Country: Ecuador
Group: Shuar
Date Finalized: 4/4/20
Team: Erika Walker (lead), Thomas Chia, Alicia Hernandez
Content Warning: homicide, physical violence
Approximate Time Period: 2000-present
The Shuar are the second-largest indigenous ethnic group in Ecuador (Minority Rights Group [MRG], 2018). They run one of the oldest indigenous resistance organizations in the country, the Shuar Federation, to protect communities and argue for political and land rights (MRG, 2018). Over the past 20 years, Shuar land has been a target for industrial development like copper mining and oil extraction, resulting in significant protesting and legal battles against companies to protect their land and prevent cultural destruction (Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization [UNPO], 2017). In one instance, three Shuar protesters were killed and many others were arrested in a conflict over protesting the selling of land to a Chinese company (UNPO, 2017). Similarly, the body of a Shuar activist was found in 2014 near a mine right before he was due to speak at a UN conference (MRG, 2018). Because of the issues surrounding the use of Shuar land for development, these two cases where activists were killed for protesting against land grabs can be considered targeted killings. However, our team agreed that data quality seemed poor (1) but this may be because there are few publicized instances of targeted killings against the Shuar.
Sources
- Minority Rights Group. (2018, May). Shuar. Minority Rights Group. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/shuar/
- Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization. (2017, July 14). The Shuar, a Forgotten Indigenous Community in Ecuador. https://unpo.org/article/20214?id=20214