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The public security forces Ecuador They evicted this Friday the House of Ecuadorian Culture, where the indigenous movement had established a “popular assembly” to make decisions on the development of protests against the Government due to the high cost of living.
The eviction occurred after a long day of riots and clashes between protesters and police around the El Arbolito park, adjacent to the House of Ecuadorian Culture, and after President Guillermo Lasso did not see the indigenous movement’s predisposition to dialogue with the government.
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The Executive had allowed the indigenous people to access the House of Culture to satisfy one of the conditions set by the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), Leonidas Isato go to a dialogue.
Since Sunday, security forces had been stationed inside that facility to prevent indigenous people from entering and the altercations of the October 2019 protests, also led by the indigenous movement, were repeated in the surroundings, which left a national ten dead and about 1,500 injured.
EL ARBOLITO, EPICENTER OF RIOTS
After entering the agora of the House of Culture on Thursday morning, the scenes of clashes were repeated around the El Arbolito park, after the Police broke up a massive march led by Iza himself that reached the vicinity of the National Assembly (Parliament).
There the barricades made with cobblestones from the pavement of the park returned and the wide space became a dense cloud where the tear gas mixed with the fires made by the protesters in which they burned eucalyptus to counteract the effect of the gas.
Dozens of protesters even entered the Egyptian Embassy in Ecuador to barricade themselves there and launch fireworks at the police.
The breaking point came when Iza spoke this Friday afternoon in the “popular assembly” with several assembly members of the indigenist and multinational movement Pachakutik, the political arm of Conaie, who supported a request to process the removal of the president in the National Assembly.
LASSO DENOUNCES COUP ATTEMPT
It was then that Lasso came out in a televised message to the nation and denounced an attempted coup against him, of which he accused Iza of seeking “the overthrow of the Government” considering that “the only thing he was seeking was to deceive his bases. and usurp the legally constituted government.”
The protests began on June 13, called mainly by Conaie, although later other peasant organizations, as well as unions and student federations, also joined.
The indigenous movement demands compliance with a list of ten demands, among them that fuel prices be reduced and frozen, that the prices of basic necessities be controlled, that state companies not be privatized and that expand oil and mining activity in the Amazon.
So far the mobilization has left a balance of five dead and no less than 200 injured among protesters and security forces, as well as more than 100 arrests, according to human rights organizations.
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
