Ecuador

No to US intervention in Ecuador!

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Details: Created: Thursday, 04 April 2024 14:14; Written by Destinie Sanchez

US SOUTHCOM Commander General Laura Richardson, accompanied by US presidential Adviser on Western Hemisphere Christopher Dodd, meets with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa. Photo: X/@USEmbassyEC.

On 9 January 2024 the conservative Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency. This followed the prison escape of Jose Adolfo Macias, leader of Los Chonceros, Ecuador’s largest gang, the previous day. Macias’ escape escalated the level of violence across the country, such as a gang storming the studio of TC Television in Guayaquil on 10 January, waving guns and explosives while cameras were rolling. Noboa has used this as an opportunity to welcome US intervention. Since the election of Lenin Moreno in 2017 the socio-economic situation in Ecuador has rapidly worsened. The recent period indicates yet another downward spiral in what was once considered one of the safest countries in the world.

Ecuadorians force banker president to negotiating table

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Details: Created: Thursday, 08 September 2022 16:14; Written by Destinie Sanchez

On 30 June the right-wing government of Guillermo Lasso was forced to the negotiating table after an 18-day national strike. Protesters, led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), demanded change after a year of destitution under the Lasso government. The mass movement fought back against the deepening cost of living crisis and worsening conditions, resulting in the government being pressured into a series of concessions.

Ecuador: election win for ruling class

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 18 May 2021 13:01; Written by Ria Aibhilín

Guillermo Lasso marches in the street with supporters

Guillermo Lasso’s victory in Ecuador’s presidential election on 11 April is the first time in 14 years that the right-wing of the country has been voted into the presidency. The millionaire businessman won with 52.48% of the vote against the left-wing Citizens Revolution candidate Andres Arauz’s 47.6%. Lasso has unofficially governed with the US-backed outgoing President Lenin Moreno as the administration imposed austerity measures, cut public services and criminally mishandled the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, 1.87 million people in Ecuador have been thrown into poverty while the economic, social and health crises intensify. Arauz had won the first round of elections in February with a 13% lead and was the frontrunner for the second round. His loss is the result of four years of political persecution of the left at the hands of the Moreno administration and the demobilisation of indigenous voters by the Pachakutik party.

Imperialist hands off Ecuador!

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Details: Created: Saturday, 10 April 2021 17:34; Written by FRFI

RCG calls for Hands Off Ecuador!

Branches of the Revolutionary Communist Group took to the streets across Britain to demand no imperialist intervention in Ecuador. Tomorrow the people of Ecuador go to the polls to vote in the second round of Presidential elections.

Ecuadorians mobilise against ruling class ahead of election

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Details: Created: Saturday, 30 January 2021 13:33; Written by Ria Aibhilín

Andres Arauz at election rally

With less than a month until the Ecuadorian presidential elections, President Lenin Moreno and his right-wing allies have set their sights on privatising the country’s Central Bank. An emergency law is being fast-tracked through Parliament to place the Central Bank, Ecuador’s public and principle financial institution, into the private sector – in line with requirements dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This unconstitutional move is a desperate attempt by the deeply unpopular President to leave a lasting legacy of aligning Ecuador with the needs of US imperialism while wreaking economic havoc for the likely left-wing winner of the Presidential elections on 7 February.

Ecuador’s right wing desperate to hold onto power: political persecution and fixed elections

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Details: Created: Sunday, 27 September 2020 10:32; Written by Ria Aibhilín

Bodies have been abandoned in the streets in the Covid-19 crisis

Ecuador’s deeply unpopular right-wing government has presided over a barbaric handling of the coronavirus pandemic which has resulted in Ecuador having one of the highest death rates from the virus in Latin America, with more than 630 fatalities per million by the end of September. As dead bodies were abandoned in the streets and healthcare infrastructure collapsed, the Moreno administration used the pandemic to erode labour laws and intensify attacks on workers. Millions of dollars have been paid by the government in foreign loan repayments, with yet another disastrous multi-billion dollar deal signed with the IMF, and Ecuador’s poor have been forced to foot the bill. Now, in the run up to the February 2021 election, the government is intensifying its persecution of opposition leaders and banning left-wing parties from running.

