From the Amazon Coalition: amazoncoal@igc.org
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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Distribuido por: Distributed by:
Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment
1367 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036-1860
tel (202)785-3334
fax (202)785-3335
amazoncoal@igc.org
http://www.amazoncoalition.org
Disclaimer: All copyrights belong to original publisher. The Amazon Coalition has not verified the accuracy of the forwarded message. Forwarding this message does not necessarily connote agreement with the positions stated there-in.
Todos los derechos de autor pertenecen al autor originario. 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.
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This page last updated August 31, 1999
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