Death and vengance between the Waorani and Tagaeri / Taromenane of the Ecuadorian Amazonia: a case of legal fetishism or intercultural justice?

Abstract

The death of two elderly Waorani, Ompore Omewai and Buganei Caiga, in the
community of Yarentaro on March 5, 2013 by warriors Tagaeri / Taromenane belonging to Ecuadorian indigenous peoples in isolation provoked the family organize their revenge through an incursion of 17 warriors who allegedly killed an unknown number of isolated in late March or early April of the same year. The only evidence of this fact are two girls who were abducted by the attackers and currently living in two communities Waorani. The General Attorney of the State initiated a legal process against these 17 indigenous accusing them of ethnocide and genocide and the various legal actions carried out during 2013 and 2014 pitted the Waorani with ordinary Ecuadorian legal system and raised new challenges for resolution. The paper discusses how the resolution of an internal conflict between two indigenous peoples is crossed by the interference of ordinary justice and the law, and how its meaning and use works rather in favor or against their collective rights as indigenous peoples, making the law in a fetish thereby displacing a political conflict into the realm of the law.