The Ecuadorian government imposed protected areas over the ancestral territories of many Indigenous communities, without any consultation whatsoever. The Minister of the Environment has not given land titles to Indigenous communities, and this violates national and international law. It also suggests that the Ecuadorian government holds ownership over these biodiverse areas that Indigenous peoples have protected and stewarded for thousands of years. This is a deeply colonialist and centralist view. Indigenous peoples are the ancestral owners of their territories, and they have the right to their land title. The Ecuadorian government must respect their property and their own practices of land management.”

Tuntiak Khan, Vice Coordinator of COICA:  

“The A’i Kofan people of Sinangoe have lived for millennia in their ancestral territory, and today, they are fighting to set an invaluable legal precedent. The Ecuadorian government must legally recognize their ancestral territory by giving them a land title – to not do so is a grave violation of Indigenous people’s collective rights and national and international treaties. Indigenous territories are of vital importance to Indigenous people’s way of life, spirituality, culture, and worldview. We at COICA urge the Ecuadorian government to respect Indigenous peoples’ right to territory and to title the land of the A’i Kofan of Sinangoe immediately.”

For more information, contact:​

Sophie Pinchetti at +593 98 148 4873 sophie@amazonfrontlines.org

Quito, Ecuador – On October 18th, 2021, hundreds of Indigenous elders, youth, and leaders arrived in the capital city of Quito, having journeyed from their communities deep in the Amazon rainforest, to file the first in a series of lawsuits against Ecuador’s President, Guillermo Lasso, a right-wing former banker. The lawsuits filed at Ecuador’s highest court aim to derail his plans for a major expansion of new oil and mining extraction that threatens millions of acres of pristine rainforest and the physical and cultural survival of Indigenous nations.

The first lawsuit, filed by Indigenous organizations today, alleges that Indigenous peoples’ internationally recognized right to free, prior and informed consultation and consent was violated by Executive Decree 95, which seeks to double the country’s oil production to one million barrels per day by deregulating the operational processes in the oil and gas industry. In the following weeks, Indigenous organizations and communities will also be filing a second lawsuit against Executive Decree 151, which aims to relax environmental controls to fast-track the entrance of foreign mining companies in the Amazon, despite Indigenous peoples’ firm decision to keep their territories mining-free. As the potentially affected Indigenous Peoples were not consulted nor gave their consent to either Decree as required by national and international law, plaintiffs demand the Constitutional Court declare them both unconstitutional and void.

The decrees are part of the new Presidential administration’s public policy strategy to address the South American nation’s crippled economy and its colossal foreign debt by doubling down on extractivism and the exploitation of nature. Executive Decrees 95 and 151, signed in Lasso’s first hundred days in office on July 7^th and August 5^th respectively, aim to radically transform the government’s policies on oil and mining to favor industry and attract foreign investment. Both decrees formalize the mechanisms for government institutions such as the Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Resources and the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition to swiftly grant environmental licenses to oil and mining industries, while evading international laws and obligations, and the country’s constitutional framework that was designed to guarantee rights and sovereignty of Indigenous nations.

Indigenous peoples and human rights organizations denounce that the President’s decision demonstrates grave setbacks in the guarantee of human and collective rights and the rights of nature, and reinforces a long history of human rights abuses and socio-environmental conflicts in the Amazon linked to the oil, gas, and mining sectors. The proposed expansion of the extractive frontier targets new remote swathes of the rainforest, home to some of the highest levels of biodiversity on the planet and the territories of the Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Waorani, Shiwiar, Andoa, Sápara, and A’i Kofan nations, who have mounted a fierce resistance against oil and mining interests in recent years.

Amid the global climate crisis, Indigenous peoples’ lawsuits and on-the-ground organizing strategies aim to protect the last bastions of standing wild forest that are critical for climate stability. Lasso’s decision to favor industry interests over the protection of the Amazon rainforest threatens the commitments made by the Ecuadorian government in the Paris Agreement and is incompatible with recommendations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to end all new fossil fuel exploration and production, and decrease deforestation drivers and sources of contamination, such as mining.

Meanwhile, the financial industry is coming to grips with threats to human rights, biodiversity, and the climate posed by new oil extraction in the Amazon, and its reputational risks. Top European banks including BNP Paribas Group, Credit Suisse, and ING–collectively responsible for over 50% of financing provided in the last decade–have committed to the immediate exclusion of new Ecuadorian Amazon oil from their trading activities because of the country’s poor environmental and Indigenous rights record, along with the double standard of promoting corporate sustainability commitments while trading Amazon oil that contributes to climate change.

