mass protests in Ecuador - Massenproteste in Ecuador Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 dear all, There are currently mass protests going on in Ecuador. A country severely hit by IMF structural adjustement policies. The TAZ wrote an AP news: Quito - due to the massprotests against the economic policies, the ecuatorian governement had to declare a curfew on thursday. Heavily armed police forces secured the governemental area in the centre of Quito. The protests were called by unions, student organisations and civil groups. In Quito and Guayaquil, the largest cities students were trying to shut down the traffic. I pasted a longer report from August 99 which gives good background information on the situation. (after the german news) If anyone can provide us with direct contact addresses of groups in Ecuador or further information please send it to pgabulletin@gmx.net thanks in solidarity Luciano taz Nr. 6036 vom 8.1.2000 Seite 10 Ausland 19 Zeilen Ausnahmezustand in Ecuador ausgerufen Quito (AP) - Angesichts von Massenprotesten gegen ihre Wirtschaftspolitik hat die Regierung Ecuadors am Donnerstag den Ausnahmezustand über das südamerikanische Land verhängt. Schwer bewaffnete Bereitschaftspolizisten mit gepanzerten Fahrzeugen riegelten den Regierungssitz im Zentrum von Quito ab. Zu den Protesten hatten Gewerkschaften, Studentenverbände und Bürgergruppen aufgerufen. In Quito und Guayaquil, der größten Stadt des Andenstaates, wollten Studenten den Verkehr lahm legen. 04-AUG-1999 Four Hundred Arrested, Thirteen Shot: IMF and Ecuadorian government provoke violent reaction 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 were 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 confronted 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. For more information: 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