Ecuador’s Indigenous confederation CONAIE is demanding broader justice after soldiers were sentenced for the disappearance and murder of four children in Guayaquil.

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE, in Spanish) denounced this Tuesday that the disappearance and subsequent murder of the children from Las Malvinas exposed serious human rights violations under a militarized security policy.

Regarding uninvestigated political and command responsibilities, CONAIE insisted that “the sentence condemning 16 military personnel for the forced disappearance and murder of four children and adolescents from the Las Malvinas neighborhood in Guayaquil confirms what the families and human rights organizations have denounced from the beginning.”

RELATED: Soldiers Sentenced to Prison for Disappearance of Four Afro-Ecuadorian Minors

By denouncing the power structure and political decision-making of which this crime is a part, CONAIE added that “they normalized the militarization of internal security, weakening civilian control and violating fundamental rights, especially in popular territories and neighborhoods.”

Therefore, they demand that investigations advance to establish political and chain-of-command responsibilities. “The families of Josue, Ismael, Nehemias, and Steven have the right to truth, memory, and comprehensive reparations. The country needs to dismantle the policies of militarization that endanger the lives of girls, boys, and young people and deepen inequality and impunity,” stated CONAIE.

“Without complete truth and without substantive accountability, the wound left by these events will remain open,” said the organization.

The Sentences

One year after the disappearance and murder of the four Ecuadorian minors from Guayaquil, the Prosecutor’s Office issued a sentence against the uniformed personnel responsible for the crime.

Eleven of those sentenced will receive a prison term of 34 years and eight months, while five effective cooperators will serve 30 months. A seventeenth accused, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Francisco Iglesia, was declared innocent.

Text reads: “The sentence for the forced disappearance and murder of #Los4DeLasMalvinas confirms serious violations of human rights under a militarized security policy. Political and command responsibilities remain uninvestigated.”

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