Indigenous peoples expect these lawsuits to reaffirm and expand on a groundbreaking legal precedent set in July of 2020 that recognizes their collective right to free, prior, and informed consultation and, in some cases consent, before the legislative or executive branch enact new laws or regulations that affect them. The right to decide over extractive projects that affect their territories has become one of the most powerful legal tools available today for Indigenous peoples to protect their rainforest territories and cultural survival in the face of the accelerating exploitation of Indigenous lands and, as a result, the advance of our climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and species extinction. Ecuadorian courts have played a huge role historically in the region around this right, including the A’i Kofan and Waorani’s legal triumphs in 2018 and 2019 respectively, which successfully protected millions of acres of rainforest from the destructive impacts of oil and mining.

The filing of the lawsuits against Lasso’s decrees come just weeks after Ecuador’s parliament approved an investigation into the President’s potential financial crimes, as uncovered by the Pandora Papers earlier this month, and as the Indigenous movement prepares for the first-ever Constitutional Court hearing in Indigenous territory as part of the A’i Kofan of Sinangoe’s historic case around Indigenous Peoples’ right to decide.

The lawsuit against Executive Decree 95 was filed by Ecuador’s national Indigenous organization CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), the Amazon-wide Indigenous federation CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon) and the Waorani political organization of Pastaza CONCONAWEP (Coordinating Council of the Waorani Nationality of Ecuador-Pastaza). The lawsuit against executive decree 151 will be filed later this month by CONAIE, CONFENIAE, the A’i Kofan community of Sinangoe and the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA)

Declarations

Leonidas Iza, President of CONAIE:

“The territories of Indigenous peoples and nations are gravely threatened by the entry or expansion of oil and mining activities. Indigenous territories are vital to preserve the balance of life and critical ecosystems. We need our right to prior, free and informed consultation to be guaranteed, but in a binding manner so there is consent, and this must be recognized by the Constitutional Court.”

Marlon Vargas, President of CONFENIAE:

“We reject these decrees because they promote the expansion of the oil and mining frontiers in our territories. Through these decrees, the government of Guillermo Lasso intends to violate the collective rights of Indigenous peoples that are recognized by international treaties and the Ecuadorian Constitution. We, Indigenous peoples, will defend our rights and our territories because they are our living spaces.”

Nemonte Nenquimo, Waorani Leader & President of CONCONAWEP:

“We, Indigenous peoples, have defended our rainforest territories and nature for thousands of years. We protect our Mother Earth because it is vital for our planet and our climate. But the Ecuadorian government only cares about its interests and the resources in our territories. We demand the Ecuadorian government respect our decision to keep our territories free from oil and mining. We decide in favor of our territories, and we will never let oil or mining companies enter and destroy our home and kill our culture.”

Viktor Quenama, President of the A’i Kofan community of Sinangoe:

“We are fighting to defend our territory, our rivers, our forest, our fish, and our animals. Without our forest and without water, we cannot live. We have made a firm decision to keep our territory free from mining. We don’t want the Aguarico River and its tributaries to be exploited and contaminated. Our elders, youth, men, and women are all united in this struggle. We want to care for our territory so that future generations can live well. The Ecuadorian government must respect our rights and let us live freely.”

Josefina Tunki, President of the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA):

“Executive Decree 151 threatens Indigenous territories with large-scale mining. As Indigenous peoples, we have the right to decide over what happens in our territories, but neither Lasso nor his advisors consulted with us. The Ecuadorian government granted mining concessions in our territory without respecting our decision to keep our territory mining-free. The land cannot be sold, the land is eternal if we respect it, and that is why these decrees are a terrible violation of our rights. We are going to denounce every action of the Ecuadorian government that doesn’t respect our rights and the principle of self-determination! We are the owners of our territories; the law, the Constitution, and human rights protect us!”

María Espinosa, Lawyer from Amazon Frontlines:

“We are presenting these lawsuits against Executive Decrees 95 and 151 because we consider that these decrees are in clear violation of Indigenous people’s rights to prior consent and pre-legislative consultation. These decrees seek to accelerate extractive activities such as oil and mining, which generate grave and irreparable impacts against the physical and cultural survival of Indigenous peoples. The increase of hydrocarbon activity is being planned in the territories of Indigenous peoples, particularly in the Amazon. Through unconsulted administrative procedures and the pretext of economic development, President Guillermo Lasso intends to impose an extractive agenda and sacrifice the lives of thousands of Indigenous families who inhabit these territories.”

