[Two articles, one right before and one right after the coup]
FINANCIAL TIMES
Friday January 21 2000
ECUADOR: Ecuador Indians want new president
Ecuador's armed forces came out in support of President Jamil Mahuad yesterday in the face of demands by thousands of protesting Indians that he resign for failing to improve their living standards, Reuter reports from Quito.
"The president is part of the democratic system, the constitution. We Ecuadoreans and the military have sworn to uphold that," said Carlos Mendoza, chief of the armed forces joint command and interim defence minister.
Indigenous groups, who some say make up nearly half of Ecuador's 12.4m population, claim the government is corrupt and has mismanaged the economy to their detriment during the country's worst economic crisis in decades. They want Mr Mahuad, Congress and the Supreme Court to step down. They also sharply oppose Mr Mahaud's plan to adopt the dollar as Ecuador's principal currency, fearing it will leave them further impoverished.
Indigenous leaders met military officials on Wednesday and asked the armed forces to help them create a new government that would better represent the interests of the poor. 'The Indians have some real requests," Mr Mendoza told local television. But "change must be democratic."
Unlike other Latin American countries, Ecuador's armed forces are relatively well regarded by the people. The last military dictatorship ended in 1979.
Close to 10,000 Indians, peasants, students and onlookers marched peacefully through Quito's streets on Wednesday dressed in traditional garb, playing music and carrying rainbow-colored banners represnting unity among Ecuador's vast indigenous peoples.
The protesters have threatened to block roads nationwide and practise other forms of civil disoberidence to force the governmetn out of office.
FINANCIAL TIMES
Saturday January 22, 2000
ECUADOR: President flees after protesters overrun Congress
By Nicholas Moss in Quito
Jamil Mahuad, Ecuador's president, who had refused to resign despite growing pressure for him to do so, left the presidential palace in an ambulance, bound for one of the country's airbases on Friday.
"Mahuad left the palace in an ambulance guarded by four security vehicles," said Col. Suarez, the government palace's chief of security. Ecuador's Congress building was on Friday overrun by thousands of indigenous Indian protesters, staging their boldest action yet against the government of Mr Mahuad.
The involvement of military guards, who allowed the protesters access to the building, fuelled speculation of growing military opposition to the government.
Carlos Mendoza, head of the armed forces, who had earlier affirmed the military's support for the constitutional government, said they had retracted their support and President Mahuad should step down. Protests involving other opposition activists as well as the indigenous groups spread to the southern city of Guayaquil, where violent demonstrations broke out in the afternoon. One person was shot dead in tussles with police in one of the coastal provinces.
The taxi drivers have come out in support of the uprising and are blocking the streets of Quito, the capital. Indian demonstrators also surrounded the supreme court building, despite police attempts to disperse them with teargas.
The highland Indians, who comprise at least a third of the Andean country's 12.4m population, began marching on Quito on Monday to demand Mr Mahuad's resignation.
They accused the government of corruption and mismanagement, and blame the president for the country's worst economic crisis in decades.
Mr Mahuad's proposal to adopt the US dollar as the country's principal currency would further impoverish millions of people living below the poverty line, they said.
The president proposed dollarisation after Ecuador's currency crashed to record lows. Inflation last year was 60 per cent and the economy shrank by more than 7 per cent, the worst performance this century.
In Quito 2,000-3,000 protesters remained in the Congress building through the day, cramming into the main parliament auditorium. They rejoiced at declarations of support by an indigenous activist leader, Antonio Vargas, for a new government headed by an army colonel. "The people are in power," Mr Vargas said.
On Thursday he had warned that they would take over control of Congress. With the president gone, he expected them to be in the presidential palace within a couple of hours. Protesters chanted "Down with Mahuad", while tribal spiritual leaders spread incense and blew conch shells on the platform where the president normally sits. On top of the Congress building protesters unfurled the banner of the indigenous peoples, while inside they called for a march on the presidential palace.
Mr Mahuad, a Harvard-educated centrist politician, was to have presented to Congress on Friday a bill implementing his dollarisation plan. Instead he stayed in session with his cabinet in the presidential palace a few kilometres from Congress.
Congress was also expected to have received legislation covering the privatisation of parts of the electricity, telecommunications and oil sectors.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2000.