Ecuador: 400 arrested, 13 shot in protests (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

>From the Amazon Coalition:

FOUR HUNDRED ARRESTED THIRTEEN SHOT - IMF and Ecuadorian government 
provoke violent reaction to hunger and poverty

Four months after a crisis provoked by an IMF inspired structural 
adjustment plan, the country is again in the grips of the 
multi-lateral organisation. This time the social convulsions, which 
wer provoked by a another rise in fuel prices, have been confronted 
in repressive fashion. Five more people were shot yesterday as they 
tried to march from Guallabamba, a small town 40 kilometres north of
Quito, to the capital to protest the impacts of the economic measures 
introduced during the past six months. In Latacunga, a town of about 
500,000 one hour to the south of the capital, indigenous groups which 
had been closing roads, charged a military vehicle full of troops on 
Saturday night. The vehicle turned tail and fled. On Sunday the 
native people were not so lucky, eight were shot as they confr onted 
the military attempting to keep the road open. One later died.

The protests and the indigenous uprising have been brought about by 
the severity of the economic measures taken to supposedly pull 
Ecuador out of its economic plight. The now discredited  IMF recipe
of provoking inflation and removing subsidies in order to balance the 
budget has been applied without relief since the effects of the 
global economic crisis hit Latin America late last year. The dollar 
has risen by almost 100% against the local currency, the Sucre, since 
beginning of the year, food costs have risen by about 70%, gas, 
electricity, gasoline, diesel, and water costs have all risen 
substantially, and all this before the latest round of  transport 
fuel cost rises, provoked by indexation to the dollar. In the 
meantime the basic salary (a form of minimum wage) has been raised by 
an insulting 30%

The taxi drivers hit back first, blocking roads and demanding that 
fuel prices be reduced to their pre- June levels and frozen for 
two years. They blocked roads and brought the cities to a standstill. 
Indigenous groups throughout the central mountain region have joined 
them in an uprising which has blocked roads, occupied state 
electricity offices and taken control of communications towers. 
Indigenous areas are amongst the poorest in the country and the 
native population, which has been badly affected by the privatisation 
and globalisation agenda, is calling their actions a fight for life, 
and against hunger. 

Meanwhile, teachers and medical workers who have not been paid in 
months have also joined the strike, along with banana workers, bus 
and transport workers and even informal sellers. Whole neighbourhoods 
have taken over roads in an attempt to convince the government to 
change course. And in the latest of a series of actions, the offices 
of the Catholic Church, criticised as pro-government, have been 
occupied by a number of social groups intent on emphasising their 
demands that the neoliberal policies being applied to the country be 
changed. Ironically, the police, charged with repressing the 
demonstrations, also find themselves unpaid and without funds to ward 
off their own creditors.

Part of the government's answer has been to declare a general state 
of emergency, endowing the President with extraordinary 
powers to control the state budget, and to order military 
intervention wherever and whenever he pleases. Congress, in which the 
government does not have the majority, is outspokenly opposed and 
will probably fight the measure, although it should be pointed out 
that the majority of members are also neo-liberals (or at best the 
more apologetic Blair style third wayers) and simply jockeying for 
power. The other part of the strategy has been to create diversionary 
tactics. Jailing a corrupt banker and paying the people whose savings 
were locked up in the now officially bankrupt bank (one of Ecuador's 
largest). On the other hand an overwhelming silence has surrounded 
the accusation that the majority of high government officials took 
their money out of the country (apparently some $200 million) a 
little while before all bank accounts were frozen in March of this 
year. 

Whether these officials, and other corrupt bankers, will ever be 
investigated and brought to trial is a major question. But perhaps 
more important in the long run, both for Ecuador and other 
countries in the region, is whether it will be possible to find a way 
out of the neoliberal export lead growth trap in which Ecuador finds 
itself, given that this model favours the governing elite which 
controls almost all political parties. The fact that it needs to is 
not in question. The country has only gone backwards in economic 
terms since the debt crisis of the early eighties, and finds itself 
porting increasing amounts of primary material,  only to watch prices 
fall or at best fluctuate wildly on markets over which it has no 
control. The cost in terms of concentration of land, power and wealth 
is huge. The cost in terms of the environmental and social impacts 
related to finding and pumping more oil, growing more flowers, 
farming more shrimp, and growing more bananas are devastating a 
country which is defined by its cultural and natural diversity. 


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La Coalicion Amazonica no se ha verificado la veracidad de este 
mensaje.  Mandar este mensaje no necesariamente significa que 
la Coalicion Amazonica esta de acuerdo con el contenido.

La Coalicion para los Pueblos Amazonicos y su Medio Ambiente es una 
iniciativa, nacida de la alianza entre los pueblos indigenas y 
tradicionales de la Amazonia, grupos e individuos que 
comparten sus preocupaciones por el futuro de la Amazonia y sus 
pueblos.  Las ochenta organizaciones no-gubernamentales del norte 
y del sur activas en la Coalicion creen que el futuro de la Amazonia 
depende de sus pueblos indigenas y tradicionales y el estado de su 
medio ambiente.

The Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment is an
initiative born out of the alliance between indigenous and 
traditional peoples of the Amazon and groups and individuals who 
share their concerns for the future of the Amazon and its peoples.  
The eighty non-governmental organizations from the North and the 
South active in the Coalition believe that the future of the Amazon 
depends on its indigenous and traditional peoples and the state 
of their environment.