URGENT!! support the struggle in Ecuador!

[Andrew.Bacelis@directory.reed.edu (Andrew Bacelis)]

--- Forwarded Message from "el desaparecido" <desaparecido@gmx.de> ---
>Subject: URGENT: support the struggle in Ecuador !
PGA Action at WTO Seattle - http://members.aol.com/pgacaravan


-- please spread widely --

dear all,

I just received this fwd message coming from Ecuador saying that there are
currently mass protests going on against the dramatic situation in a country
that has suffered neoliberal exploitation and that "the revolution is
starting".

I was sceptic, so I picked up the phone and phoned an organisation called
"Accion Ecologica" whose phone number I had just received recently. I had
the chance to speak to someone who is the representative of this
organisation at the alternative parliament who is currently debating a
strategy
for the coming days. He said that the mobilisations have started
progressively in the last days already and that several cities are already
"taken". He said the large mobilisation for Quito (the capital) is going to be
for monday and tuesday. He said at least 40.000 indigenas are expected to
come into the city, but the mobilisation involve many sectors of society. He
said also that international observers are expected to come in the next days
and that they hope that from then on the news will be spread internationaly.
So far the state controlled media has been promoting non stop lies about
how wonderful the neoliberal policies have been in the last years. Nobody
believes it anymore. As I asked him if this was a struggle for power, for
taking control of the governement, he said no, it's a Poeples Power, there is
a Poeples assembly who works in a complicated system of representation [I
didn't understand everything in this short phone call].

Infrastructure for communication is being set up, there is a press
commission that has been created (comision de prensa) by the Peoples
Assembly.

I asked him also if they were afraid of repression and he said he hoped the
international support would be able to avoid it.

We are likely to get more information in the next days and clarification on
what kind of "revolution" this is. So stay tuned !

Most of the information is likely to be in Spanish, so if there are people
willing to help doing spanish-english translations (or spanish to any other
language) please contact me: desaparecido@gmx.de and also
e7888@risc_usfq.edu.ec

Hasta la victoria !!
Our resistance is as transnational as capital !!

Luciano

the following is
- a fwd letter sent by Spanish students currently in Ecuador. This is a rough
translation I did, feel free to correct the English.
- an pasted article from August 99 which gives a good insight into the
situation in Ecuador



To everyone getting this information:

This is a text that was fwd by companher@s from Barcelona which are
currently in Ecuador for motives related to their studies and are currently
assisting to probably one of the most encouraging news of the millennium.

Please distribute this message as wide as you can and organise yourself to
find ways of supporting peoples struggle in Ecuador.

REVOLUTION BEGINS IN ECUADOR !

Dear companher@s

Ecuador is very close to a national revolution y it is currently necessary
to do
solidarity actions in support of this peoples movement who aims to put an
end to neoliberal economic exploitation which has lead to the current crisis.

We are some students from UAB (university) in the country y we see the
urgent necessity to create a platform of international support in order to
prevent a indiscriminated repression of this popular movement.

We ask you:

1.- to spread this information through as many ways as possible
2.- that you send us contacts for the spreading of further communiques to:
e7888@risc_usfq.edu.ec
3.- That people take initiative to coordinate platforms at continental o
national
level
4.- it is necessary to create a network that will reach mass media and
alternative media. It is possible that United States may react with repression
in case this popular movement succeeds in his attempt to overthrow the
power.
5.- We are currently waiting for a document with the strategy that is
discussed at the Parlament of Ecuatorian People (a rebel parlament), which
will be a document of international strategy addressed to all movements of
the world, NGOs etc. We ask you to create the necessary conditions for
such a network to function.

General Situation in the Country

The economic, social and political crisis that Ecuador has been going
through in the last years has been worsening dramatically in the last months.

As a matter of fact since Jamil Mahuad came into power, the sucre (national
currency) has only been losing acquisition power compared to the dollar: the
price of the dollar has doubled since 1999 (is it 25000 sucres for a dollar
now)

For the minority of people, those who have acquisition power and a bank
account, this means that their bank accounts have been frozen. They cannot
withdraw money from their accounts for the banks not to collapse.

And for the majority of people who live in misery, this means that basic good
of consumption have become very expensive. Besides that the social
conditions have never been so restricted, there is basicaly no kind of social
service.

As a response to this situation the government of president Mahuad opted for
a dollarisation of the economy.

Peoples reaction is lead by the movement of the indigenous people and
several unions [and students - editor] that want a total change in the
structure of the State. They want to get rid of the three powers of the State
and put a Peoples Governement in place (Gobierno Popular).