Ecuador and Argentina: Covid-19 and debt

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Details: Created: Thursday, 30 July 2020 11:26; Written by Alvaro Michaels

Latin America is on the front line in the struggle against imperialism; class struggle is acute. Advances in Ecuador and Bolivia have been halted and reversed. Brazil has been seized by utter reaction. Cuba’s and Venezuela’s achievements are constantly threatened but their examples show the oppressed peoples there is a way forward.

In mourning and resistance: Ecuador's poor fight back against neglect and repression

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Details: Created: Friday, 05 June 2020 11:46; Written by Ria Aibhilín

On 8 May protests led by students broke out against the latest IMF-backed public sector cuts being pushed through by the Moreno administration amidst the backdrop of the government's utter incompetence in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the Ecuadorian Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) has called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the government for negligence affecting the rights to life and health in the context of its failure to act, ignoring warnings from the World Health Organisation and assigning resources to IMF loan-repayments over implementation of precautionary measures.

Ecuador: indigenous protests derail Moreno’s designs

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Details: Created: Friday, 20 December 2019 16:36; Written by Alvaro Michaels

From 3 October workers and indigenous communities rose up against President Lenin Moreno’s economic assault. For 12 days, Ecuador witnessed extensive repression by state forces. Official numbers show 11 dead, 1,340 wounded and 1,192 arrested – 96 of them under 15 years of age. 80% of detentions were arbitrary and illegal. There is no data on missing persons. Armed forces used live rounds, grenades and tear gas. Citizens have denounced torture, illegal detentions and trials in military buildings. Alvaro Michaels reports.

Ecuador demands: 'Out with the IMF!'

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 20 November 2019 10:03; Written by Ria Aibhilín

In early October, mass mobilisations against President Lenin Moreno and the IMF, led by Ecuador's indigenous communities, forced the government to declare a state of emergency, flee the capital Quito, and impose martial law and a curfew across the country. Nine people were killed by state forces and thousands injured. The demonstrations were triggered by the government's elimination of fuel subsidies, resulting in an overnight doubling of fuel prices. Decree 883 came into effect on 2 October as part of the neoliberal reform package agreed by Moreno and the IMF in exchange for IMF loans. Although 11 days of huge protests forced him to repeal the decree, Moreno is now stepping up measures to persecute those involved in the uprisings.

Ecuador rises up against neoliberal President

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Details: Created: Monday, 16 September 2019 10:02; Written by Ria Aibhilín

National strike, Ecuador July 2019

A five-day national strike in Ecuador beginning on 15 July saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets in opposition to neoliberal President Lenin Moreno. The strike was called by the National Campesino Movement (FECAOL) and workers’ unions against austerity measures tied to loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Measures include cuts of $1,000m to the public sector, massive layoffs, privatisation of public services and a proposition from the private-sector to eliminate workers’ rights.

Ecuador: open for business under neoliberal president

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 19 February 2019 11:19; Written by Cassandra Howarth

Protestors condemn President Moreno as a right-wing puppet

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 268 February/March 2019

In April 2017, Lenin Moreno was elected as President of Ecuador with the promise he would continue the progressive policies of the Citizens’ Revolution (CR) movement that had started under Rafael Correa in 2007. In practice, he has made a sharp economic turn to the right, imposed autocratic rule and trampled on the country’s democratic institutions. Nearly two years after he took office, Moreno’s presidency reflects the resurgence of neoliberal ideology in Latin America and is a setback for the progressive movement.

Ecuador: Election victory for the poor

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Details: Created: Saturday, 08 April 2017 21:54; Written by Alvaro Michaels

leninmoreno

In the second round of the Ecuadorian presidential elections on 4 April, Lenín Boltaire Moreno (PAIS Alliance) was elected president. President Correa’s vice president Jorge Glas ran as his deputy. Moreno, 64, was Correa’s deputy between 2007 and 2013. Moreno won with 51.16% of the vote, while right-wing opponent Guillermo Lasso (Creating Opportunities), former ex-head of the Banco de Guayaquil, received 48.84% – a difference of 229,396 votes. The challenge for Moreno now is to maintain the momentum of PAIS Alliance’s successful ‘Citizen’s Revolution’.

In the General Election of 19 February PAIS Alliance maintained a legislative majority of 11 seats despite losing 26 seats in the 137 seat Chamber. It had also won a referendum prohibiting public servants from opening bank accounts in tax havens. This gives officials one year to transfer their assets. A second presidential vote was required because Moreno’s vote was just below the 40% threshold necessary to win outright in the first round, despite a 10% lead.