Carlos Mazabanda, Amazon Watch, Ecuador Field Coordinator:

“With the issuance of the Decrees 95 and 151, the current government wants to give an unprecedented boost to the development of oil and mining projects, particularly in the Amazon, the eleven Nationalities Indigenous’ land. This formula of sustaining our economy in the extraction of non-renewable resources, which has been going on for 50 decades, has not brought economic or social development to the country. This is real! It is urgent to care for the remnants of the tropical forests, which is where the oil and mining industry in the country is intended to develop. The Constitutional Court has the responsibility for guaranteeing these rights, including free, prior and informed consent, that have been systematically violated by the Ecuadorian state.”

President Guillermo Lasso issued executive decree 95 on July 7, 2021 and executive decree 151 on August 5, 2021. These two executive decrees formalize and clear the way for immediate enactment of plans to bring about profound transformations in the Ecuadorian government’s policies on oil and mining. These documents have aroused our grave concern due to the violation of our essential right to participate in decisions that affect us. The planned policy shifts raise the risk of serious and irreparable damage resulting from the expansion of resource extraction activities. Furthermore, they turn a blind eye to existing social conflicts, as well as previous legal judgments and directives that have declared the Ecuadorian State to be responsible for the violation of collective rights. Such legal determinations have been rendered both in the national justice system and under the purview of multilateral organizations with which Ecuador has commitments and obligations, such as the Inter-American System and the United Nations’ Universal Human Rights System.

Decree 95, based on a limited, black-and-white narrative, protects the interests of the private sector and financial entities. It proposes a “transition” in which control and management of strategic sectors pass from the hands of the State to transnational companies. This transfer will mean that the Executive reviews, accelerates, and facilitates several enabling processes to authorize the bidding and/or concession of oil fields. It also allows for various regulatory changes to evade the constitutional framework that was designed to guarantee rights and sovereignty with regard to the administration of resources. Moreover, we note with great concern that the decree – which is already moving forward – will have a serious impact on the State’s tax revenues, to the detriment of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the population. In addition, it imposes a model of participation contracts that ensure profits to corporations while transferring the cost of risks to the State and, of course, to us: those of us who inhabit the affected territories.

Decree 151, meanwhile, misleadingly seeks to position Ecuador as an attractive mining investment. It follows a narrative that seeks to promote mining as the path to development and the best alternative for overcoming the current economic crisis. This is of great concern to us because several of our local grassroots organizations have declared their territories to be free of mining. We do not want this new mining policy to be used as a justification for increased attacks and stigmatization of people who oppose mining. Decree 151 proposes revisions and acceleration of the processes for environmental and social licenses that are a required part of mining concessions. Likewise, it changes the contractual conditions between the parties to weaken the position of the State and to facilitate unfettered operations undertaken by corporations.

Both decrees create institutional channels to expand resource extraction. They fail to include any guarantees for human rights, the collective rights of indigenous peoples, the rights of environmental defenders whose work is currently criminalized, and the rights of nature. Hence, for indigenous peoples, it is becoming clear that the environmental commitments signed by Lasso during his political campaign constitute yet another lie. In issuing these decrees, the State is failing to comply with its commitments and its international human rights obligations, including the Escazú Agreement, which recently entered into force.

Mr. Guillermo Lasso, we remind you that government ministries should not be institutional channels to serve the resource extraction interests of oil and mining companies. On the contrary, the State apparatus must be dedicated to the protection of the collective interests of the population, human rights, collective rights, and nature.

Currently, both the oil fields and the mining industry affect the majority of our territories. The impact will be even greater if there is an expansion in extractive activities. These extractive activities violate both our right to determine our own processes of economic, social, and cultural development as well as our right to maintain the essential relationship with our ancestral territories on which our physical and cultural survival is based. These rights and this essential relationship with our territories has never been understood or respected by any Ecuadorian government; as a result, our way of life and the future of our Peoples and Nationalities are gravely affected. The announcement of increased oil and mining production signals the continuation and deepening of these detrimental practices. Therefore, the decision to promote the ethnocide and extermination of the Indigenous Peoples who inhabit Ecuador falls squarely under the responsibility of Mr. Guillermo Lasso and his cabinet.

