The abortive military-police coup in
Ecuador, which took place on September 30, has raised numerous
questions about the role of the
US and
its allies among the traditional oligarchy and the leftist social
movements, Indian organizations and their political parties.
While President Correa and all governments in
Latin America, and significant sectors of the Ecuadorian public described
the violent actions as a coup, the principle organ of Wall Street – The
Wall Street Journal – described it as a “police protest”. Spoke persons for Goldman Sachs
and the Council of Foreign Relations referred to the police and military
power grab against the democratically elected government as a self-induced
“political crises” of the President.
While the coup was underway the “Indian” movement CONAIE, launched
a manifesto condemning the government, while the “Indian” party Pachakutik
supported the ouster of the President and backed the police coup as a
“just act of public servants”.
In summary, the imperial backers of the coup , sectors of the
Ecuadorian elite and Indian movement downplayed the violent police
uprising as a coup in order to justify their support for it as just
another “legitimate economic protest”. In other words, the victim of the
elite coup was converted into the repressor of the peoples’ will. The factual question of whether
their was a coup or not, is central to deciding whether the government was
justified in repressing the police uprising and whether in fact the
democratic system was endangered.
The Facts about the Coup
The police did not simply “protest” against economic polices,
they seized the National Assembly and attempted to occupy public buildings
and media outlets. The air
force – or at least those sectors collaborating with the police – seized
the airport in Quito, concerted
actions seizing and blocked strategic transport networks.. President Correa was assaulted and
seized and kept hostage under police guard by scores of heavily armed
police, who violently resisted the Special Forces who eventually freed the
president resulting in scores of wounded and ten deaths. Clearly the leaders of the police
uprising had more in mind that a simple “protest” over cancelled bonuses –
they sought to overthrow the president and were willing to use their
firepower to carry it off.
The initial economic demands of public sector employees were used
by the coup leaders as a springboard to oust the regime.
The fact that the coup failed is, in part, a result of the
President’s vigorous and dramatic appeal to the people to take to the
streets to defend democracy - an appeal, which resonated with thousands of
supporters and denied the coup makers public support in the
streets.
The facts on the ground all point to a violent attempt by the
police and sectors of the military to seize power and depose the president
– by any definition a coup.
And so it was immediately understood by all Latin American
governments, from right to left, some of whom immediately closed their
frontiers and threatened to break relations if the coup leaders
succeeded. The only exception
was Washington – whose first response was not to join in the condemnation
but to wait and see what would be the outcome or as presidential
spokesperson Philip Crowley announced “we are monitoring events”,
referring to the uprising as a “protest” challenging the government. When Washington realized that the
coup was actively opposed by the Ecuadorian public, all the Latin American
governments, the bulk of the armed forces and doomed to failure, Secretary of State Clinton called
Correa to announce US “backing” for his government, referring to the coup
as merely an “interruption of the democratic order”.
In the run-up to the restoration of democracy, the trade unions
were by and large passive observers, certainly no general strikes were
discussed or even active mobilizations. The response of top military
officials in the army were by and large opposed to the coup, except
perhaps in the air force which seized the principle airport in Quito,
before handing it over to anti-drug units of the police force. The anti narcotic police were in
the forefront of the coup and not surprisingly were under intense US
training and indoctrination for the past five years.
Explanation for the Varied Responses to the
Coup
The responses to and interpretations of the coup varied
according to different sets of objective interests and subjective
perceptions. Latin American
regimes unanimously rejected the coup fearing a coup multiplier effect in
the region, in which other successful coups (after last year’s in
Honduras) would encourage the military and police to act in their
countries. The memories of
the recent past in which the military dismantled all representative
institutions and jailed, tortured, killed and exiled political leaders was
a key factor in shaping Latin America’s resounding rejection. Secondly, the existing political
order benefits the capitalist class, in almost all of
Latin America and provides the bases for political stability and elite
prosperity. No powerful mass
movements threaten capitalist socio-economic hegemony, which might require
the economic elite to back a coup.
Correa supporters were in the streets, though not in the
numbers of his previous calls to action ousting ex-President Lucio
Gutierrez, .They were mainly party loyalists. Others supported his
“anti-imperialist” measures (expelling the
US
military base from Manta) or were defending democratic institutions even
as they have become critical of his recent policies.
The US
vacillation, shifting from an initial refusal to condemn to later
denouncing the failed coup, was based on longstanding ties to the military
but especially the police.
Between 2006-2011 US military and police aid will have totaled $94
million, of which $89 million was channeled to the “war on drugs”. From 2006-2008, Ecuadorian
military and police trainees numbered 931, 526 of whom were incorporated
in the “counter-drugs programs”.