Ecuador: Violent reaction against income redistribution

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Details: Created: Thursday, 20 August 2015 13:30; Written by Alvaro Michaels

Never before in the history of Ecuador has the propertied elite had to concede so much to the demands of the poor. Public sector spending increased from 21% of GDP in 2006 to 44% in 2013. This is part of the Citizens’ Revolution led by President Correa and the Alianza PAIS. Spending on people has infuriated the wealthy and they want to remove the government and seize back their loot. They control most of the media and attack the government’s programme in every way, including violent demonstrations.

Taxing the rich

On 1 June 2015, Correa announced two new tax bills. One, the Wealth Redistribution Law – a progressive inheritance tax affecting the richest 2% of Ecuadorians – starts with a 2.5% tax on homes costing between $35,400 and $100,000. The highest marginal rate would be 47.5% for the family but up to 77.5% for other beneficiaries. The second bill is a real estate capital gains tax of 75%. They undermine the power of 100 elite families who have dominated Ecuador for centuries. Wealthy landowners and property developers are furious, headed by the Mayors of Quito and Guayaquil, Mauricio Rodas and millionaire banker Jaime Nebot respectively, plus the Prefect of Azuay, Paul Carrasco.

Interview: Chevron’s legacy in Ecuador

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 01 April 2014 12:31; Written by FRFI

Juan Pablo Sáenz is an Ecuadorian attorney and representative of the Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC). In 2011 the ADC secured one of the largest judicial victories in environmental litigation history, which saw oil multinational Chevron ordered to pay $9.5 billion in damages for environmental, social and health impacts caused by the operations of Texaco (which Chevron now owns) in Ecuador from the 1960s onwards. Sáenz has received numerous death threats for his role in the ADC legal team.

Ecuador: Correa faces more challenges

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Details: Created: Monday, 04 March 2013 13:21; Written by Alvaro Michaels

President Rafael Correa in London, 28 Oct 2009

On 17 February, the Ecuadorian people overwhelmingly re-elected Rafael Correa as their president. Correa’s governing PAIS alliance took some 70% the 137 seats in the National Assembly, including six for overseas workers and three of the country’s five Andean Parliament seats Correa received 51.17% of the total vote for president, 6% more than in 2009. It was more than twice that of the runner-up, banker Guillermo Lasso (23.3%), a neo-liberal figure deeply involved in the chaos and corruption of previous governments.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks: Ecuador defends human rights – 19 August 2012

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Details: Created: Monday, 20 August 2012 15:02; Written by FRFI

Julian Assange

The decision by Ecuador’s President Correa on 16 August to offer diplomatic asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange exposes sharply the moral and political chasm on human rights between, on the one hand, the progressive socialist government of Ecuador and its allies in the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA), and on the other, the corrupt and vicious British state.

Ecuador: participatory democracy arrives

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Details: Created: Thursday, 02 June 2011 10:10; Written by FRFI

Ecuador referendum The referendum on 7 May was a celebration of democracy in which the Ecuadorian people reiterated their continued support for the revolutionary project called the Citizens’ Revolution, led by President Rafael Correa. The population were asked to vote on ten proposals from the government:

1: Preventing manipulation of the legal process by lawyers (of wealthy clients) and judges who delay a defendant’s trial date in order to secure their release under constitutional guarantees that anyone not tried within one year must be released.

2: Standardising the pre-trial treatment of defendants according to the charges against them, so that only those accused of serious crimes will be detained in custody.

3: Prohibiting private banks from owning companies (or shares in companies) outside the financial sector and private media companies from entering non-media ventures.

Citizens’ revolution defeats coup attempt in Ecuador

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Details: Created: Thursday, 16 December 2010 10:46; Written by FRFI

The failed coup in Ecuador and the assassination attempt against President Rafael Correa on 30 September 2010 were another serious threat to the revolutionary process in Latin America. As investigations into the events proceed it is possible to fit together the complex and troubling pieces of the puzzle, as Fidel Narváez, Consul of Ecuador in the UK, writes.