The issuance of the decrees violates our right to prior, free, and informed consultation and consent in the face of any decision, whether normative or administrative, that affects us[A1] . This right has been recognized in ILO Convention 169 as well as in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in article 57 numerals 7 and 17 of the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008, which was ratified by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador. We further note that the Ecuadorian State has been found responsible both by the national courts (Provincial Courts and the Constitutional Court) as well as by international courts (the Inter-American Court) for violating the right of prior, free, and informed consultation and consent. This fundamental right is a cornerstone for the exercise of the rest of our rights, especially the right of self-determination, the right to determine our own decisions about our development processes, and the right to participate in processes or State decisions of any kind that may affect us. In addition, the State has failed to comply with its international obligations derived from commitments made as part of the Paris Agreement, as well as the multiple instruments on human rights which call for the suspension of resource extraction activities in order to combat climate change – the effects of which are irreversible.

It is incomprehensible that the current government has issued these decrees, particularly in light of the most recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), highlighting the urgency of halting fossil fuel production in the Amazon. The report recognizes that we are at a turning point that will define the fate of humanity. Policies favoring resource extraction are all the more outrageous in the wake of findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which declared that the climate emergency can be mitigated only if urgent decisions are taken at the highest levels of government to halt global warming. The most urgent priority is the elimination of fossil fuel production as well as the cessation of activities that cause widespread deforestation and pollution, such as mining.

We denounce that the intention of the policies put forth in Decrees 95 and 151 is to promote the strategic interests of oil and mining companies, who seek free reign and access to carry out their activities within our territories. With the issuance of these decrees, the government is returning to the neoliberal free-for-all of the 70’s and 80’s. The policies of those times resulted in devastating effects on our territories that are still apparent today, as evidenced in the Chevron-Texaco case. The false promise of development based on resource extraction has been promoted for decades and has never materialized. Our Amazonian populations are the poorest in the Ecuador, with the lowest rates of satisfaction of basic needs and the least amount of access to basic services. Despite the long history of environmental and social crimes resulting from corporate abuses, President Guillermo Lasso insists on violating the Constitution and changing the rules of the game with respect to mechanisms for resolving conflicts and controversies, by pushing for Ecuador’s inclusion in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and other mechanisms of international arbitration that are skewed in favor of corporate interests.

Moreover, regarding plans to promulgate specific regulations modifying the State’s obligation to respect the right to prior consultation and consent, we demand that the President of the Republic and his cabinet adhere to the Confederation of Indigenous Amazonians (CONFENIAE)’s Resolutions on legal requirements guaranteeing the Right to Consultation and Prior, Free, and Informed Consent on the part of Amazonian Peoples and Nationalities. The CONFENIAE Resolutions of April 6, 2021 are based on a participatory process that took place among the Amazonian peoples.

The organizations that have signed on to this pronouncement have come together in unity to reject the policy changes planned by the national government. We will continue to take action, to struggle, to resist, to practice self-governance, and to exert territorial control. This is what we have done throughout our history due to the ongoing necessity to protect our lives and the integrity of our territories.

This declaration was originally published on Puyo, August 19, 2021. Click here to read the Spanish version.

The Alliance of Organizations for Human Rights and the Caminantes anti-mining Collective, we are deeply concerned about recent events reported by the Governing Council of the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA) and the “Collective of Organized Women of the Shuar Center of Maikiuants” (organization linked to the PSHA), associated with the start of infrastructure works and mining facilities at the Warintza Project. There is an escalation of territorial conflict between the community centers and the associations that make up PSHA against the concessionary mining companies operating illegally and illegally in their territory. Since the early hours of September 8, due to the insistence of the mining companies to occupy their territory, there has been an escalation of tension and violence that puts the physical integrity of the communities at risk, particularly the Maikiuants community. At the moment, there is a well-founded fear in the residents of possible, arbitrary and unnecessary police and/or military intervention that, as in previous opportunities, could generate serious violations of human and collective rights of the population displaying a biased action by the Public Force and Armed Forces in favour of the particular interest of the company, transferring its obligation to protect the civilian population and to be guarantors of constitutional rights, including their right to resistance.

This situation is not new. PSHA has been resisting for 16 years mining activities in its ancestral territory and the intervention of transnational companies that have implemented strategies such as dividing their organizational structures by co-opting leaders who have yielded to pressure and manipulation and disregarding Shuar communities who have already decided to oppose extractive activities in their territory.

