Indigenous Will Stand with Protest to Freedom their Three Leaders

If tomorrow the release of the former president from the Shuar Federation, José Acacho, and the indigenous leaders Pedro Mashiant y Fidel Kaniras is not possible there will be protests, threatened yesterday the assembly group Pachakutik (PK) and the board of the Indigenous Nationalities Confederation (CONAIE).

Acacho, Mashiant y Kaniras were accused of terrorism and sabotage in the September 30, 2009 protest that sought to reject the Water Act. The arrest occurred on Tuesday in Morona Santiago in a police and military operation. The leaders remain arrested since Tuesday. That same day they were transferred from Macas to the capital city Provisional Detention Center (CDP) located in the facilities of the Garcia Moreno ex penal colony.

“They are the first political prisoners of President (Rafael) Correa,” said the leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Amazonian, Tito Puenchir.

Assamblywoman, Lourdes Tibán, defined president Correa as “coward, cynical and shameless” because he waited Acacha to leave the presidency of the Shuar Federation to capture him. “This arrest is the most cynical way from the Government to avoid assuming that the killing of Bosco Wisum is their responsibility. This bloody, xenophobic, dictator regime wants to silence us.”

She said the Executive might be scared because Acacho would be a candidate for CONAIE.
Tibán also announced that they will put a complaint into international bodies for such illegal detention.

The President of the Shuar Nation of Ecuador (Nashe), Manuel Maiche, reported that after the arrest and detention of the three leaders from their community the guild have declared themselves in an emergency state.
“It is clear, very clear that this is a political persecution by the current Correa regime to silence the people, to silence the resistance of the Shuar in order to exploit the mining and oil, because we have been resisting for years,” said the leader.

Source: El Universo