It was precisely the anti-drug sector of the police which played a
major role in seizing the airports in Quito during the
abortive coup. The
US
certainly had plenty of motives for the coup. Correa came to power by
ousting pro-US client Lucio Gutierrez and decimating the oligarchical
parties who were responsible for dollarizing the economy and embracing
Washington’s
free market doctrine. Correa
called into question the foreign debt, declining to pay debts incurred
under fraudulent circumstances.
Most of all Correa was an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,
a member of ALBA and a strong opponent of
Colombia, Washington’s
main ally in the region.
Ecuador’s policy weakened Washington’s
strategy of “encircling Venezuela” with hostile regimes.
Having already backed the successful coup against
Honduras President Zelaya, an ally of Chavez,
Washington had
everything to gain from a military coup which ousted another member of
ALBA. Washington is pursuing
a “triple strategy” of 1/diplomacy, offering to improve relations,2/
subversion by building subversive capacity by financing the police and
military and3/ financing via AID, NED, World Bank and NGO’s sectors of the
Indian movement especially Pachacutik and dissident groups linked Lucio
Gutierrez.
The leadership of the Indian movement varied in its response to
the coup. The most extreme
position adopted by the near moribund electoral party Pachacutik
(US aid
recipient) actually endorsed the police coup and call on the masses to
form a “united front”, a call which fell on deaf ears. The bulk of the Indian movement
(CONAIE) adopted a complex position of denying that a coup was taking
place, yet rejecting the police violence and setting forth a series of
demands and criticisms of Correa’s policies and methods of
governance. No effort was
made to either oppose the coup or to support it. In other words, in contrast to its
militant anti dictatorial past, CONAIE was virtually a marginal
actor.
The passivity of CONAIE and most of the trade unions has its
roots in profound policy disagreements with the Correa regime.
Correa’s Self-Induced Vulnerability: His Right Turn
During the emerging citizens-movement five years ago, Rafael
Correa played an important role in deposing the authoritarian, corrupt and
pro-imperialist regime of Lucio Gutierrez. Once elected President, he put in
practice some of his major electoral promises: evicting the
US
from its military base in Manta; rejecting foreign debt payments based on
illicit accounts; raising salaries, the minimum wage, providing low
interest loans and credit to small business. He also promised to consult with
and take account of the urban social and Indian movements, in the lead up
to the election of a constitutional assembly to write up a new
constitution. In 2007
Correa’s list running with his new party Alianza Pais (the country
alliance) won a two thirds majority in the legislature. However facing
declining revenues due to the world recession, Correa made a sharp turn to
right. He signed lucrative
contracts with multi-national mining companies granting them exploitation
rights on lands claimed by indigenous communities without consulting the
latter, despite a past history of catastrophic contamination of Indian
lands, water and habitat.
When local communities acted to block the agreements, Correa sent
in the army and harshly repressed the protestors. In subsequent efforts to
negotiate, Correa only heard his own voice and dismissed the Indian
leaders as a “bunch of bandits”, and “backward elements” who were blocking
the “modernization of the country”.
Subsequently, Correa went on the offensive against the public
employees, pushing legislation reducing salaries, bonuses and promotions,
repudiating settlements based on agreements between unions and
legislators. In the same way
Correa imposed new laws on university governance, which alienated the
professoriate, administration and students. Equally damaging to Correa’s
popularity among the organized sectors of the wage and middle classes, was
his authoritarian style in pushing his agenda, the pejorative language he
used to label his interlocutors and his insistence that negotiations were
only a means to discredit his counterparts.
Contrary to Correa’s claim to be a pathfinder for “21st century
socialism”, he was, instead, the organizer of a highly personal strategy
for 21st century capitalism, one based on a dollarized economy, large
scale foreign investments in mining, petroleum and financial services and
social austerity.
Correa’s ‘right turn’, however; also depended on political and
financial support from Venezuela and its Cuban and Bolivian allies. As a result Correa fell between
two chairs: he lost support from the social left because of
“pro-extractive” foreign economic policies and austere domestic programs
and did not secure support from the
US,
because of his ties to Chavez and
Cuba.
As a result, Correa so alienated the unions and the Indian and
social movements that he was only able to secure very limited amount of
“street power” in closing down the economy to thwart the coup. Equally important, the
US and
its collaborators saw in his declining organized support and the growth of
social protest, an opportunity to test the waters for a possible coup, via
their most dependable collaborators in the police and to a lesser degree
in the air force. The police
uprising was a test run, encouraged to proceed, without any overt,
commitment, pending its success or failure. If the police coup secured
sufficient military support, Washington and its civilian political
oligarchs could intervene, call for a “negotiated outcome” which would
either oust Correa or “turn him” into a “pragmatic” client. In other words, a “successful”
coup would eliminate another Chavez ally, but even a failed coup would put
Correa on notice for the future.
