Ecuador indigenous community criticizes Correa's goverment

[Roach]

Statement of Ecuador's indigenous organizations on the government of Rafael Correa, the country's situation and development of revolutionary struggle.


A process of change, however weak it may be, is in danger of being defeated or allying with the right, old or new, but establishing alliances with the organized popular sectors of society and deepens gradually.

The defiance of the police, beyond their immediate demands, show us at least four substantive issues:

1. While the government is dedicated exclusively to attack and delegitimize the organized sectors, such as the indigenous movement, trade unions, etc...The power structures of the right are not minimally changed, even within the state apparatuses, which became evident by the rapid reaction police force.

2. The social crisis unleashed today is also caused by the authoritarian character and willingness to engage in lawmaking. We saw how the laws passed were vetoed by the president, ending any possibility of agreement.

3. The goverment faced with criticism and mobilization of communities against transnational mining, oil and agri-business, government, instead of promoting dialogue, responds with violent repression, as had happened in Zamora Chinchipe.

4. This scenario feeds the conservative sectors. Several sectors of the old characters and right have called for the toppling of the government's fall and the establishment of a civilian or military dictatorship. But the new right, inside and outside government, will use this situation to justify its full alliance with the most reactionary sectors and emerging entrepreneurs.

The Ecuadorian indigenous movement, CONAIE, with its regional confederations and their grassroots organizations, manifested before the Ecuadorian society and the international community its rejection to the economic and social policy of the government, and with the same energy, we reject also the actions of that right disguised in some way, the intentions of a coup. Moreover, we will continue fighting for state building Multinational with a true democracy.

Consistent with the mandate of communities, peoples and nationalities, and faithful to our history of struggle and resistance against colonialism, discrimination and exploitation of the low, the impoverished, defend democracy and peoples' rights: no concessions on the right.
In these critical times, our position is:

1. We call our bases to remain on alert for mobilization in defense of true democracy Purinacional front of the stock right.

2. Deepen our mobilization against the extractive model and deployment of large-scale mines, the privatization and concentration of water, oil frontier expansion.

3. We call and we join the various sectors organized to defend the rights of workers affected by the arbitrariness with which they conducted the legislative process, knowing that their claims are legitimate.

4. We demand the national government to abandon the whole attitude of appeasement toward the right. We demand to abandon its authoritarian attitude against the popular sectors, which do not criminalize social protest and to stop the persecution of their leaders. This type of policy is only open spaces to the right and create scenarios of destabilization.

The best way to defend democracy is to drive a revolution that will solve the most pressing issues and structural benefit of the majority and effectively build a multinational, triggering a process of agrarian revolution and the de-privatization of water.

This is our position at this juncture and in this historical period.

National Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador

[Lenin II]

Thank you for the article, Roach.

I have a query: as far as you know, was CONAIE involved in organizing the protest?

[Bright Banana Beard]

Any more articles from them?

[gorillafuck]

Thanks for this. Correa is a capitalist who goes against indigenous people.

[Nolan]

Some "socialist" state that aids multinationals in destroying native communities.

[KurtFF8]

The indigenous community has certainly been quite critical of Correa, and certainly should be.

They also opposed this coup attempt, unlike some RevLeft members who remained pretty silent about opposing the attempt (Althusser may have called this a "Guilty Silence")


Faced with an apparent attempt to oust Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Thursday, Ecuador received an outpouring of support from Honduras to the White House. Most Ecuadorian social organizations, many of whom have had serious differences with the Andean president in recent years, also condemned threats on the country's democratic and constitutional order. Early Thursday, Ecuador awoke to police protests across at least six highland and coastal cities. Police burned tires, shut down a main bridge in the economic centre of Guayaquil, and neglected their posts giving way to some looting and robberies before midday. The police said they were protesting the Public Security Law passed Wednesday night, which they claim will retract certain economic benefits from the armed forces such as bonuses and medals.
When President Rafael Correa personally confronted police protesting at the First Regiment in the nation's capital of Quito, police responded with tear gas. The President, who recently underwent knee surgery, fell and was carried into the police hospital.
Police who had been protesting started returning to work in other parts of the country by early afternoon, but tension continued in the capital while Correa remained in hospital. State media dominated the airwaves, accusing the country's right wing of an attempted coup and alleging involvement of the opposition Patriotic Society Party and the influence of ex-President Lucio Gutierrez who was overthrown in a popular ouster in April 2005. Correa reported that police told him he would not escape from his hospital room if he did not revoke the Public Security Law.
Popular mobilizations in support of the President grew throughout the afternoon and into the evening, with the political crisis persisting until shortly before 10 pm when a five hundred and fifty strong military and police operation returned the President to the government palace. One special forces officer was reported to have been killed in the operation and several others wounded.


