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Ecuador: CONAIE and Unions to Maintain National Strike
Courtesy: Kawsachun News
Mobilizations will continue and key roads remain blocked as the indefinite Ecuador-wide protests against the neoliberal policies of Guillermo Lasso’s administration head into a fourth day.
Security forces have been unsuccessful in trying to lift 24 hour roadblocks, which have now been reinforced by communities.
The government’s attempt to quell protests by sweeping up alleged leaders not only failed, it backfired. News of the arrest of Leonidas Iza, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), mobilized thousands of people to the Latacunga prison where he was taken and prompted a sea of condemnation of the government from a broad range of organizations, human rights groups and prominent figures.
Lawmakers of the left-wing Revolución Ciudadana were among those who denounced Lasso’s politically-motivated arrest and persecution of the indigenous leader.
Iza’s 24 hours in custody ended when a judge accepted his request for alternative measures while the prosecutor initiates an investigation into the ‘paralysis of public services’ due to the national strike.
His arrest was immediately denounced by the indigenous movement and lawyers as illegal, arbitrary and highly irregular.
After his arrest on a highway in Cotopaxi at 12:30am, following the first day of mobilizations, Iza was taken by special police and military forces to Quito. Hours later, Iza was taken to Quito’s Eloy Alfaro Military College. From there, Ecuador’s Armed Forces transported him by helicopter to Latacunga, where he was held at a heavily-guarded air force base, and for many hours, unable to contact relatives of lawyers.
Now released from custody, the CONAIE leader has vowed to intensify the struggle and consolidate the strength of the various other organizations and sectors of the country which have joined the strike.
The leader says the strike is indefinite and will continue until the government responds to the 10 points laid out by CONAIE. Other unions, workers associations, agricultural and production sectors, and many of the other agglomerations participating in the protests, are making their own set of demands.
The 10 points set out by CONAIE are as follows:
- Fuel price reduction and freeze and no more fuel price hikes. Subsidies for sectors which need it most, such as peasants, transport sector, fishing
- Economic relief for more than 4 million families with a moratorium of at least one year and renegotiation of debts with reduction of interest rates in the financial system (public, private and cooperative banks). No to the seizure of assets such as houses, land and vehicles for non-payment.
- Fair prices for farm products: milk, rice, bananas, onions, fertilizers, potatoes, corn, tomatoes and more; no to the collection of royalties on flowers so that millions of peasants, small and medium-sized producers can have a guaranteed livelihood and continue producing.
- Employment and labor rights. Policies and public investment to curb labor precariousness and ensure the sustainability of the popular economy.
- Moratorium on the expansion of the mining/oil extractive frontier, audit and full reparation for socio-environmental impacts for the protection of territories, water sources and ecosystems.
- Respect for the 21 collective rights: Intercultural Bilingual Education, indigenous justice, free, prior and informed consultation, organization and self-determination of indigenous peoples.
- Stop the privatization of strategic sectors which belong to the Ecuadorian people (Banco del Pacífico, hydroelectric plants, IESS, CNT, highways, health, among others).
- End speculation and abusive pricing of staple products by intermediaries.
- Health and education: Urgent budget amid hospital shortages due to lack of medicine and personnel. Guarantee youth access to higher education and improve infrastructure in schools, colleges and universities.
- Security and effective public policies to curb the upsurge of violence, hired killings, delinquency, drug trafficking, kidnapping and organized crime.
Rice growers, banana producers, transport workers, feminist collectives, high school and university students, teachers, health workers and other social movements have participated in actions around the country since Monday. At least several dozen trucks transporting large numbers of people from outside of the province, intending to join protests, arrived in the south of Quito throughout the day.
In Quito, thousands have marched in daily protests to the heavily-policed historic center, where access to the Carondelet presidential palace is completely fenced off and guarded by police in riot gear.
Scenes of police repression against mostly young demonstrators in the city’s Plaza Santo Domingo circulated on social media on Wednesday afternoon. Police repression against students was also filmed across the country at University of Cuenca.
Other incidents of police repression have been reported at roadblocks outside of the cities. The absence of media/cameras and human rights defenders along stretches of road and in rural areas has made the documentation of repression and abuses by state agents difficult if not unlikely.
Communities of CONAIE will for now, protest Lasso’s economic policies locally and have no current plans to head to Quito to protest—the way the movement did during the October 2019 anti-IMF uprising, in which 11 people were killed by Lenin Moreno’s security forces.
Iza made an appeal to avoid “any situation of violence, any situation of confrontation, we need our demands to be sustained with this struggle, with this resistance in the territories” adding that many demonstrators had already been arrested, beaten and injured.
The leader concluded by saying an announcement on collective actions for Wednesday would be made in the morning.
Perception of president Guillermo Lasso’s government has plummeted to an all-time low (17%), according to a PerfilesOpinion poll conducted in the two largest cities, Quito and Guayaquil, between June 3rd to 5th. 81% of people surveyed said his administration is “bad” or “very bad”.
(Kawsachun News is based in Bolivia and provides news reporting and analysis on Latin America.)
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Javier Jerez: “In the Ecuadorian State Everything is Falling Apart”
Cris González
[Javier Jerez is the former vice-governor of the Salasaka people. He is interviewed by Cris González, director of Correo de Alba magazine.]
Cris González: Why this morning, June 14, did the government of Guillermo Lasso demonstrate its cruelty towards the indigenous movement of Ecuador?
