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December 8, 2014

Ecuadorean Indigenous Leader Who Opposed Mine Found Dead 
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An Ecuadorean Shuar indigenous leader who opposed a major mining project
has been found dead just days before he was due to speak at the U.N.
climate summit in Lima, Peru. José Isidro Tendetza Antún was found
buried with his arms and legs bound. He went missing one week before he
planned to speak at a Tribunal on the Rights of Nature in opposition to
the Mirador open-pit copper and gold mine. The project, operated by a
Chinese company, would devastate swaths of the southern Amazon, a key
area for biodiversity, which is home to the Shuar. Shuar leader Domingo
Ankuash has accused Ecuadorean authorities of complicity in Tendetza's
murder. Addressing the tribunal where Tendetza was due to speak, Ankuash
said the slain activist had faced harassment, including having his house
destroyed.

Domingo Ankuash: "If they had not killed Tendetza, he would be with us
here now. If there had not been mining in this region of the Condor,
then Tendetza would be on the land in his region of Condor."

Last week, a group of activists traveling from Ecuador to Lima in a
climate caravan was stopped multiple times by Ecuadorean authorities and
ultimately had their school bus seized.

 

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