{"id":624,"date":"2019-04-23T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tierra.jerrejerre.com\/es\/?p=624"},"modified":"2021-04-21T16:46:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T16:46:39","slug":"el-fantasma-de-nankints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tierraderesistentes.com\/en\/2019\/04\/23\/el-fantasma-de-nankints\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ghost of Nankints"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2016 a Shuar community in southern Ecuador was attacked, forcibly evicted and legally harassed. A mining company was set up in their territory. More than two years later, its 32 inhabitants have not been able to return to their land.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Sandro Chinkim returned to his village, his village no longer existed. Chinkim, a father in his thirties, had just left his community, Nankints, a day earlier to visit his in-laws, who live only 100 kilometers away. \u201cWhen I returned, there was no house, and all the houses were buried. There was no board,\u201d he said. Thirty-two people lived in Nankints, a tiny enclave of Shuar Indians in the foothills of the Condor Mountain Range in Ecuador’s southern Amazon. But when Chinkim returned there was no trace of them, nor of their houses.<\/strong> There were soldiers, policemen, and remains of wood and zinc, perhaps the only evidence that there used to be a community there. It was Aug. 13, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty-eight hours earlier, a picket line of policemen, brandishing a court order, had evicted the community<\/strong>. The land, they were told, was owned by the miningcompany Explorcobres S.A.<\/span>, and they were invading it. Unlike their son, Sandro Chinkim\u2019s parents were in Nankints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were told they had two minutes to get their stuff and get out\u201d<\/p>Sandro Chinkim.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were told they had two minutes to get their stuff and get out,\u201d said Chinkim. \u201cThen they (authorities) knocked down the houses, buried them in a hole that they covered with dirt.\u201d On that day, Aug. 11, 2016, the eight Nankints families took refuge in neighboring towns like San Carlos de Lim\u00f3n, Santiago de Pananza and Tsuntsuim. Nankints had ceased to exist. Their four small hectares became, by force of eviction, the mining camp La Esperanza.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their people were never able to return to their homeland again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two-and-a-half years later, on a February morning in 2019, in what used to be Nankints, there are no longer any traces of wood and zinc. But there are seven small buildings with silver roofs, in the middle of tidy dirt roads, surrounded by a 2-meter-high metal fence reinforced with threatening barbed-wire spirals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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La Esperanza Camp is surrounded by a metal fence reinforced with barbed wire. Photograph by Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Le\u00f3n.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inside a cement sentry box, a security guard watches suspiciously as a 4-by-4 rattles and lifts dust as it slowly passes outside the Panantza-San Carlos project camp, where Explorcobres S.A. wants to start exploiting the rich mountain range, replete with coveted copper, for 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that moment began the violent escalation of a conflict between a powerful mining company and a small indigenous community, which would result in death, persecution, judicial harassment and displacement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But the company can\u2019t do it because of the resistance by the Shuar people. The forced eviction that left Sandro Chinkim homeless and without a town, was only the beginning of a four-month journey started that day in August 2016. At that moment began the violent escalation of a conflict between a powerful mining company and a small indigenous community, which would result in death, persecution, judicial harassment and displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan, 6, and Steven, 4, laugh as they run free. On the grass that separates the houses from the court, a lady pulls a neighing mule. Rita, 21, squatting, machetes the grass around her house. A hen cackles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Tsuntsuim there is no health center, no grocery store. There is a small school for all children between the ages of 5 and 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tsunstuim. Photograph by Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Le\u00f3n.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Aug. 11, 2016, the day the eight families were evicted from Nankints, some sought refuge in Tsuntsuim, about 6 kilometers away. Tsuntsium resident Alvino Pinchup\u00e1, remembers that \u201cthey (refugees from Nankints) arrived with only a blanket under their arm. \u201c \u2018They kicked us out, it was an eviction\u2019, they said, and we invited them to stay here.\u201d <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

