| Equador Eruption Cut Short for nytsa@ursula; Fri, 11 Feb 2000 05:24:58 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit - Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 3, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper - 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. 21after 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 brassbacked by the United States governmentintervened 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 economyreplacing 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. BrazilLatin America's largest economyfaced 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 officersthe colonels, lieutenants and captainswho 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 Cubaby implication, to impose an all-out blockade. Their message was brought directly to the National Salvation Committeeby 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 struggleand 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 peopleIndigenous, workers, studentshave 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 regimefor 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 Eli n Gonz lez. 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. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytsa-02.11.00-05:24:58-7152 | |
|