In the morning, Ecuadorian police throughout the country went on strike to protest against the approval of a law to regulate public servants, which would apparently reduce police privileges. When President Correa went in person to the main police centre to talk to the strikers he was met with violence, being virtually kidnapped for more than ten hours in a police hospital nearby. At the same time, a section of the air force took control of the country’s international airports. Another group of police assisted government opponents attempting to occupy the National Assembly. The building of the public media was also attacked and seriously damaged. Several roads were blocked. The police refusal to work led to a break down of order and vandalism, looting and robbery occurred in the main cities throughout the country.

Ecuador: Citizens' Revolution defeats coup attempt

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Details: Created: Sunday, 03 October 2010 12:29; Written by FRFI

correa_palacio

30 September 2010: Ecuadorians march to the Presidential Palace to defend the government against the coup attack

On 30 September, a police strike in Ecuador escalated into an attempted coup d’etat as President Rafael Correa was surrounded and trapped in a hospital for 12 hours in the capital Quito. Tens of thousands of Ecuadorians poured into the street to block attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government, defending the Presidential Palace and facing tear gas and missiles thrown by police who had sealed off the area around the hospital where a defiant Correa was refusing to negotiate or surrender.

Correa was first elected President in November 2006. After introducing a new progressive constitution and changes to the system of political representation, he was re-elected in April 2009, with 51% of the vote, giving him a mandate to continue and deepen the unprecedented social and economic programme of reforms – the Citizens’ Revolution – to reverse the poverty and exploitation suffered by the majority of the population in a country which has been ravaged by neo-liberalism. Correa has announced that Ecuador is building socialism for the 21st century and joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the regional trade and cooperation bloc set up by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004.

Ecuador Oil workers organise

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 23 September 2009 14:58; Written by Alvaro Michaels

Alarmed by the popular expulsion of President Lucio Gutierrez in April, the governing class hurriedly substituted un-elected Alfredi Palacio (see FRFI 185). He made a series of promises, hoping to calm the national outcry against the ruination of the country by imperialism, but the workers have not waited for the privileged class to betray them. In mid-August workers revolted in the Amazon provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana, dynamiting pipelines and stopping extraction, demanding the retention of oil wealth for investment in local towns and infrastructure.
Palacio, trying to ride the storm that pushed him into the presidency, had already changed the law to reduce the drain of oil revenues as debt to international banks, although he doesn’t want a break with the World Bank. This was not enough for his Finance Minister, who resigned. Still Palacio pressed on, trying to show some independence from the US. Palacio has pressed Colombia to stop the aerial fumigation of coca and other crops in FARC-held areas near its borders. Ecuador has threatened to take Colombia to the OAS and International Court if it doesn’t stop poisoning rural communities and the environment. It is even considering no longer referring to the FARC as terrorists.

Ecuador: Correa wins second presidential term

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Details: Created: Thursday, 27 August 2009 13:28; Written by Alvaro Michaels

Re-elected as President for a further four years on 26 April, Rafael Correa obtained 51% of the vote and a first-round victory, the first in 30 years. Following his first triumph in November 2006, Correa introduced an unprecedented economic and social programme – the Citizens’ Revolution – to start to extract the mass of the population from the miserable conditions imposed by previous pro-imperialist governments. A month after his 2006 landslide victory he said he wouldn’t ‘hesitate’ to default on the country’s debt in order to maintain government spending on the poor.

Ecuador: protests threaten imperialism’s plans

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 06 May 2009 11:16; Written by Alvaro Michaels

On 20 April, after a week of mass demonstrations during which two people were killed, corrupt President Lucio Gutiérrez fled to Brazil to be replaced by his deputy Alfredo Palacio. The US may now face obstacles in extracting interest payments, using Ecuador’s troops and bases for Plan Colombia or imposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Caught between the demands of imperialism and the rage of the impoverished 70% of its 13.25 million people, who have seen off eight governments in nine years, Palacio has little space for maneouvre. ALVARO MICHAELS reports.

Gutiérrez completely betrayed the peasant, indigenous and militant organisations which supported his coup against President Mahuad in January 2000, and who voted for him in 2002. In 2003, to reassure the US, he declared himself their ‘best ally’, rather than the anti-imperialist he pretended to be to his electorate. He offered a new military base, enthusiastically supported Plan Colombia and entered full negotiations over the FTAA. Oil prices rose, but none of that money reached the poor. Gutiérrez’s election allies abandoned him. So he worked with the reactionary Social Christian Party (PSC), but bickering over tactics led the PSC to propose impeachment of Gutiérrez in November for interfering with the Supreme Court.

