>Ecuador seems to be blowing up - economic crisis, strikes, protests.
>Does anyone know what's going on?
Not really, but here's something from A-Infos. It seems there is a lot of stuff around, but most of it's in Spanish, which I can only barely read.
Eric
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 14:05:58 -0500 From: "el desaparecido" <desaparecido at gmx.de> To: caravan99 at list.free.de, a-infos at tao.ca Subject: (en) summary of the current situation
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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Dear all, the following is a personal summary from the information I have been able to get from Ecuador through a few emails and 2 phone calls. Like many of you probably I knew very little about Ecuador before. It is difficult at this stage to see what the real motivation of the uprising movement in Ecuador is. The information is sometimes contradictory and unusual compared to what we know from indigenas uprising like the zapatistas for instance.
The following is from notes that I took during a phone call with a man called marlon working for AMARC see www.amarc.org/pulsar
Marlon first started describing me the current situation in Ecuador, because the roots of the current crisis come from several years of neoliberal exploitation. The external debt of Ecuador has increased 5 times since 1979. ìPeople are currently not living but survivingî, he said. The prices of elementary products have risen dramatically. People are taking their children out of school because they cannot afford it anymore. Social services have been dismantled. In a hospital you will not even find an aspirin, if you want to take someone to hospital, you need to bring all the necessary medicines with you !
The current crisis started as the government froze all the bank accounts and people werenít able to withdraw money (which is a minority in the country).
Since the beginning of the 90ís the movement of the indigenas gained strength. Approximately 40% of the population is indigena. Most of the unions have lost power and have corrupt leaders, so the movement is mostly lead by the indigenas. The have been 8 uprisings already. The indigenas are generally based around the cities and this is where there resistance start from. Their form of resistance is not like going to a demo and back home again and watch the news on tv. No. The mobilise in a progressive way, community by community, making sure they have the necessary infrastructure to secure food supply for example etc. They general block the access roads to the Cities and in the past have successfully managed to paralyse the country. They build barricades with trees, dig holes in the concrete etc.
The new thing about the current uprising is that it is followed by other sectors of society, like the unions of the oil industry, the students etc.
The interesting thing marlon mentioned is that the army in the past has been on the side of the indigenas. Many of the soldiers are of indigena origin. About two weeks ago the statements of the army leaders were still backing up the uprising, which gave confidence that it was possible to overthrow the current government.
However things have changed in the last couple of weeks, marlon said. The government of president Mahuad started a big propaganda campaign in the media, looking back on all the wonderful things that the neoliberal system has achieved. The government announced a ëdollarisationí of the economy, meaning that the dollar is the leading currency. The government backed this law with massive propaganda which has confused now the population. In Quito the capital, there is a broader middle class of people, which is likely not to follow the protests he said. But the marginalised and poorer sectors of society and students are likely to follow the mobilisation. The dollarisation will not change anything, itíll just stabilise the situation for the rich 1% of the population. The movement is currently trying to inform people about this. Since the ëdollarisationí was proposed the momentum gathered by the movement dropped.
The mobilisation to Quito for Saturday started little by little. As mentioned before the indigenas are blocking the roads, creating infrastructures etc. They expect that by Tuesday the country will be paralysed. And that they will march into Quito for a occupation of the capital. Marlon considered this occupation as mostly symbolic. They expect 40-50.000 indigenas. But it was difficult to predict what the attitude of the other sectors of society would be like the unions and other groups of ícivil societyí.
Repression:
The country is militarised. There are 30.000 soldiers deployed, mostly dealing with the indigenas. In cities like Quito things are quiet for the moment, no military, only police. The indigenas have had confrontations around their barricades with the military. the military response has been tear gas, charging, gunshots in the air and trying to avoid damages, no massacres, but there have been people shot to death in the past and things could escalate very quickly.
Marlon said the armyís position is still unclear. In the last two weeks they announced that they wouldnít tolerate violence and that violence would result in more violence. The attitude of the army may be very decisive for the uprising.
There are some sectors and industrial lobby groups pushing the government to go ahead with tough repression against the indigenas, it is therefore important to create international solidarity and avoid a possible massacre of the indigenas and the uprising in general.
Parliament:
According to marlon, the movement of the indigenas, unions, civil groups, students etc organise in a Peoples Parliament (Parlamento Nacional de los Pueblos Ecuador = National Parliament of the people from Ecuador). Itís a system of plenaries. There are many regional plenaries in which things are discussed and then brought back into the Peoples Parliament which gathers all the representatives of the smaller plenaries. They are up to 1500 people meeting and discussing the following steps. There is also a press commission which is currently setting an infrastructure to communicate to the outside. I hope weíll get the contact address soon.
The important characteristic of this Parliament is that it rejects the current form of State and calls for civil disobedience. When I asked if this was a movement trying to overthrow one government and change it by another one , marlon pointed that this ënew governmentí was a peoples government and that it was more democratic, more horizontal.
Late last night I then received several documents which are written by this alternative parliament. To my astonishing I found several contradictory statements and was surprised, I leave it up to you to judge for yourself...
*first of all the so called peoples parliament has a president, a vice president and a secretary... *there is a clear rejection of the current form of State, a call for civil disobedience, but also a clear call to a new government based on a new ethic, a strong and efficient decentralised State maintaining the current form of peoples plenaries. The Spanish version has been posted at www.ainfos.ca translation into English are on the way (if you can help contact me : desaparecido at gmx.de)
The language and the demands are very different from what we know from other struggles, the zapatistas for instance. No mention of self determination, dignity, land reforms or things like that. But judge for yourself once the translation is done.
ok thatís all I can say for now
Anyone having direct contacts to Ecuador please let us know ! It would be great to have information from other sources like libertarian groups, indigenas groups directly etc. I think we should use the email lists generated by the global days of action J18, N30 and the caravans to spread information. Let us use ainfos also: www.ainfos.ca
Prepare for solidarity actions, international support will probably be crucial !
stay tuned in solidarity Luciano
for updated information in spanish: http://conjuntos.es.fortunecity.com/social/6
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