CONAIE Indigenous Organization Evicted from Headquarters by Ecuadorian Government

17/12/2014 - http://upsidedownworld.org/

The Ecuadorian government has announced that it is giving an Indigenous organization two weeks to abandon the headquarters it has held for almost a quarter of a center.

A December 11 letter from the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion informed the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador(CONAIE) that it needed their building to use as a center for homeless children addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The CONAIE leadership says that they will refuse to leave. They demanded that they be given title to the building that they have used since 1991.

Jorge Herrera, president of the CONAIE, declared that the building “has been a symbol of the construction of a relationship between the state and Indigenous peoples.” He denounced their removal as a colonial act on the part of the government, and categorized the government’s action as “persecution of the Indigenous movement struggle.”

According to Herrera, in the building “we drafted proposals for a new constitution, we gave life to the proposal for a plurinational state.” He said, “in this building we have defended democracy.” The building belonged to everyone, and Herrera said they would not allow the government to kick them out.

Nina Pacari, former Minister of Foreign affairs, member of the United Nations Forum for Indigenous Peoples, and Judge of Ecuador’s Supreme Court, defined the eviction as direct persecution against Indigenous peoples.

Former CONAIE president Humberto Cholango proclaimed that if the government threw them out they would return. He criticized Correa’s actions as part of an ongoing campaign against the CONAIE, including its bilingual education and collective rights campaigns.

International supporters have denounced the government’s decision. In an open letter to president Rafael Correa, Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos wrote “the legal justifications aside, kicking the CONAIE out of its building is an unjust and politically imprudent act.”

A quarter century of struggle

The CONAIE was founded in 1986 to unify all Indigenous peoples and nationalities in Ecuador into one unified movement.

In 1990, the CONAIE emerged as the primary leader of a... Read more