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Ecuador probing reported deaths of Huaorani Indians

Ecuadoran officials are investigating the reported killings of an undetermined number of Huaorani Indians by illegal loggers in an Amazonian nature reserve, Security Minister Gustavo Larrea said on Thursday.

"The information was passed to us by certain people in the region, and we are trying to confirm it now," Larrea said.

Huaorani leaders said illegal loggers killed five tribesmen with shotguns in Yasuni National Park -- revising their initial estimate of as many as 15 killed.

Several indigenous groups live in Yasuni National Park -- Ecuador's largest and a UNESCO biosphere reserve where logging is prohibited. Conflicts with illegal loggers are common, but arrests are rare because of the tribes' isolation.

Ecuador's national indigenous federation and an organization representing the Huaorani Indians denounced the killings on Wednesday, after a local tribesman sent word that illegal loggers may have fired at the Indians between Feb. 4 and 6.

The shootings were not reported for more than a week because the victims, Tagaeri and Taromenane tribesmen that belong to the Huaorani ethnic group, live in voluntary isolation deep within the 758,000-hectare biosphere reserve.

"It's difficult to know if there were only five murdered or more," said Enqueri Nihua Ehuenguime, president of the Huaorani Nationality Organization of Ecuador.

"To tell the truth, it is a dangerous trip" to the place where the bodies were reported found," he said.

Yasuni, like much of Ecuador's Amazon basin, is rich in mahogany, cedar and other trees that yield valuable lumber. The jungle area also holds an estimated 1 billion barrels of crude oil.

The Interamerican Human Rights Commission has petitioned the Ecuadoran government to implement controls to protect the Tagaeri and Taromenane, and in October the government prohibited all logging and mining activity in the area.

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa has asked the international community for at least US$350 million a year in contributions for 10 years to compensate the government for income lost by not drilling in the park's Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha oil fields.
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