Siekopai and Old People take shelter in Pe’keya, their ancestral territory to protect themselves from COVID-19.

19/04/2020 Sara Lorenzini Clean Water and Sanitation, Climate Action, No Poverty, Reduced Inequalities, Responsible Consumption and Production, Zero Hunger

PRESS RELEASE

Sucumbios, 16th April 2020

« Our objective and intention are to go to this strategical site to save our lives ».

The declaration of health emergency from the State meant extreme anxiety for the communities, most of all for our traditional authorities, the old people. The COVID-19, the recent contamination of the Shushufindi river and the consequent death of fishes, the pressure of third (not indigenous) parties for hunting, the amount of oil activities increased the communities’ concern for the subsistence during the quarantine. Thus, in three canoes, 40 siekopais, our grandparents among them, decided to take shelter in Pekeya (today, Lagartococha), the center of spiritual origin for the Siekopai, with the aim of avoiding the contagion of the pandemic.

The president of the Siekopai nationality, Justino Piaguaie, signaled:

“ We are really close to this disease. The intention is to stay completely isolated. This makes us think about the past centuries: to escape, most of all, to this site which is very important for us from the cultural point of view as well as a strategical site. To us, it will be the time to rethink our past, the history of our grandparents, but most of all to save our lives in these circumstances since we do not have the support from our government, neither local nor national ».

Our grandfathers and grandmothers remind the history of epidemics that their ancestors faced and to which many of their ancestors, unfortunately, did not survive. In a meeting before increasing the security and confinement measures, our grandparents reminded, for example, diseases that had been transmitted by missionaries, travelers and rubber tappers.

On this day, they recalled the histories of their grandparents about an influenced known as « tosferina », the same that produced the death of a huge quantity of Siekopai. In this moment, the decision was to get into the most remote zones of the forest and protect themselves during this sanitary emergency.
The difference between the current context is territorial possession. In the past, our territory was extensive and Pé’kéya was always a strategic territory. Our ancestors lived in Pé’kéya before inconsistent and arbitrary decisions that governments made and stripped us of that, our living space. First was the war with Peru in the 1940s; then, the unwarranted declaration of protected areas by the Ecuadorian State, particularly, the constitution of the Cuyabeno Fauna Production Reserve and then the unequal handover of our territory through the figure of agreements to third parties.

Of the 30,000 or 40,000 siekopai that the chroniclers indicate, at present, we are only 700. In addition, we resist in an extremely reduced territory and surrounded by oil companies, palm growers, who contaminate the jungle. Additionally, since 2017, our award request has not been met by the Ministry of the Environment. In fact, the process of defining the protected area and the use and management agreements were signed between the State and non-originating communities, without the participation of the Siekopai Nationality and without considering their territorial claims.

Hence the trip to Pé’kéya is significant, as our grandparents know that their families will be truly protected there. There, they will be able to subsist and move away, somehow, from the pandemic; they will also remember their past and revitalize the present together with the youngest.

In this sense, Jimmy Piaguaje, a young Siekopai communicator, refers to the importance of memory and the link with the territory walked by our grandparents, as a central part of the struggle that began several years ago:
“I think history is repeating itself. Going into the jungle years ago, some grandparents have survived and are the ones we have with us alive now. For us, they are leaving an important message: that history is still there, still, The memory follows, the strength of the grandparents. They still hope to return to 051. Their children will grow up there and feel that they are really Siekopai.

Every time they travel they tell a story, their travels because culture still lives in those memories. It is time to join forces with the grandparents and claim stronger for the territory because we see what is happening today in the territories that we have: there is no hunting anymore, there is no fishing, the grandparents are dying and right now, With this, our grandparents, who are our sources of wisdom and knowledge, are put in more danger. I think that grandparents have something more to say and we can still do something for them. If many decades of resistance return, it would be a historic moment when they can feel the air in Pé’kéya.

In short, with this trip, we remind the central and local State, especially the Ministry of the Environment, the Provincial COE, the Ministry of Health and or the GADs who, due to insufficient action to guarantee the health and nutrition of our Nationality decided to exercise our territorial right and take refuge in Pé’kéya (Lagartococha). And we will do it whenever necessary also as a form of self-care.

We summon the MAE and the Armed Forces to respect this determination since it is the ONLY ALTERNATIVE to protect our life and that of our grandparents. WE DEMAND guarantees that the act of intimidation and threat that we have already suffered do not recur; our life depends on our ancestral territory.

Finally, we must emphasize that the majority of Siekopai families continue in the territory we currently occupy, for which we demand immediate, urgent, concerted and culturally appropriate action. It is the State’s obligation to ensure their protection, health, and nutrition. In such a way that we are responsible for the consequences of the lack of attention to the families who decided not to travel this time.