Outpouring of international support

With the military-backed elite ouster of President Manuel Zelaya from Honduras in June 2009 still fresh in recent memory in Latin America, the democratically-elected President Correa received a quick outpouring of international support.
Honduran social organizations still reeling from the 2009 coup were among the earliest to send their messages of solidarity. Targeted assassinations and threats against social movements in the largest of Central American countries continue to be denounced on a monthly basis, the country has also become one of the most dangerous worldwide for journalists, and has yet to be reemitted into the Organizations of American States (OAS).
Latin American, European and North American governments also expressed support for the maintenance of democratic order in Ecuador. The OAS “repudiated” any attempt against the Correa administration and made a call to governments and multilateral institutions in the region to "stop the coup d'etat from becoming a reality," urging them to act "in a unanimous way.” Statements were also released by the US Department of State and later in the day by Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, which remain important trade and investment partners for the oil-dependent Andean nation. The US urged Ecuadorians “to work within the framework of Ecuador’s democratic institutions to reach a rapid and peaceful restoration of order," whereas Canada said that "it is concerned about growing unrest" and reiterated "support for the democratically elected government of the Republic of Ecuador."


Indigenous oppose coup and call for greater democracy


Although indigenous and other social organizations in Ecuador have been in conflict with the Correa administration for the last few years, important groups such as the Confederation of Indigeous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and ECUARUNARI, the large highland affiliate of the CONAIE, made strong statements condemning all threats on Ecuadorian democracy.
The CONAIE and ECUARUNARI have led regular protests against various policy reforms taking place under the Correa government during the last year, for which their leaders have recently faced terrorist charges. At the local level, indigenous and non-indigenous communities protesting mining and oil expansion have also faced repeated repression and recent criminalization. Despite, however, calls from at least one political representative of the indigenous Pachakutik party to support opposition to the Correa government, these organizations maintained a firm stance in defense of democracy.

The CONAIE blamed Correa's lack of openness to dialogue concerning current reforms and his failure to build strong alliances with Ecuadorian social movements as a source of vulnerability to attempts from the right to destabilize his government. “While the government has dedicated itself exclusively to attacking and delegitimizing organized sectors like the indigenous movement, workers' unions, etc.,” the CONAIE observed, “it hasn't weakened in the least the structures of power of the right, or those within the state apparatus.”
The CONAIE also credited the most reactionary right wing elements in the country with backing Correa's ouster, anticipating that the policitical crisis could be used to legitimate right wing tendencies “from inside and outside the government... to justify their total alliance with the most reactionary sectors and with emerging business interests.” While stating their opposition to Correa's support for expansion of oil and metal mining extraction and agro-industry interests, they energetically rejected this “disguised right wing support” for the attempted coup, saying they “ will continue to struggle for the construction of a plurinational state with a true democracy.”
ECUARUNARI also released its own statement blaming the right and imperialist interests with trying to organize Correa's ouster in reaction to the country's Political Constitution which was passed overwhelmingly in September 2008. The new constitution recognizes the human right to water, rights for nature, and Ecuador as a plurinational state. While ECUARUNARI held the Correa government responsible for making concessions to multinational corporations that “leaves those reactionary sectors free to act in this way,” they affirmed their opposition to the coup attempt and put member organizations on alert to defend “the plurinational state.”
While Correa is likely to come out of Thursday's political crisis in a strengthened position to continue legal reforms that have been centralizing power and leading to conflict with important social sectors, the Regional Advisory Group on Human Rights in Quito suggested that the crisis could be an opportunity for Correa to renew support for social groups that helped get him first elected in November 2006. In a written statement, they said, “we call upon the national government to set aside its arrogant attitude that is isolating it from the social bases. Together,” they continued, “we can build a country with dignity, peace and sovereignty, in which dialogue with social sectors is a daily activity that guides our path toward a country distanced from extractive policies and dependence on a development model based on the destruction of nature.”


