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NEW CONFRONTATIONS BUILDING IN ECUADOR
By William Sloan, Montreal
(This article is from the April 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
THE POPULAR UPRISING last January in Ecuador has aroused wide interest in the situation in that country. The American Association of Jurists, an NGO with consultative status at the United Nations, decided to send an observers mission to Quito. The Feb. 20-23 mission was led by the AAJ's continental President, Alvaro Ramirez, a former Nicaraguan Supreme Court Justice, and included Waldo Albarracin, the foremost human rights lawyer in Bolivia, Romeo Saganash, Director of Quebec relations for the Grand Council of the Crees, and myself from the Canadian branch of the AAJ.
We met with the President of the Congress, Ministers of Government affairs and Defense, the Constitutional and Military Courts, the Judicial Council, and a minister in the former government. We also met native leaders, trade union leaders, human rights organisations, detained officers and the Ecuadorean branch of the AAJ, which hosted the visit.
What we found was a powder keg waiting to explode. On the one hand, 20 years of IMF "restructuring" has been exacerbated by the looting of the country's riches (including personal savings accounts), by bankers and speculators, with the help of successive governments. This led to a near insurrectional situation involving indigenous peoples' organisations, trade union and popular organisations, and certain progressive and nationalist sectors of the armed forces.
On the other hand, the United States has expanded its active interest in Ecuador, deciding to use its Air Base at Manta (acquired last November) to co-ordinate operations for Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela. Its influence on internal events was obvious in January, as the Ecuadorean Army High Command followed direct orders from the US State Department when they installed Gustavo Noboa as the new President on Jan. 22.
It quickly became evident that Noboa was nothing but old wine in a new bottle. He announced that he was proceeding with the former government's plan to "dollarize" the economy, abolishing the national currency, the sucre. Perhaps this is a pilot project for the American version of the Euro.
CONAIE and the other indigenous organisations have returned to the countryside to strengthen and broaden their support, and are apparently linking up with the broad coalition of progressive forces known as the Patriotic Front. They are planning to ask for a referendum on the replacement of the present corrupt political structures with a People's Parliament, elected on the basis of local, regional and provincial assemblies.
In the coming months there will be further confrontations, as the government tries to impose "world" prices on a country where the base wage is $54 (US) per month, and where corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering will only be made easier by dollarisation.
CONAIE leaders have suggested that if there is not a redirection of the political will of the governing elite, Ecuador is headed for a civil war. These are strong words in a country which has just signed a 10-year lease with the US for an Air Base. It may be that Che Guevara's call to arms is about to be answered in another Latin American country.
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