Javier Jerez: The indigenous peoples of Ecuador have been in a de facto measure since yesterday, June 13, supporting our proposals to the government, due to the government’s non-response to our demands. And today we woke up with the very unfortunate news of the arrest of brother Leonidas Izas, president of CONAIE.
CG: Who is Leonidas Iza and what does he mean for the indigenous movement of Ecuador?
JJ: Leonidas Iza is the president elected in a great national congress held here, in the town of Salasaca, and since then he has led a great struggle to uphold the principles of the peoples and nationalities that make up the coast, the highlands and the east of Ecuador, and also in constant struggle for the rights that we have enshrined in our Constitution.
Leonidas Iza for us is a great leader, which we have been supporting. A leader who has been accused of many things in the media, who has achieved that there is a rejection perhaps by some part of society, unfounded. However, he has kept on fighting for our ideals.
CG: What measures will Conaie adopt in the face of this outrage to which its president Leonidas Iza has been subjected?
JJ: Resistance has been programmed since yesterday, where the peoples and nationalities are progressively joining this great indigenous uprising. So it is that the arbitrary detention of Leonidas Iza, which has been experienced today, since there is a video shared by the communication of Conaie that was with him at the time of his detention at 12:35 in the morning of Tuesday, it is clearly seen and heard that there is no basis for his detention.
Leonidas Iza was detained in three buses with military personnel and dozens of people from the national police, without being read his rights and without any charges being filed. The President of the Republic of Ecuador also echoed this morning, saying that the charges against him are for closing the roads, for terrorism.
In this repression there have been some disturbances, which are a very separate matter, but they have not even given Brother Leonidas the opportunity to make his statements.
For us this is a kidnapping, a political persecution that seeks to overshadow and silence the indigenous people with the repression and with the arrest of our brother from Conaie.
CG: Can the detention of the president of Conaie be read as a cruelty against the Ecuadorian indigenous movement?
JJ: Rather than an outrage against our brother Leonidas, for us this situation is simply trying to overshadow or silence a leader who has echoed since October 2019 of the great social outburst that Ecuador had, from which many results could be obtained, based on the struggle and nationalities of the peoples of Ecuador, and this happened practically in the city of Quito, as we will remember.
From there, Leonidas Iza has perhaps become a figure that has been a point of union of the peoples and nationalities, which worries the Government, since we have a right-wing government that is surrendered to the requests of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to which it owes everything; and that hurts and crumbles our Ecuadorian State.
The Ecuadorian people, faced with insecurity, criminals, drug trafficking, lack of work, lack of health, education and everything else that a state should look after, not only for an elite, but rather for all of us who make up the Ecuadorian people, are demanding. That is why the Government is so angry with Leonidas Iza, because he has proposed from CONAIE to deepen the struggle and indigenous nationalities of Ecuador and the Ecuadorian people itself, of all the social part, of all the unprotected part. And beyond that, to make us echo at an international level so that they know us, so that they know that Ecuador has peoples and nationalities distributed throughout the country, which have needs, problems and various factors that afflict not only the indigenous society, but all of Ecuador, and that nothing or little is being done for this situation. That is why they try to overshadow and silence this, and that we see it now as an unjust repression against brother Leonidas, for all the irregularity that they commit by detaining him in this arbitrary manner, and that is, as in the popular adage we say, simply and clearly, that the Government is “wanting more firewood to the fire”.
We are waiting for the pronouncements of our leaders, of the governors, of all the people and nationalities of Ecuarunari, of Confeniae, which are also our organizations, let us say, in this case, sectional organizations of the coast, highlands and the east, to make a pronouncement so that we can watch over, more than anything else, the physical integrity and the life of our brother Leonidas.
CG: In this context, what actions have been taken as a movement?
JJ: In Conaie, since the outbreak of October 2019, we have tried to sustain all the requests that were made at that time, which have been falling in two meetings that have been held, in two dialogue tables that have been held with the Government, which give a negative result to the requests of the peoples, indigenous nationalities and social organizations of Ecuador.
For this reason, in view of this refusal, of the collapse of the negotiating table of these two meetings that were held, and that the periods have been very clear and that the Government has said that it does not know what we are asking for, we understand that there is a total disconnection on an important part of the society of Ecuador, which is the indigenous part.
CG: How do you expect the international community to react to the detection of Leonidas Iza? Have they made contact, have they made communiqués?
JJ: Conaie is working with the different organizations we have at a global level to echo this arbitrary and unfounded detention against our brother president Leonidas Iza, we expect the response of the Latin American community, of the European community, Asian community, where there are peoples and nationalities in the world, because we cannot keep quiet about this, we cannot cover it up, this cannot remain like this, rights have been violated, all the law and the Constitution that they proclaim to manage this country have been violated.
However, the tension is already public, there are videos, which the people can see and listen to, there is no legal procedure for this arrest to have been made, we will be in a state of struggle, the peoples are progressively stopping and at this moment I will send you an updated map of the points where the peoples have risen up; and as I say, progressively more will be joining in the course of these hours.
We ask and demand respect for the rights established in our country and, above all, we ask and demand respect for our right to make a protest which is also established, for which we will echo, we will be in the streets, to the last consequences, that is what we can say, thank you very much to Correo del Alba for this interview. Brothers from Bolivia, from Latin America, for us it will always be a great pleasure to be able to share with you our experiences, our sadness, and why not also our achievements.
(Cris González is the Director of Correo del Alba magazine. Article courtesy: Internationalist 360°.)
