Another activist found dead in her home, with marks on her neck, after leading a fight against mining companies and corrupt politicians amid the Ecuadorian state illegally expanding mining activity. Earlier this year, Ecuadorian water defender, Manuel Cabrera, was also murdered after refusing to give up the land he’s worked for years to mining corporations. Both activists received several death threats prior to passing and filed multiple complaints that went ignored because the state was hostile to their activism. Just last month, the vocal older sister of one of the four Black boys that the Ecuadorian state kidnapped, murdered and burned to ashes, was shot and killed. A few weeks later, family and neighbors from her community reported that military and government officials were stalking them and knocking on doors asking for the addresses of the 4 boys’ families in what appears to be an act of intimidation. All the while, Marxist organizers like Omar Campoverde are being starved and sexually tortured in Ecuador’s prisons. Whether it be by neglect, forced starvation, execution-style shoot outs, the U.S.-backed dictatorship that rules Ecuador by martial law and pentagon bombs is responsible and at fault.