Sarayacu

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 1 ° 44 ′  S , 77 ° 29 ′  W

Sarayacu ( Kichwa Sarayaku ) is a Kichwa village on the Río Bobonaza in the Ecuadorian part of Amazonia and has about 1,200 Kichwa- speaking inhabitants.

The place name, which is also the name of a river in the area, means maize water or maize river in Kichwa ( sara , "maize"; yaku , "water").

Political Affiliation

Administratively, Sarayaku belongs as a parish to the Canton Pastaza of the Province Pastaza . The entire parish of Sarayacu had 2,195 inhabitants at the 2001 census. After 1912 Sarayacu was the capital of this canton for a few years before this task was passed to Puyo .

The community is a member of the "Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza" ( Organización de Pueblos Indígenas de Pastaza / OPIP , Kichwa: Pastaza Runakuna Tantanakuy ).

economy

Traditionally, the community lives on a subsistence basis from fishing , shifting farming and collecting plants in the rainforest . Ecotourism is now playing an increasing role.

education

For Sarayaku, its multilingual and intercultural school system is an important component of its development strategy. There are six primary schools and one secondary school. In addition, there is a university program ( yachay , "knowledge") in the community in collaboration with the universities of Cuenca (Ecuador) and Lleida (Spain).

Resistance to oil production

The community became known for its resistance, which continues to this day, to the development of the rainforest that belongs to it for oil production by the Argentine oil company Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC), which was decided by the Ecuadorian government , which would result in the expropriation of their land and environmental destruction. The residents have a satellite dish and use the Internet with their own website to inform the population of the country. A solar system in the middle of the rainforest provides the electricity needed to run an internet café. The modern technology was financed, among other things, by donations and the public awareness of the place due to films by Eriberto Gualinga . His documentaries of the resistance in his village were shown at festivals around the world.

The resistance of the Kichwa in Sarayaku to oil production in their area began in 1989 when they prevented the ARCO group (formerly Ecuadorian, now part of British BP) from drilling in their area. In 1992 the community was granted an area of ​​approximately 130,000 hectares. However, according to the law, the resources are still owned by the state. In 1996/2003, the government divided the area into blocks for oil production: the Argentine company CGC was granted the concession for the area designated as Block 23, and the Italian company Agip Block 10. The prospecting work was initially stopped after popular protests. As a result, a complaint against CGC was filed by the people of Sarayaku with the Commission for Human Rights. In 1998 the Constitutional Court recognized that oil production violated the rights of indigenous peoples, and in 2004 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica issued provisional measures in favor of the indigenous people in the region.

Since then, oil companies have repeatedly tried to get ashore. The rights to which the sarayaku refer are the so-called “collective rights” guaranteed in the constitution (ILO 169). The 1989 Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (ILO 169) is an international convention that aims to protect indigenous peoples and their lands. The Ecuadorian government has also signed the agreement, giving it weight. In this case, this means for the Kichwa that as indigenous people they lived in the region long before the settlement by the Europeans and that they therefore have special rights and self-determination over their territory. Corporate intrusion is aided by the ignorance of many local councils who do not know the laws of the state.

In July 2012, after 10 years, Sarayaku won his legal battle against the Ecuadorian state: In its judgment, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights confirmed the state's responsibility for violating the rights of the Kichwa. They receive compensation, the explosives on their land must be cleared. The Court affirmed the Kichwa's right to self-determined development.

With the compensation, the village community founded on the one hand a bank that grants microloans of up to 500 dollars, on the other hand, 600,000 dollars were used to buy two aircraft, which as " Air Sarayacu " flies to 400 jungle villages. Many of the flights carried out with it are used to transport people with snakebites to the hospital.

Sons and daughters of the church

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ gfbv.de : Sarayacu - a Quichua place in the Ecuadorian rainforest in the resistance against oil production ( memento of the original from March 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gfbv.de
  2. ↑ a b plaintiff with feather jewelry , NZZ, January 11, 2017 (print edition)
  3. ↑ indigene.de
  4. ↑ ilo169.de
  5. ↑ oroverde.de: History of Sarayaku
  6. ↑ regenwald.org: Ecuador: Indigenous people win against the state