From http://upsidedownworld.org/main/component/content/article/2720-report-from-ecuador-democracy-under-threat-

[Wanted Man]

Nothing wrong with this criticism and nothing wrong with the indigenous struggle. Nobody has ever claimed that Ecuador is "socialist". That's just some dumb straw man that internet Hoxhaists use.

Of course, that kind of argument only impresses their own followers. "So if I understand you correctly, comrade chairman, anyone who opposes the coup is a pan-socialist Brezhnevite social-fascist Trotskyite class traitor who thinks capitalist countries are socialist? Okay, sounds fair enough to me." But it might catch on due to the simplism and hostility to nuance and analysis that's pervasive on Revleft.

To quote a title of Red America's (formerly Captain Cuba lololol) blog: "Capitalist ideologues are sly with words." Clearly, there are exceptions. :p

[Nolan]

Nothing wrong with this criticism and nothing wrong with the indigenous struggle. Nobody has ever claimed that Ecuador is "socialist". That's just some dumb straw man that internet Hoxhaists use.

Of course, that kind of argument only impresses their own followers. "So if I understand you correctly, comrade chairman, anyone who opposes the coup is a pan-socialist Brezhnevite social-fascist Trotskyite class traitor who thinks capitalist countries are socialist? Okay, sounds fair enough to me." But it might catch on due to the simplism and hostility to nuance and analysis that's pervasive on Revleft.

To quote a title of Red America's (formerly Captain Cuba lololol) blog: "Capitalist ideologues are sly with words." Clearly, there are exceptions. :p

Correa himself claims that he is moving Ecuador towards socialism. Lots of people are calling Correa's government socialist on RevLeft. You can choose to realize that some people have shallow, stupid politics, or you can choose not to.

Which leads us to what this is really about: You either oppose neoliberalism, or you don't. Correa has already chosen sides, and it shows in his policy. Just like one would expect from the leader of a capitalist state whose legitimacy rides on the condition of the capitalist economy. Correa's interests and the interests of the workers are fundamentally opposed, and the fact that people can't see this says a lot about the "left" that are being played for fools by social democrats.

I find it slightly ironic that people are on about a coup when the entire state apparatus sided with Correa. Some "coup." :rolleyes:

In fact, from MPD's statement:


The people of Ecuador, the troops and military police along with social and popular organizations, launched a righteous protest against the adoption of neoliberal laws, sent to the Assembly by Correa, these laws remain acquired rights public servants and encourages the dismissal of 225,000 workers.

The MPD, rejects the violation of the right of freedom of expression the regime committed yesterday in the state of emergency and the only voice heard is the official channel, restricting freedom of expression, selling the world the false information of a coup attempt, when in our country that there is a people who disagree with government policy which aims to pass laws affecting the achievements and rights of workers and peoples of Ecuador.

Quite clever of Correa's cronies to label a protest against violations of worker's rights a coup and then focus solely on the rogue state forces involved. It's not like the international "left" would eat it right up or anything like that.

[KurtFF8]

I find it slightly ironic that people are on about a coup when the entire state apparatus sided with Correa. Some "coup.

The coup was by sectors of the state apparatus (the higher ups in the police force from everything I've heard). Only small parts of the Venezuelan state apparatus supported the coup attempt against Chavez while most remained loyal to Chavez. I don't see your point here, and it seems that your diminishing the threat of right wing groups who are more supportive of US imperialism in countries like Ecuador completely ignores examples like Honduras recently.

Why is it that all of the Hoxhaists on the forum tend to ignore things like Honduras and won't even address the obvious parallel?

[Roach]

If you want more information here is their site (spanish only): http://www.conaie.org/