Action Needed To Protect Ecuador’s Indigenous Population From COVID-19 Extinction

The Siekopai nation, an indigenous Amazonian community living in eastern Ecuador, face extinction from COVID-19, several human rights organisations have warned. The Siekopai, who have some 800 members, have at least 15 confirmed cases and have reported the death of two elderly leaders to date. Human rights groups such as Amazon Frontline have raised concerns that this represents a wider existential threat from COVID-19 of up to 11 nations of indigenous communities across the region. They have also drawn attention to the failure of the state to uphold their duties to indigenous communities during this pandemic. Ecuador has seen the worst outbreak of COVID-19 in Latin America after Brazil, with 2,334 deaths to date.

Siekopai Community President Justino Piaguie has spoken out about his community being “abandoned to its fate” during the crisis, with government authorities slow to test and dismissive of initial members of the community presenting symptoms. Instead, non-state actors such as the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENAIE) have been left to undertake much would-be state responsibility, such as sourcing and delivering testing and translating government protocol into native languages.

Language translation in political life for indigenous communities is outlined as a governmental responsibility in Article 13.2 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and has also been recommended in advisory documents produced since the outbreak by both the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) and the Inter American Court on Human Rights (IACHR). The lack of clear, quick action here has resulted in confusion and the inability to make informed community decisions, Amazon Frontline reports.

On 20 April, 225 international bodies came together in support of a statement released by indigenous rights organisation Amazon Watch demanding the protection and survival of Amazonian indigenous peoples from the threat of COVID-19. Methods to achieve this include a cessation of industrial action in the area and the deployment of health, food, and security working groups. This collaborative, rights-driven document is surely the right approach, and one that hopes to draw much needed attention from governments in the region.

The urgency of protecting indigenous communities from COVID-19 is worryingly clear when considered alongside the socioeconomic inequalities they face. The EMRIP report that indigenous communities in the Amazon have higher health risks and more unmet health needs, alongside disadvantaged access to healthcare – and COVID-19 is exposing and exacerbating many of these systemic inequalities. Fragile health due in part to externally introduced contagious diseases has been prevalent since the 16th century, when 90% of the indigenous population of the Ecuadorian Amazon died of diseases brought with colonisers.

The remaining Siekopai territory (sitting over 100 miles from their ancestral heartland to which they have no legal title) is now surrounded by busy roads, palm plantations, and oil fields. Despite such threats, the Siekopai nation remain staunch defenders of their environment, with the knowledge and principles we must adopt in fighting the climate crisis. They are, for example, currently engaged in a historic lawsuit with oil giant Chevron-Texaco over purposeful toxic waste spillages. As COVID-19 has collapsed oil prices, CONFENIAE President Marlon Vargas states: “If there was ever a moment for the world to heed our call to keep fossil fuels in the ground it is now (…) we hope this a global awakening for a post-petroleum economy that respects rights and the need to keep forests standing”.

The secure existence of the Siekopai nation is increasingly under threat, and is one of the indigenous communities that inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19 may permanently erase. It is also an indigenous community we have much to learn from. Add your voice to the urgent appeal of indigenous communities to generate a response from the Ecuadorian government here.

Katy de la Motte

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