Equador, Quito, Diverse tactics of people struggle
Date Fri, 24 Aug 2001


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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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>From IMC Weekly Print http://print.indymedia.org/
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Ecuadorian general strike against repression

by Global IMC

On August 8 and 9, Ecuadorians converged on key cities, the capital Quito,
the port of Guayaquil, and Esmeraldas in the west, using diverse tactics
such as blockading roads and marching in front of government buildings, in
order to voice their opposition to Noboa regime policies.

Activists expressed opposition to the government's: IMF-backed structural
adjustment policies; bailout of the corrupt banking sector; privatization
of the electricity sector; "restructuring" of the social security system;
building of a new oil pipeline despite the opposition of local communities
and environmentalists; impoverishment of the population; cooperation with
the US-backed "Plan Colombia"; dollarisation of the Ecuadorian economy;
neglect of native peoples; and, the US military presence in Manta. 

The mass-mobilization followed weeks of civil disobedience actions,
protest marches, and work stoppages across this small Andean country of
13-million people during which doctors, teachers, farmers, natives,
environmentalists, leftists, labour unions, students, women, the retired,
the poor and the oppressed sectors of the country marched to press their
demands against the government.

On July 28, as police attempted to disperse a doctor's march, security
forces fired tear-gas near a hospital maternity ward which resulted in the
deaths of 2 infants. In February, four unarmed native protesters were
gunned down while staging a roadblock during a nation-wide mobilization
aimed at bringing down prices for fuel and transportation.

Ecuadorians will continue their opposition with a National People's
Assembly of Ecuador on August 18, 2001 in Quito.

Protecting the rich from justice

eyewitness account and editorial by Kole for IMC-Global

(GUAYAQUIL) - While the specter of army and "security" forces in the
streets of a Latin America city like Ecuador's Guayaquil might seem
cliche, the use of armed guards to protect downtown businesses is another
matter.

What was most shocking were the smartly dressed men in Burger King, KFC,
and Kodak uniforms standing in front of these symbols of global corporate
greed, with their company logos firmly embedded on their caps and guns
strapped to their waists. Yes, this is the Wild West of Capitalism in the
21st century, as banks and corporations throughout the global south find
it necessary to "defend" themselves from the "unwashed masses" by armed
force.

While poor barrios lack the basic necessities of life, while 70% of
Ecuadorians live in abject poverty, the government is spending money (ie,
allocating resources) according to the dictates of the IMF and the US
government. As a result, government funds are channeled into salvaging a
corrupt banking sector and towards beefing up the country's security
forces. In a society as polarized as Ecuador's, it is not difficult to
recognize the classic guns-and-butter trade-off decisions of the Noboa
government, services vs resources, in favor of protecting profit and
extraction of resources over providing access to basic services.

How many tankers of fresh water could be bought for the price of that one
machine gun being wielded by the gray-camouflage-clad Special Operations
Group (Grupo de Operaciones Especiales, GOE) officer guarding the Central
Bank? How many low cost houses could be built for the one armored car used
to put down the peaceful demonstration in front of the provincial
government building of Guayas?

Of course, the rich and powerful can never spend enough money suppressing
the legitimate grievances of the poor and oppressed, to protect their own
interests. To this end the armed guards in front of Burger King and KFC in
Guayaquil are only a small symbol of the extent to which the neoliberal
system will impose on the rest of the globe its politics of starvation in
the pursuit of profit. But then again, if the money spent by the
neoliberal elite on armed guards were instead redirected towards
education, social programs, health care, and the strengthening of genuine
people's organizations, there would probably be no more Burger Kings to
defend!

Organizing the barrios: A model for the developing world

by Kole, Global IMC

(GUAYAQUIL) - In major cities across Ecuador, such as Guayaquil,
Esmereldas and Quito, the urban poor are often self-organized in barrio
committees to better press their demands for greater rights. The problem
of urban poverty throughout the global South has been growing ever since
uneven development strategies and the implementation of Green Revolution
technologies displaced many farmers in the 1960s and 1970s. The problem is
further exacerbated by growing disparities in development between
countries.

For instance, in Ecuador, Guayaquil has quickly become the country's
largest city as a result of its growth as a major port and financial
center in the country's increasingly globalized economy. The results have
been predictable: shanty-towns known as suburbios, or barrios, have
rapidly grown around the outskirts of Ecuador's biggest city.

Travelling with a CUBE activist, referred to here as G, I had the
opportunity of visiting two Guayaquil barrios, Guasmo and Isla de la
Trinidad. CUBE is a volunteer collective of barrio organizations organized
by local peoples to press for greater rights.

What I witnessed in Guasmo and Isla de la Trinidad can only be described
as first rate examples of grassroots democracy in action. In both barrios,
meetings were convened by the president of the barrio committee to discuss
the day's events, people's needs, and how to go about meeting them. In
Isla de la Trinidad, the committee also discussed the blockade they had
organized to protest government policies, and how they would continue
pressing the district prefect for access to potable water. At both
meetings G, the CUBE activist who served as my guide, gave impassioned
speeches on the importance of maintaining unity and drawing links between
government corruption and the people's poverty.

