Sucumbios, Ecuador – It was a Sunday in late February, and Eduardo Mendúa was doing what he is famous for: organizing against the oil drilling that has changed his ancestral land in Ecuador.
A member of the Indigenous Cofán people, Mendúa has seen pipelines and wells bursting throughout the rainforest his community calls home. Oil stained the ground, and the pollution seeped into nearby waterways.
Mendúa therefore joined a tradition of Cofán activism. He campaigned against efforts by state-owned oil company Petroecuador to expand into Cofán territory and became the leader of Ecuador’s largest Indigenous rights organization, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). .
His Facebook message around noon on February 26 is consistent with his activism. In a fiery post, he demanded that Petroecuador stop its expansion into Cofán lands.
“We will not give up an inch of our territory for oil companies to destroy the spiritual beings and invisible people of our forests, rivers, lagoons, sacred places, gorges, medicine and trees,” he wrote. .
But this was the last message that Mendúa sent to his followers. A few hours later, Mendúa was dead. And those closest to him wonder if his anti-oil activism led to his murder.
Fighting ‘forced entry’
Until the end of his life, Mendúa lived in the northern town of Dureno, on the banks of the Aguarico River, a name that translates as “plenty of water”.
The community, consisting of about 750 inhabitants, is located within 9,571 hectares (23,650 acres) of primary forest, undisturbed by human industry.
But that wilderness is more threatened. By 2022, the Ecuadorian government has authorized the construction of 30 new oil wells — a decision made without proper community consultation, according to critics.
Albeiro Mendúa, Eduardo’s brother, told Al Jazeera that his brother refused to accept the “forced entry” of oil companies into the territory and fought because he “wanted to end the injustices the community faces” .
Since the emergence of oil in the region, river pollution has led to a decline in biodiversity, clean water and tourism.
The Cofán and other Indigenous peoples are also facing a public health crisis, with rising rates of cancer, miscarriage, childhood leukemia and birth defects.
“People are dying of unknown diseases,” Albeiro said. “The oil company is causing our population to disappear.”
‘War between brothers’
When Mendúa learned of the proposal to build new oil wells nearby, he and other campaigners formed a blockade at the entrance to the proposed drilling site that lasted several months.
The protesters set up a permanent camp, preventing personnel and machinery from moving into Cofán territory.
On January 9, members of the Armed Forces of Ecuador and the National Police tried to evacuate them, resulting in a violent confrontation between members of the community that left six people seriously injured.
Mendúa recorded a statement in response, blaming the national government and Petroecuador for creating a “war between brothers”.
Oil drilling in the region, he explained, has harmed the Dureno community. Others see an economic opportunity for growth. Others fear continued pollution.
“I want to make it clear to the public and the international community that I truly reject these violent acts against and between brothers,” he said. “I am calling on the government to please stop the violence it is causing.”
Mendúa hopes to file a lawsuit against Petroecuador and the government on the grounds that they violated the rights of the Indigenous community during the first, announced consultation about the project.
But then came February 26. Police said five people shot Mendúa in his family’s garden.
Three suspects were arrested, including the driver of the motorized boat that was allegedly used to flee the scene, who remains in custody. The other two have been released.
The Native Cofán are known as water people, and the canoe is their primary form of transportation.
Disproportionate attacks on indigenous advocates
Officials have not confirmed the motive behind the attack. But CONAIE and other non-governmental organizations, along with members of Mendúa’s family, say Petroecuador is responsible for the conditions that led to his execution.
“We hold the Petroecuador company responsible for the loss of our partner who left his children as orphans,” the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) written on social media.
Likewise, CONAIE taken on Twitter to accuse Petroecuador of being “directly” tied to the murder.
“In Dureno, for more than eight years, there has been pressure, chaos and division created by Petroecuador,” said Leonidas Iza Salazar, president of CONAIE, in a press conference.
Petroecuador did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But after the death of Mendúa, on February 26, its official Twitter account reposted a MESSAGES from the President of Ecuador Guillermo Lasso.
“The Government of Ecuador expresses its solidarity with the family of Eduardo Mendúa and with CONAIE,” Lasso’s message read. “This crime does not go unpunished.”
Al Jazeera also tried to reach several government officials in Ecuador’s environment and energy ministries but did not receive a response by press time.
But in a report last year on violence against environmental activists, the NGO Global Witness found that more than a quarter of deadly attacks in 2021 were linked to resource extraction, hydroelectric dams and projects in infrastructure.
It is also noted that indigenous activists often suffer from this violence. More than 40 percent of the deadly attacks it documented were against Indigenous people, with Latin America facing particularly high rates of violence.
The Alliance for Human Rights in Ecuador echoed the findings of its own 2021 report [PDF]. It found that 449 human rights defenders and environmentalists faced “intimidation, threats, harassment, prosecution, persecution and even murder” in the last 10 years.
“It worries us that most of the documented cases of these violations are committed mainly by the armed forces, national police and public officials,” the report explained.
Alberto Acosta, Ecuador’s former minister of energy and mining, was president of Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly when it included “environmental rights” in its constitution in 2008.
Those rights include protections against environmental destruction and protections for communities dependent on natural resources. But Acosta told Al Jazeera that the concerns of Indigenous peoples continue to be “trampled” when it comes to oil and mining projects.
“Amazon communities continue to be criminalized, suppressed, persecuted, disqualified and killed,” Acosta said. “That, without a doubt, forged Eduardo’s character and commitment to protect the territory of his community.”
Finally, Mendúa’s brother Albeiro believes that the killing has a chilling effect on Indigenous activism: “People live in fear of leaving their homes, to hunt or fish. We are afraid to go out.”
“Currently there is no peace in Dureno,” he explained. “We fear that if they kill a leader, they can do anything.”