Ecuador: massive protests against US trade talks

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 06 May 2009 10:47; Written by Alvaro Michaels

Unelected President Palacio faces massive demands to stop his intended economic sell-out to the US. From 13 March daily mass demonstrations blocked roads in 12 provinces. On 18 March 10,000 workers marched on Riobamba. Everywhere demands continued to end the ‘Free Trade’ talks, the expulsion of the Occidental Oil Corporation – in breach of 30 laws – from the country and the creation of a Constituent Assembly. Palacio refused. Executive Minister Castillo resigned. Police and army attacks badly injured 30 protesters and killed one. 300 protesters were affected by gas. The government accused ‘foreign infiltrators’ of fomenting protest, and then apologised for implying Chavez was one.

Ecuador: Presidential elections: neo-liberalism defeated

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Details: Created: Thursday, 30 April 2009 12:28; Written by Alvaro Michaels

On 26 November Ecuador elected its eighth president in ten years. Rafael Correa, briefly an economics minister in the outgoing government and ‘left-Christian’ leader of the year-old National Alliance, defeated his neo-liberal billionaire opponent Alvaro Noboa with 57% of the second-round vote against Noboa’s 43%. Expected to win in the first round on 15 October, Correa lost to Noboa by 22.8% votes to 26.8% votes. The subsequent turnaround certainly came from a popular reaction to Noboa’s threats to privatise Petroecuador, the principal source of state revenue and the state electricity and telephone companies. His proposal to privatise social security as well would condemn 200,000 elderly people to immediate misery.

Ecuador: Fighting for the constitutional referendum

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Details: Created: Thursday, 30 April 2009 11:41; Written by Alvaro Michaels

President Correa won the Presidency with 56.8% of the November 2006 vote, as leader of Alianza Pais (AP). Yet AP ran no congressional candidates, being a political alliance based principally on the Ecuadorian Socialist Party. Correa’s central aim was to quickly build a new Constitutional Assembly. Defeating a determined effort to prevent it happening, a 15 April referendum approved the establishment of a 130-seat Constitutional Assembly to draft a new constitution. 5,354,595 people voted ‘yes’, 81.72% of the ballots cast. The victory clears the way for elections to the new body in June 2007.

Correa is fighting the corrupted and ‘dollarised’ political classes that have seen seven presidents rejected by mass protests in ten years. The President is hugely popular amongst the poor. His policies centre on meeting their needs: reclaiming the country’s oil from foreign corporations; objecting to draft US trade agreements and closing the US military base at Manta. Correa rejects IMF formulae, expressing solidarity with his partners in the new Banco del Sur, saying that it would end the region’s subjection to IMF and World Bank control: ‘...they don’t need aircraft carriers or bombers, only dollars’.

Ecuador: Epoch-making change

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 14 April 2009 13:17; Written by FRFI

An increasing number of Latin American countries are opting out of the neoliberal system. In the words of Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, ‘the continent of Latin America is today in the vanguard of global mobilisation and is asking the questions that really matter – “How do we escape the neoliberal model? And then what?”’

The global financial crisis, which springs from the speculative economies of the ‘North’, gives such questions a renewed urgency. In the absence of a united response, every Latin American nation is having to find its own answer. For Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa that has meant joining Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia in stating that the only escape strategy must be what they call ‘socialism for the 21st century’. Even if this is a model whose ‘theory’ will only be tested as it develops, the new Ecuadorean constitution approved by national referendum on 28 September 2008 offers the basis for the construction of a new society, founded on a participative democracy, with an economy based on human need, planned by the state, and no longer dominated by the market and consumption.

Ecuador: mining law splits the indigenous community

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:30; Written by FRFI

A recent spate of protests by some indigenous groups in Ecuador against a new mining law has exposed tensions with the radical government of President Rafael Correa. The urgency of the law arose from a decision by the former Constituent Assembly to cancel all existing legislation, thereby suspending all mining concessions while mandating a term of six months for the development of a new legal framework.

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More articles on Ecuador

No to US intervention in Ecuador! 2024-04-04
Ecuadorians force banker president to negotiating table 2022-09-08
Ecuador: election win for ruling class 2021-05-18
Imperialist hands off Ecuador! 2021-04-10
Ecuadorians mobilise against ruling class ahead of election 2021-01-30

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