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.
In mourning
Ecuador faced a health crises even before the pandemic broke out, following two consecutive years of Moreno’s government annulling doctors contracts, with 300 people working in the control of pandemics made redundant last year, 3,000 health care professionals terminated from their jobs in 2020 and 400 Cuban doctors expelled from the country at the end of 2019. The right-wing lackies of US-imperialism in Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia all expelled the Cuban medical professionals serving their most vulnerable communities; now those three countries are suffering with high death rates from the coronavirus, with the poor within those countries facing the brunt of the impact.
Per capita Ecuador has the highest number of deaths from the virus in Latin America. The New York Times demonstrated the death toll is up to 15 times higher than the official number being recorded, making Ecuador one of the worst in the world. Guayaquil, in the Guayas province, has been the worst-hit area in the country.
The barbaric neglect by the Ecuadorian government and authorities of those unable to afford private healthcare drew global attention on April 4 when a photograph of a corpse, wrapped in blankets and left on a bench in Guayaquil with a sign reading “we have called 911 and there is no help”, went viral. Subsequent photographs emerged of coffins lining the streets and bodies of the dead being burned in the middle of the roads or packed into shipping containers due to a lack of ambulances and morgue spaces. Residents were left without support from the government, who failed to provide medical supplies, health assistance or food.
The repression of journalists and media questioning the official figures has intensified, with the arrest of a man sharing videos calling out the governments distorted statistics. In now-usual suit, government officials have denied any wrongdoing and sought to blame former-President Rafael Correa, who became the latest figure from the progressive Citizens Revolution to be sentenced to prison on spurious allegations of corruption, and his apparent army of online trolls for spreading ‘fake news’.
In this context, the government, against the wishes of local authorities, have eased lockdown restrictions and encouraged workers to go back to work. Meanwhile concern in Quito is growing as it becomes the latest hotspot for the virus, with Reuters reporting last week of six bodies found dead in the streets.
In resistance
On 8 May peaceful protestors gathered under the slogan “in mourning and resistance”, in opposition to the government’s handling of the pandemic and their attempts to use the crisis to push through further economic attacks on the Ecuadorian people. Protestors, made up of human rights defenders, workers, students and children, were resisting the so-called ‘Humanitarian Law’ which planned to create a national fund for humanitarian assistance to help combat the crisis. This would not be paid from reallocation of the $12bn a year paid in foreign debt, but from the pockets of workers.
They were also resisting intensified attacks on public education following announced cuts of $300mn to the sector. The thousands of university jobs to be lost will be on top of the at least 150,000 people who have found themselves without work since the virus hit. Videos of police beating these protestors with clubs and shields amassed thousands of views, but the protests persisted and on May 15 thousands took to the streets.
Three days later, the ‘Humanitarian Law’ was rejected by the National Assembly. The following day, on 19 May, Moreno unleashed an intensely reactionary economic package, announcing the implementation of further IMF-backed reforms to include an average reduction of 25% for public sector employees; removal of fuel subsidies (a measure the administration first tried to push through last year, before the October uprisings forced them to backtrack); the firing of 12,000 public servants; the liquidation and privatisation of 10 public companies and the closing of consulates in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran and Malaysia.
Thousands of people are taking to the streets in mass opposition to these latest measures, which demonstrate the government’s willingness to align both economically and politically to the needs of US imperialism above the needs of the Ecuadorian people. Poor and working-class Ecuadorians are being forced to foot the bill of the economic crises from the pandemic and from US imperialism through mass austerity. Attacks on the poor, repression of journalists and protestors, billions squandered on external debts and political persecution have become pillars of Moreno’s administration. As they did in October 2019, the people are rising up against the continuing assaults on their rights and holding the rotten government to account.
Ria Aibhilin