60% of the territory of the Shuar Arutam People has been concessioned to transnational mining companies without respecting their right to free, prior, and informed consent and in a context of systematic human rights violations. Some of these companies include Solaris Resources (Canada), SolGold (Australia), ExplorCobres S.A., EXSA (a subsidiary of Chinese-owned, Canada-based Corriente Resources). The Ecuadorian State, through various institutions and officials, has attempted to pressure, subdue and/or impose extractive activities in the Collective territory of the Shuar Arutam People. All this has created an escalation of conflict.

It should be noted that the Shuar Arutam People, in exercise of their right to self-determination and in defense of their collective rights, has repeatedly resolved since 2019 that it does not authorize mining activities in their territories and has insistently communicated these decisions to state authorities. The following are some of the most current demands:

1. On August 17, 2021, an Extraordinary Assembly of the PSHA Governing Council was held in the Maikiuants community, in which the Governor of the Morona Santiago province, Freddy Villamagua, participated. During the Assembly,  PSHA concluded: i) to reject the development of mining works or facilities such as the construction of the Warintza-Yawi highway, which purpose is to blackmail the population and militarized their ancestral territory for the benefit of the interests of the mining companies; ii) ratify the Governing Council of the Shuar Arutam People, as the highest authority which is composed of 47 communities (12,000 inhabitants), and their decision to reject  large-scale mining projects in their territory given the lack of compliance and violations to their territorial rights and the collective right, including their right to free, prior and informed consent. At the same meeting, PSHA informed the Governor of the Province of Morona Santiago that according to their collective rights, they had established an Indigenous Guard to monitor incursions of illegal loggers, assist communities during health emergencies and environmental monitoring in our territory.
2. On August 20, 2021, the PSHA made public three official letters addressed to Federico Velásquez, manager of Solaris Resources Inc; Fernando Kayuk, Trustee of the Shuar de Warints Center; and, Nazareno Antun, Trustee of the Yawi Shuar Center, in which, given the disregard of the Governing Council of the PSHA’s resolutions – the legitimate organization that governs its ancestral territory – regarding the agreements between the company Solaris Resources SA, its subsidiary in Ecuador, and leaders of the Warints and Yawi community centers, who are victims of the company’s community division strategies and manipulation. Likewise, PSHA announced its public opposition to the Warints-Yawi road project and in order to carry out adequate territorial control, they requested copies of the project’s Environmental Study Plan and the Environmental Management Plan, which should be duly approved by the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition.
3. On August 29, 2021, and based on the resolutions adopted by the PSHA, the Maikiuants community made a public statement in which it informed that in defence of their territorial rights and self-determination, they will deny the entry of machinery for the construction of the Warintz-Yawi highway project. Likewise, the Maikiuants community requested the presidency of the PSHA Governing Council to inform the Provincial, National and International levels about their decision to establish territorial control, in exercise of their collective rights enshrined in ILO Convention 169.
4.   On September 5, 2021, the PSHA Governing Council issued a statement informing about an Ordinary Assembly of women from the Maikiaunts community held that day. They took this opportunity to denounce the entry of machinery as an act that disregards their decision to keep their territory free from mining. It also informs that the company will be held responsible if there’s an incident or conflict in their territory by asserting Maikiaunts’s “right to self-determination and self-government…we request that our issues are raised at the Provincial, National and International levels”.

The decisions adopted by PSHA to address the systematic violation of their rights have not been respected by  transnational companies such as Solaris Resources Inc and SolGold nor by the Ecuadorian State. Thus, on September 5, the Warints and Yawi communities announced through their social networks that within the framework of the Strategic Alliance they have with Solaris Resources, the Ministry of Government was promoting  self-defense courses and training of Private Security Guards to confront the population. Faced with this situation, we denounce the  Ecuadorian State, through the Ministry of Government, for committing very serious acts aimed at dividing the Shuar Arutam People, promoting violence between the communities and increasing the risks against the integrity and even the lives of the communities.

Likewise, despite the decisions of the Shuar Arutam People, they were officially warned several times in the early hours of September 8  (at about 5:15 am) that loading platform carrying a backhoe arrived in the territory of the Shuar Tserem community,  a territory of the Shuar Arutam People, heading  to the “Maka Naink” mountain range where Solaris Resources Inc. operates and passing by  the community of Warints and Yawi: an attempt that the women of Maikiuants rejected in accordance to their resolutions.

In this regard, and due to the events described, the use of public and private force to benefit corporate interests would have three main objectives: i) guaranteeing access to territories by companies so that they can carry out their activities; ii) build territorial control by co-opting local communities, fomenting community division, surveillance, repression and criminalization to guarantee business activity; and iii) silencing, control, and elimination of criticism and resistance to extractive activity, voiced by residents and defenders of human and territorial rights.

