Ecuador eruption cut short
U.S. engineers coup against people's gov't
By Andy
McInerney
After weeks of mass mobilization, the people of Ecuador
succeeded in ousting the pro-International Monetary Fund
president, Jamil Mahuad. A coalition of Indigenous people,
unions, students, leftist parties and low-level military forces
toppled Mahuad on Jan. 21--after taking the streets of all the
Andean country's main cities and surrounding the parliament
building.
Tens of thousands poured into the streets of Quito to
welcome the new government of "National Salvation." Red flags
emblazoned with the hammer and sickle flew side by side with
the Ecuadorian national flag and the huipala, the rainbow flag
of the Indigenous movement, in the vast crowd of workers,
peasants and students.
The victory was short-lived. Ecuador's top brass--backed by
the United States government--intervened to shore up the
country's capitalist class and its political representatives.
On Jan. 22, the military ousted the National Salvation
Committee and installed Mahuad's vice president, Gustavo Noboa,
as president.
Noboa immediately pledged to continue Mahuad's neoliberal
economic policies of austerity and privatization, including the
hated plan to "dollarize" the economy--replacing the country's
currency with the U.S. dollar.
But whether the ruling class and its U.S. backers will be
able to impose this plan over a mobilized population is far
from certain.
Economic misery fuels uprising
Ecuador, a South American country of 12 million, is in the
midst of a dire economic crisis.
Production declined by 7 percent in 1998. Inflation is
running at 60 percent annually. Poverty is rampant.
The crisis falls especially hard on the Indigenous
population. Forty-five percent of the population is Indigenous,
according to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE). Of these, 80 percent live in absolute
poverty.
Ecuador's economic crisis is a symptom of the general
capitalist crisis raging across wide regions of Latin America.
Colombia is facing depression-level conditions. Brazil--Latin
America's largest economy--faced a currency devaluation in
1999, sending prices of imported goods soaring.
This crisis is magnified by the "neoliberal" economic
policies that the IMF dictates to the political regimes in
Latin America. Under these policies, subsidies of food,
electricity and gas must be cut. State services and industries
must be privatized. Tariffs that protect local industry from
penetration by the world's biggest imperialist powers must be
dropped.
In 1996, Ecuadorian President Abdala Bucaram tried to impose
these policies in Ecuador. In 1997, he was ousted after mass
demonstrations.
Mahuad took over the presidency in 1998. His attempts to
impose the same neoliberal economic regime brought into motion
the same social forces that toppled Bucaram.
The movement to oust Mahuad opened on Jan. 6, when the
Patriotic Front (FP) launched demonstrations in Quito aimed at
forcing Mahuad's government out and reversing the neoliberal
policies. The FP is a mass coalition that unites unions,
student organizations, small business groups, women's groups,
African Ecuadorians, community activists and leftist political
parties.
On Jan. 15, CONAIE launched a "national uprising" aimed at
bringing tens of thousands of Indigenous people to Quito to
force the government out. In the course of this mobilization,
activists set up a "People's Parliament" as well as dozens of
local organs of popular self-rule.
Mahuad deployed 30,000 troops to prevent the peasants from
reaching the city. Despite that, by Jan. 20 tens of thousands
had made their way into Quito.
The CONAIE march won the support of students and other
sectors of Ecuadorian society, who organized support
demonstrations. Thousands of militant peasants and their allies
surrounded the Congress and the National Bank. Oil workers
struck to support the protest.
On Jan. 21, detachments of the army broke ranks and joined
the demonstrations. Units guarding the National Congress
stepped aside and allowed Indigenous activists to seize the
building.
CONAIE leader Antonio Vargas declared the People's
Parliament as the governing body of the nation, announced
Mahuad's removal, and declared the dissolution of the Congress
and the Supreme Court.
Hours later, the movement that took over the Congress
announced a three-person National Salvation Committee to govern
the country. The committee included Vargas, Col. Lucio
Gutierrez and Carlos Solorzano. Gutierrez was one of about 50
mid-level officers who sided with the uprising. Solorzano is a
former chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Role of the military
The leaders of the uprising obviously placed great hopes in
winning over the military to the side of the people and against
Mahuad. For example, on Jan. 5 FP leader Luis Villacis met with
Gen. Carlos Mendoza, head of the Ecuadorian Joint Command and
Minister of Defense, to discuss the aims of the popular
movement.
From the point of view of revolutionary strategy, the
military reflects the class character of the society it arises
from. In capitalist societies, it is first and foremost an
organ of repression of the capitalist class of bosses, bankers
and big landowners aimed at the masses of poor and working
people. The top officer corps are from the ruling classes
themselves or have slavishly demonstrated their loyalty to the
elite.
On the other hand, the rank-and-file soldiers and sailors of
the military come from the working class. They are often drawn
to the military as a means to provide for themselves and their
families. During times of revolution and great social crisis,
these troops can be won over to turn against their officers and
side with the working class.
Between these poles are the junior officers--the colonels,
lieutenants and captains--who have often risen from the
rank-and-file. Several times in history, as in Ethiopia and
Afghanistan, a segment of these mid-level officers has
demonstrated both the skill and the determination to provide
leadership against the ruling class in a revolutionary
working-class upsurge.
