The murder of an Amazonian leader convulses Ecuador

• Mobilization The indigenous people break with Guillermo Lasso and "radicalize" their struggle

• Query The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, intends to regain his pulse with today's referendum

Two strangers approached the farm (small rural farm) on Saturday night where the Amazonian leader

worked with his wife.

"They surprised him, they didn't say anything:

. They hired the assassins to arrive, hunt him down and kill him," said the niece of the member of the Board of Directors of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), who some Hours before, they had declared a permanent assembly and demanded the resignation of President Guillermo Lasso "due to his inability to govern."

The fatal shots fired by Mendúa's assassins have further deepened the social and political upheaval suffered by Ecuador, plagued by drug-trafficking violence and by the drift of Lasso's conservative government.

The leader of the Cofán indigenous people in the province of Sucumbíos, in the north of the country and on the border with Colombia, had stood out in the

and against those he considered guilty of its extension: PetroEcuador, the provincial government and President Lasso.

Only five hours before being shot, he warned through his Facebook account that "we are not here to cede even an inch of our territory so that the foreigners from oil can destroy the spiritual beings and invisible people of our jungle, rivers, lagoons, sacred places, ravines, medicines and our baits".

According to his account, they were to blame for the violence that had been generated in the Dureno community and for the exploitation of 30 oil wells that threatened the environment and its people.

His niece, who has become a family spokesperson, also pointed to the same "accomplices" in the death of his uncle, in addition to "the brothers who have been threatening."

"Point-blank shots of the hitman type," Conaie specified in her statement, charged with indignation.

a detainee

The Ecuadorian Prosecutor's Office has already carried out the first raids in the Cofán commune of Dureno and has arrested a

of the leader who also handled international relations for Conaie.

"Charges will be filed in the next few hours," they announced to the country.

The news also fell like a bomb on the political gossip in Quito, forcing an urgent response from the president himself, who expressed his solidarity with the Mendúa family and Conaie.

," Lasso said.

In this way, problems accumulate for the former banker from Guayaquil.

The defeat in the referendum called by himself to strengthen himself and the victory of Rafael Correa in the local elections have weakened him to the point that the possible impeachment that the National Assembly is seeking could cost him his dismissal.

It is precisely the indigenous people of the Conaie, commanded by the radical

, who had saved a new capture of Quito for later to force a checkmate.

"Eduardo was fighting against oil exploitation and contamination in the Amazon. It's terrible that it happens (the murder) after the extended council of Conaie. The

," threatened Iza, defender of "Indo-American communism," through their social networks.

In principle, the indigenous people have joined the rallies on March 8 for International Women's Day.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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