Not only was I witnessing an incredible example of self-organizing to
better defend rights, I was also witnessing an incredible example of the
activism of empowered women. In both barrios women were presidents of
their respective committees, and the overwhelming majority of committee
members at the meetings were women. The sad reality is that barrio women
bear the hardest burden of Ecuador's impoverishment. In Guasmo, half the
women belonging to the barrio committee were single mothers presiding over
small shacks housing up to 17 children.

The needs of these organizations are huge. In Isla de la Trinidad, the
biggest problem is lack of potable water. The poor are forced to BUY their
water from private companies at 57 cents a tanker, which is a
prohibitively high price for families not ¨fortunate" enough to work on
the docks at the nearby port, as informals working in the gray economy, or
as maids for relatively better-off families. Access to schooling and
health care facilities is deplorable, and the rates of infant mortality
and illiteracy are the highest in the region. In Guasmo, I was told that
there isn't a single thing that the barrio doesn't need: windows, roofs,
and doors were missing from most houses. These facts are made even worse
when one considers that in winter, rising water levels flood the barrio
and spread unsanitary conditions.

Even houses built by the government-funded MINDUVI project were more often
than not incomplete. As the primary vehicle for channeling foreign aid to
the poor, MINDUVI consumes considerable resources, yet only about 30% of
this organization's funds actually make their way to benefiting Ecuador's
poorest. The rest is appropriated by the Ministry of Social Wellbeing and
its functionaries. A logical strategy for foreign governments would be to
directly fund the barrio committees, but this would mean supporting groups
that insist on actively promoting a cooperative and
anti-establishmentarian mode of living, and that are far more loyal to
radical anti-poverty groups like CUBE than to the government.

Ecuador silences dissent
By Kole, Global IMC

Across Ecuador, a new government campaign has left its mark on the walls
and hallways of government public offices. Posters for the new "The Law is
the Law" campaign are popping up everywhere.

This is essentially designed to place limitations on dissent, and to
punish activists for various transgressions of "public order". For example
the staging of road blockades can land a person in jail for three years,
while the organization of land occupations (popular in rural areas to
protest the plight of poor farmers) can result in six years of
imprisonment.

The posters list six offenses such as road blockades, land seizures,
unauthorized protests, congregating in large groups, and other standard
practices of dissent and democratic citizenship rights, which risk
disproportionately large prison sentences.

In a recent example, government security forces raided the university in
Guayaquil after students clashed with police, entering classrooms and
lecture halls to round up activists. In other parts of the country these
powers were used to detain activists who had blockaded roads with trees
and burning tires, a technique used here to disperse tear-gas.

This Orwellian twist in the drama of the Ecuadorian people only indicates
the true extent to which the government is desperate to crush broad-based
opposition to its neoliberal policies. The fact that the OAS, or the
Democratic Charter of the FTAA haven't been activated to condemn these
decidedly anti-democratic practices is further proof of the hypocritical
nature of these pan-American institutions.

Ecuador Teachers Fight Privatization of Education
By Kole, Global IMC

Teachers of the Unión Nacional de Educadores (UNE) assembled in Guayaquil
last week with national President Aracelly Moreno. The assembly called for
coordinated actions of teachers throughout the country to work together
with other popular sectors to stop the spate of privatizations in the
country and the servile attitude of the government towards the dictates of
the International Monetary Fund.

In an impassioned speech to UNE activists, Ms. Moreno called on grassroots
membership to prevent privatization of the last non-privatized education
system in the whole of South America. Ecuador, she said, is the last
bastion of accessible education in South America, and the Law Decree 200
that was fought for by teachers should be defended from neoliberal reforms
at all costs.

The assembly voted to extend the strike for an indefinite period, and to
work more closely with other sectors - especially parents with whom the
UNE is set to hold a national assembly for August 30 - in order to
strengthen support for the UNE´s demands: 1) a halt to the government's
plans to privatize education, 2) a salary and income increase for teachers
so that they can meet the estimated cost of an average basket of goods,
and 3) for the maintenance and improvement of access to education.

Government response to these demands thus far has been to stone-wall UNE
and to call instead for further dialogue. The teachers, for their part,
have responded that they do not trust dialogue with the government,
pointing to other groups who decided to talk to the government but where
forced to return to the streets because they got nothing from those talks.

The Assembly also called on UNE members to congregate on August 11 in
Guayaquil at the grave of Rosita Perez, a teacher who was assassinated on
August 11, 1973, by state security forces during similar anti-government
protests by the teachers' union. "Her memory should serve as a reminder as
to how far we are willing to go to secure free, public and accessible
education for the children of Ecuador," concluded Ernesto Castillo,
regional president of UNE. UNE President Moreno was arrested and
imprisoned last year in a violent police raid on organization offices.

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