In Ecuador's "January days," the military showed exactly
this class dynamic. Hundreds of regional and low-level officers
quickly joined the uprising, bringing their units with them.
Troops in Quito were reluctant to act against their Indigenous
sisters and brothers.
The generals at first postured as allies of the movement.
Hours after the National Salvation Committee was proclaimed,
Gen. Mendoza met with the new leaders. He replaced Col.
Gutierrez on the committee and declared the formation of a
"government of the Ecuadorian people. We cannot speak of left
or right."
But the replacement of Gutierrez was an omen of events to
come.
U.S. role
United States imperialism viewed the installation of a
people's government in Ecuador with growing alarm. U.S. Embassy
representatives warned of an immediate halt to all economic aid
and investment, threatening to isolate the country as it has
Cuba--by implication, to impose an all-out blockade.
Their message was brought directly to the National Salvation
Committee--by Gen. Mendoza. In the early morning hours of Jan.
22, Mendoza announced that he was abandoning the committee. He
announced that the military brass would back Noboa, a
representative of the old political regime.
This move was widely seen as evidence that the Ecuadorian
generals were never for the people's movement at all. Mendoza's
maneuver dashed any hopes that the military high command could
be counted on as an ally in the struggle--and revealed that the
generals, working with U.S. imperialism, only sought to
maintain their grip on power.
"What we were trying to do was to prevent the international
isolation of Ecuador," Mendoza said. In fact, he was
demonstrating his class loyalty to the Ecuadorian capitalists
and their U.S. backers.
On Jan. 23, the old Congress, stacked with representatives
of Ecuador's political elite, voted to accept Mahuad's
"abandonment" of his office and declared Noboa the new
president.
In effect, the U.S. government, acting through the
Ecuadorian general staff, engineered a coup against a genuine
people's government in Ecuador.
Masses vow to continue struggle
With Mahuad out of office, the tens of thousands of
Indigenous activists began to leave the capital and return to
the countryside. But by all accounts the struggle is far from
over.
Dozens of the military officers who supported the uprising,
including Col. Gutierrez, were jailed for treason immediately
after Noboa's accession to the presidency. A campaign is
building to guarantee their safety, as well as that of the
other leaders of the uprising.
CONAIE leader Vargas vowed to build a new campaign against
the Noboa regime. "Noboa wants to take advantage of our
people's fight to keep helping the same people as always, the
corrupt bankers," he told a Mexican news service on Jan. 23.
"We will defend our historic fight."
"We don't accept this presidential succession," one
Indigenous activist told Reuters as he left the capital.
The Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE) is
closely allied with the Democratic People's Party, one of the
members of the Patriotic Front coalition. It issued a statement
on Jan. 23 warning that "the workers, the Indigenous people and
peasants, the teachers, the democratic youth and women
committed to the necessity of social change cannot do anything
but declare our frontal and active opposition to this regime
that only means greater exploitation and oppression, greater
hunger and misery for the majority of the people.
"The PCMLE calls on all the people's and democratic forces
to continue the combat against this government."
Balance sheet of the
"January days"
The Ecuadorian workers and peasants may have been
temporarily defeated by imperialist pressure and the military
high command's double cross. But the decisive battle may be
ahead.
What have the Ecuadorian masses gained? First of all, tens
of thousands of people--Indigenous, workers, students--have
gained a living lesson in the most vital of all revolutionary
subjects: the struggle for power. They have learned in the
streets who are their friends and who are their enemies. They
have witnessed which leaders within the struggle are the most
determined and resolute in combat.
Second, they have gained the experience of constructing
class organs of combat. The local People's Parliaments, set up
in each region of the country by the CONAIE, are essentially
peasant committees of self-government and organization. They
set an example for the workers and students in the cities to
construct the basis for what could be, in a broader
revolutionary crisis, organs of dual power.
Finally, they have tasted their political strength. The
power of the Ecuadorian masses has toppled two presidents in
three years. The ruling class in Quito and its backers on Wall
Street must be petrified that next time, the target will be not
just a president but the entire capitalist regime.
On the other hand, what has the Ecuadorian ruling class
gained? It has salvaged its political regime--for now. But the
bosses and their politicians have yet to find a way to impose
their neoliberal economic program on the masses. The economy
continues to deteriorate. The currency continues to slide.
In neighboring Colombia, the flames of revolution are
burning throughout the countryside, with a clear political
leadership aimed at constructing a genuine people's government
for the benefit of the workers and oppressed. This is a
decisive pole of attraction for the Latin American
revolutionary movement, and it is certainly being studied by
the Ecuadorian left.
Millions of Cubans have taken to the streets in recent
months demonstrating their support for their socialist
government and their iron determination to resist U.S.
imperialism after the kidnapping of Elián
González.
In Venezuela, the people have elected a progressive
government based on defending its national sovereignty against
U.S. imperialism.
The most recent demonstrations in Ecuador show that there is
a tide of rebellion sweeping Latin America. For U.S. workers
and progressive activists, this offers the opportunity to
extend a hand of solidarity. A strong solidarity movement here
can both stay the hand of U.S. imperialism in its plans to stem
the tide and bring the experiences of Latin America to new
layers of activists--like those fighting the World Trade
Organization or struggling to free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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