National strike in Ecuador: why is it expected to be difficult for the parties to sit down to negotiate?

More than 10 days after the start of the indigenous protests in Ecuador, tension and violence leave no room for communication. The anti-government demonstrations promoted by the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) against the general rise in prices, mainly of fuels, intensified this Wednesday 22 with the refusal of President Guillermo Lasso to repeal the state of emergency in six provinces.

LOOK: LIVE | National strike in Ecuador: thousands of protesters march through the historic center of Quito

“We cannot lift the state of emergency because that is leaving the capital defenseless, and we already know what happened in October 2019 and we are not going to allow it.”, warned the Minister of the Government, Francisco Jiménez, who made reference to the social protests that occurred almost three years ago.

To sit down to talk, the president of the Conaie, Leonidas Iza, demands as conditions that the Government repeal the state of exception decreed in the provinces where the demonstrations are concentrated and that it “demilitarize” a park in the capital where indigenous people traditionally gather.

The tension between the government and the indigenous movement grew on Tuesday the 21st when an attack on police facilities in Puyo, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, left one dead and six soldiers seriously injured. The Ministry of the Interior reported 18 “disappeared” policemen and another three “held” by indigenous people.

Meanwhile, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (Confeniae) denounced that there are already two dead protesters.

Some 18 vehicles were burned in a fire at a police base in Puyo. (Social networks).

The situation has led international organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union (EU) to speak out in favor of dialogue. The United States recommended this Wednesday to its citizens to avoid trips to Ecuador due to the “riots and criminality” unleashed by the protests.

The Ecuadorian researcher and political analyst Julio Echeverría affirms that the situation is very complicated and that if a dialogue is not reached soon, the crisis could get out of control.

“The situation is one of confrontation. Dialogue becomes urgent at this time because the situation can get out of control. The pacification is a generalized demand in the population, opinion studies confirm it. The problem is what are the mechanisms and ways to achieve this pacification given that the dialogue fails to materialize”, he tells El Comercio.

Although there have been no situations of vandalism comparable to those of October 2019, the Ecuadorian political scientist Sebastián Mantilla, director of the Latin American Center for Political Studies (Celaep), affirms that there is a massive presence of indigenous people and disadvantaged sectors and that the marches are increasing, generating fear and concern in the population.

Demonstrations in Quito continue. (Photo: AFP) (RODRIGO BUENDIA/)

He emphasizes that the situation is complicated because, to their 10 initial demands, the indigenous leaders have added two more, which are that the state of emergency be lifted and that the public force be withdrawn from the places where the marches are concentrated in Quito. “The government said today that these two issues are not negotiable. So we are experiencing a kind of struggle on each side to see who gives in.”, says Mantilla.

Can dialogue be reached?

The dialogue that has been impossible to achieve was convened by different civil and religious organizations and has the technical support of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations. Experts point out that this approach was already accepted by Lasso, who from the beginning was open to dialogue with the indigenous movement.

“Despite the fact that important civil society actors have offered to mediate the dialogue and that it was accepted by the government, this was rejected by Conaie, whose refusal opens a very complex scenario of more confrontations.”, says Echevarria. “It is quite unlikely that a deal is close”, he adds.

Conaie points out that the different occasions on which its representatives have talked with Lasso throughout his first year in office have not borne fruit and insists that he wants the entirety of his list of demands to be approved, which includes the reduction and freezing of fuels, price control of essential products and the brake on new mining concessions, among others.

The president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), Leonidas Iza (c). (EFE/ José Jácome).

“What I believe is that from the Conaie side there is not much intention to dialogue,” says Mantilla, who considers that the way out of this crisis requires sitting down to negotiate because there are some issues on which the government can eventually yield and others in which there are searchable midpoints.

“But on the side of the indigenous sector I do not see that will, despite the fact that there is a lot of pressure from businessmen and citizens to stop this matter. Now there is no way to get around, commerce, industry, tourism, the Quito airport, everything is convulsed. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being lost daily.it states.

For Echevarría, it is urgent that there be a higher level of reflection and that the parties realize that it is extremely necessary that the pacification return to be able to negotiate.

The worst case scenario

Experts believe that, beyond social discontent, there is a political motivation behind the protests. “There are actors who are intervening together with the indigenous movement and who are not susceptible to the need for dialogue and who rather have interests in destabilizing the government and seizing power through non-democratic institutionalized means. That is the underlying problem”, says Echevarria.

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso. (EFE/Alberto Valdes).

He points out that these actors are the most radical sectors of Conaie and others that have to do with political interests. He gives the example of what remains of Correismo and the factions that have separated from the Pachakutik and Democratic Left parties, which, according to the analyst, have their own agendas to take over the National Assembly and walk along that path towards a possible dismissal of the government. .

Along these lines, for Mantilla the worst scenario would be for the protests to become much more radical, which could happen if the Police and the Armed Forces act strongly and another protester dies, as has already happened in Puyo.

“In the end, all of this can lead to a request for President Lasso’s departure or dismissal. That is the worst scenario. I believe that there is social unrest, but deep down there is fundamentally a political motivation, the unrest is being exploited by political actors“, it states.

Source: Elcomercio