News of the displacement spread through the provinces of Morona Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe, part of the ancestral territory of the Shuars, one of Ecuador\u2019s 15 indigenous nationalities. Nearly a dozen men, who were not from Nankints, went to Tsuntsuim to support their comrades and retake their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore what happened in Nankints, people were already talking and protesting the mining issue, but here someone had to decide and act\u201d<\/p>Domingo Nayash.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Domingo Nayash had been the trustee – the highest administrative authority – of\u00a0 Tsuntsuim for barely a month, and he helped plan what he calls \u201cthe attack.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cBefore what happened in Nankints, people were already talking and protesting the mining issue, but here someone had to decide and act,\u201d said Nayash, a thin, brown, wide-nosed man with strong arms. He was sitting on a wooden bench, under a zinc roof from where newly washed t-shirts, trousers and wet socks hang. During the months after the eviction, there were assemblies and meetings between leaders of the Shuar organizations and the men who joined to defend their territory.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After weeks of planning, in the early hours of Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, nearly 25 men left Tsuntsuim for La Esperanza.<\/strong> \u201cIt took us longer than expected because there were two chubby men walking slowly between us. We wanted to arrive at three in the morning to surprise the employees, but we arrived when it was already clear,\u201d recalled Nayash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid the shots, blows and intense confusion, the workers of Explorcobres S.A. and the policemen who guarded it fled in retreat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It was 6 a.m., when the Shuar – some with spears, some with explosives and some with shotguns – burst into the mining camp.<\/strong> Amid the shots, blows and intense confusion, the workers of Explorcobres S.A. and the policemen who guarded it fled in retreat. The plan was to burn the houses, Nayash said, but someone in the group suggested saving them because they could serve the inhabitants of Nankints who, according to their plans, would return to re-found their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the counterattack by the mining company and the State was strong-handed.<\/strong> After a night\u2019s sleep in La Esperanza, the Shuar were surprised the next morning by a large contingent of police and military,  according to Nayash. The Shuar seizure of La Esperanza lasted 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shuar retreated to San Carlos de Lim\u00f3n, a small town of settlers and Shuar people that lies between Tsuntsuim and the space where Nankints existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The tarabita that connects Lim\u00f3n with the other populations. Photograph by Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Le\u00f3n.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

San Carlos de Lim\u00f3n can be reached in three ways. The simplest and quickest way – which takes between 3 and 4 minutes – is to cross half a kilometer on a small open cable car 300 meters above the Zamora River. The 20-something men who were thrown out of the former Nankints took refuge in Lim\u00f3n for three weeks.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re going to do one more attack,” said trustee Nayash, adding that several men had joined them from other communities. Twenty-four days later, on Dec. 14, 2016 the Shuar moved against La Esperanza. But this time the camp was guarded by thousands of police and military, and the confrontation was more violent.<\/strong> \u201cThe shooting was heard so far,\u201d said Tsuntsuim resident Natalia Nankamai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two soldiers, five policemen and two Shuar were wounded. Police officer Jos\u00e9 Luis Mej\u00eda died from a gunshot. Each side blamed each other in the shooting.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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During the state of emergency, the military set up their tents on the covered court of San Carlos de Lim\u00f3n. Photograph by Braulio Guti\u00e9rrez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

***<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That same day, Dec. 14, then-President Rafael Correa<\/span> ordered<\/a> a military increase in the area and a 30-day state of emergency in Morona Santiago province.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days later, on radio and television networks that broadcasted speeches Correa gave every Saturday to discuss his management and to chastise his enemies, he alleged that the Shuar were part of \u201can extremely violent armed group\u201d<\/a> and denied that this space was their ancestral territory.<\/strong> The then-police commander, Diego Mej\u00eda, said the Shuar had \u201clarge caliber weapons.\u201d<\/a> Alvino Pinchup\u00e1 and Domingo Nayash insist that they only had carbines, dynamite and lances<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For them and the women and children of Tsuntsuim, those days of December 2016 are unforgettable. Nayash was in San Carlos de Lim\u00f3n when two days later he decided to leave Tsuntsuim to tell the others what had happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n