Additionally, it should be noted that these acts occur in the context of the expansion and deepening of the mining policy by the National Government. In effect, Decree 151 establishes the conditions for companies to establish this type of practice with impunity in indigenous territories. In addition, the powers of the ministerial authorities are reduced to facilitating entry into the territories without any type of control, ignoring their obligations to guarantee rights without discrimination and protecting vulnerable populations.

Previous complaints regarding Solaris Resources Inc’s violations in Shuar territory

As noted, the collective rights of the Shuar Arutam People have been systematically violated, especially by the mining company Solaris Resources Inc., which has created community division and created dangerous environments for human rights defenders. Complaints that remain without being investigated.

The Canadian company Solaris Resources Inc. arrived in PSHA’s territory in 2019, after acquiring the Warintza project through its subsidiary in Ecuador Lowell Mineral Exploration, in order to exploit the copper and molybdenum deposits. In light of the reactivation of the project, which was suspended for 16 years, PSHA demonstrated against mining in their  territory, reiterating their  right to self-determination. As a result of this, PSHA, together with its national and international allies, declared itself as “a territory of life” (TICCA)” and launched an international campaign: “PSHA Have Decided: No to Mining, We Do Not Want to Be Consulted.”

Due to all the violations to our tangible and intangible rights, on January 29, 2021, PSHA’s Governing Council, together with the Public Services International (PSI), filed a complaint with the ILO against the Ecuadorian State for violation of ILO Convention 169 and for violating our collective rights and not consulting us on projects being carried out on our territory.

Likewise, as the Alliance of Human Rights Organizations in Ecuador,  we recently publish a report on the Situation of collective, land and human rights defenders in Ecuador to highlight the severity of the situation faced by the PSHA, noting that it does not exist currently institutional guarantees to exercise the right to defend human, collective and nature rights, and that we are especially concerned about the physical and psychological integrity of colleagues who are being intimidated, persecuted, harassed and even targeted with death threats, such is the case of Josefina Tunki, president of the Shuar Arutam People.

The push for extractive projects in the area is leading to a violent rupture of the local social fabric, migration of foreigners and  greater availability of certain resources, including the aforementioned security training “offers”, which generate a logic of conflict and violence in the territory, penetrating all social relations, and exacerbating internal conflicts and contributing to a social fabric marked by conflict and mistrust. All of the above is the direct responsibility of the State,given that the operation of these mining companies should be understood as ILLEGAL since licenses, agreements and contracts have been carried out without guaranteeing, among other rights, PSHA’s right to prior, free and informed consultation.

In light of these events, the Alliance of Organizations for Human Rights and the Caminantes Anti-mining Collective remind the State that:

• Its main duty is to guarantee human, collective and natural rights over any economic actor that commits any of the reported violations. In addition, it must generate processes that lead to the investigation of those responsible for these acts and punish companies for non-compliance with the Constitution and international treaties.
• We demand that the Minister of Government and Vice Minister of the Interior investigate and make a statement about the creation of a “private guard”, which, according to the posts by the Warints and Yawi residents, would have the Government Ministry’s endorsement and would be funded by Solaris Resources Inc. This, without a doubt, contravenes the provisions of article 30, numeral 1 of the ILO Declaration, which states: “Military activities shall not take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous Peoples.”
• We demand that the Office of the Ombudsman of Ecuador prepare a report on the situation of the Shuar Arutam People regarding the events reported and urgently activate the protection mechanisms for the Shuar leaders.
• We alert the State Attorney General’s Office about the current risk of the right of Indigenous Peoples and nationalities to defend their territory, resistance. We recall that these rights should not be criminalized -as it is currently happening- leaving the Prosecutor’s Office as an instrument of criminalization, used by companies and the State against peoples and nationalities.
• Finally, we remind the Canadian Embassy in Ecuador that in compliance with its extraterritorial obligations as a State party to the universal human rights system of the United Nations and in accordance with Canada’s guidelines on supporting human rights defenders abroad (Voices at Risk), responds to PSHA’s request to take action to prevent threats and incidents of intimidation against land defenders perpetrated by companies based in Canada, and demands corporate responsibility to respect human rights.

As human rights organizations, we will remain vigilant to ensure that PSHA’s collective rights are respected, including their right to self-determination and to prevent the militarization of territories and communities of Indigenous Peoples.

TRUTH, JUSTICE AND REPARATION!

https://ddhhecuador.org/