Final Reflections in the Way of a
Conclusion
The unfolding of the police coup turned into a farce: the coup
makers miscalculated their support within the military as well as among
the protesting Indians and unions.
They stood alone without glory or success. Lacking national leaders, or even
a coherent strategy, they were put down in a matter of hours. They misjudged the willingness of
the US to
commit, once it became clear that the coup makers lacked any resonance
among the military elite and were totally inept. What may have started as a coup
ended as a comic opera with a brief shoot-out with the military at a
police hospital.
On the other side, the fact that Correa, in the end could only
rely on his elite special forces, to free him from police hostage, reveals
the tragedy of a popular leader.
One who started with immense popular backing, promising to finally
fulfill the demand of the campesinos for land reform, the Indians demand
for sovereignty to negotiate over mineral riches and urban labors’ demands
for just remuneration, and ended returning to the Presidential Palace
protected by military armored carriers.
The failed coup in Ecuador raises a larger political question: Does the near demise of
Correa spell the end of the experiment of the ‘new center-left regimes’
which attempt to “balance” vigorous export-based growth with moderate
social payoffs? The entire
success of the center-left regimes has been based on their ability to
subsidize and promote agro-mineral foreign and domestic capital while
increasing employment, wages and subsistence payments (anti-poverty
programs). This ‘political
formula’ has been underwritten by the boom in demand from
Asia and other world markets and by historically high commodity
prices. When the crises of
2008 broke, Ecuador was the weakest link in Latin America, as it was
tied to the dollar and was unable to ‘stimulate’ growth or cushion the
economy. Under conditions of
crises, Correa resorted to repression of the social movements and trade
unions and greater efforts to secure support from petro-mining
multi-nationals. Moreover,
Ecuador’s police and military was much more vulnerable to infiltration by
US agencies because of large scale funding and training programs unlike
Bolivia and Venezuela which had expelled these agencies of
subversion. Unlike
Argentina and Brazil, Correa lacked a capacity to “conciliate” diverse sectors of
social movements through negotiations and concessions. Of course, the penetration of the
Indian communities by imperial funded NGO’s promoting “separatism” and
identity’ politics did not make conciliation easy.
Nevertheless, despite the particularities of
Ecuador, the failed coup underlines the relative importance of
resolving basic socio-economic grievances, if the center-left
macro-economic projects are to succeed. Apart from Venezuela, none of the
center-left regimes are carrying out structural reforms (land reform)
nationalizations of strategic sectors, income redistribution .Even the
Chavez regime in Venezuela has lost a great deal of popular support
because of neglect of essential services (public safety, garbage
collection, delivery of water, electrical power and food delivery) because
of corruption and incompetence.
Over time, the center-left can no longer depend on “charismatic”
leaders to compensate for the lack of structural changes. The regimes must
sustain the improvement of wages and salaries
and delivery of basic services in an ambience of ‘social dialogue’. The absence of continuous social
reforms, while agro-mining elites prosper, opens the door for the return
of the right and provokes divisions in the social coalitions supporting
the center-left regimes. Most
important the implosion of the center-left provides an opportunity for
Washington to
subvert and overthrow the regimes, reverse their relatively independent
foreign policy and reassert its hegemony.
The institutional foundations of the center-left are fragile
everywhere, especially the police and army, because officialdom is still
engaged in government programs with US military, narco-police and
intelligence agencies. The
center-left regimes – except Venezuela – have continued to participate in all joint military
programs. The center-left has
not transformed the state. Equally important it has promoted the economic
bases of the pro-US Right via its agro-mineral export strategy. It has ignored the fact that
political stability is temporary and based on a balance of social power
resulting from the popular rebellions of the 2000-2005 period .The
center-left ignores the reality that as the capitalist class prospers, as
a result of center-left agro-mineral export strategies, so does the
political right. And as the
wealth and political power of the export elites increase and as the
center-left turns to the Right, as has been the case with Correa, there
will be greater social conflict and a new cycle of political upheavals, if
not by the ballot box then via the bullet – via coups or via popular
uprisings.
The successful coup in
Honduras (2009) and the recent failed coup in
Ecuador are symptomatic of the deepening crises of “post-neo-liberal”
politics. The absence of a
socialist alternative, the fragmentation of the social movements, the
embrace of “identity politics”, have severely weakened an effective
organized alternative when and if the center-left regimes go into
crises. For the moment most
“critical intellectuals” cling to the center-left in hopes of a “left
turn”, of a political rectification, rather than taking the difficult but
necessary road of rebuilding an independent class based socialist
movement.