There has been a call to popular insurrecion and a national strike which will
start on the 15th  January with a take over of Quito (the capital).

Meetings in the Parliament of Ecuadorian Peoples have been going on for
three days.

This alternative parliament includes representatives of many (not all) social
movements of the country (indigenous movement, church, unions, etc.) and
is currently defining a new policy for the country in all fields.

They pretend to reinitiate national production, cancelling the external debt
and stop the neoliberal exploitation of the resources, etc..

end of message

the following website willbe available for more information
http://conjuntos.es.fortunecity.com/social/6


**********************

04-AUG-1999

Four Hundred Arrested, Thirteen Shot: IMF and
Ecuadorian government provoke violent reaction

Four months after a crisis provoked by an IMF inspired structural adjustment
plan, the country is again in the grips of the multi-lateral organisation.
This
time the social convulsions, which were provoked by a another rise in fuel
prices, have been confronted in repressive fashion. Five more people were
shot yesterday as they tried to march from Guallabamba, a small town 40
kilometres north of Quito, to the capital to protest the impacts of the
economic measures introduced during the past six months. In Latacunga, a
town of about 500,000 one hour to the south of the capital, indigenous
groups which had been closing roads, charged a military vehicle
full of troops on Saturday night. The vehicle turned tail and fled. On Sunday
the native people were not so lucky, eight were shot as they confronted the
military attempting to keep the road open. One later died.
The protests and the indigenous uprising have been brought about by the
severity of the economic measures taken to supposedly pull Ecuador out of
its economic plight. The now discredited IMF recipe of provoking inflation and
removing subsidies in order to balance the budget has been applied without
relief since the effects of the global economic crisis hit Latin America late
last year. The dollar has risen by almost 100% against the local currency,
the Sucre, since beginning of the year, food costs have risen by about 70%,
gas, electricity, gasoline, diesel, and water costs have all risen
substantially,
and all this before the latest round of transport fuel cost rises,

provoked by indexation to the dollar. In the meantime the basic salary (a
form of minimum wage) has been raised by an insulting 30%.

The taxi drivers hit back first, blocking roads and demanding that fuel prices
be reduced to their pre- June levels and frozen for two years. They blocked
roads and brought the cities to a standstill. Indigenous groups throughout the
central mountain region have joined them in an uprising which has blocked
roads, occupied state electricity offices and taken control of communications
towers. Indigenous areas are amongst the poorest in the country and the
native population, which has been badly affected by the privatisation and
globalisation agenda, is calling their actions a fight for life, and against
hunger.
Meanwhile, teachers and medical workers who have not been paid in months
have also joined the strike, along with banana workers, bus and transport
workers and even informal sellers. Whole neighbourhoods have taken over
roads in an attempt to convince the government to change course. And in the
latest of a series of actions, the offices of the Catholic Church,
criticised as
pro-government, have been occupied by a number of social groups intent on
emphasising their demands that the neoliberal policies being applied to the
country be changed. Ironically, the police, charged with repressing the
demonstrations, also find themselves unpaid and without funds to ward off
their own creditors.

Part of the government's answer has been to declare a general state of
emergency, endowing the President with extraordinary powers to control the
state budget, and to order military intervention wherever and whenever he
pleases. Congress, in which the government does not have the majority, is
outspokenly opposed and will probably fight the measure, although it should
be pointed out that the majority of members are also neo-liberals (or at best
the more apologetic Blair style third wayers) and simply jockeying for power.
The other part of the strategy has been to create diversionary tactics.
Jailing
a corrupt banker and paying the people whose savings were locked up in the
now officially bankrupt bank (one of Ecuador's largest). On the other hand an
overwhelming silence has surrounded the accusation that the majority of high
government officials took their money out of the country
(apparently some $200 million) a little while before all bank accounts were
frozen in March of this year.

Whether these officials, and other corrupt bankers, will ever be investigated
and brought to trial is a major question. But perhaps more important in the
long run, both for Ecuador and other countries in the region, is whether it
will
be possible to find a  way out of the neoliberal export lead growth trap in
which Ecuador finds itself, given that this model favours the governing elite
which controls almost all political parties.
The fact that it needs to is not in question. The country has only gone
backwards in economic terms since the debt crisis of the early eighties, and
finds itself porting increasing amounts of primary material, only to watch
prices fall or at best fluctuate wildly on markets over which it has no
control.
The cost in terms of concentration of land, power and wealth is huge. The
cost in terms of the environmental and social impacts related to finding and
pumping more oil, growing more flowers, farming more shrimp, and growing
more bananas are devastating a country which is defined by its
cultural and natural diversity.

(spanish)

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