National Strike in Ecuador | Indigenous people remain firm in protests: “We are not leaving without an answer”

The fatigue of two intense and hard weeks of protests can be seen on their faces, but the spirit of the thousands of indigenous people who declare themselves “on foot to fight” against the Government of Ecuador continues this Sunday more than firm, inflamed by the deaths of protesters recorded in recent days.

From practically every corner of the country they came to Quito a week ago to make themselves felt more forcefully in the capital, which received them with tear gas, the same people who have breathed almost daily in long and tense days of arm wrestling with the security forces and with little and uncomfortable rest.

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“We are not going to leave here without an answer”the vice president of the Confederation of Peoples of the Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador (Ecuarunari), Nayra Chalánone of the spokespersons for the indigenous movement that leads these protests over the high cost of living.

The slogan among the indigenous leaders is clear: not waver until you see the ten points of your list of demands fulfilledwhich range from measures to alleviate the economies of the most humble households to others that collide directly with the policy undertaken by the Government of the conservative president William Lasso.

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A) Yes, They demand that fuel prices be reduced and frozen, that the prices of basic necessities be controlled, that debts to peasant families be forgiven and that indigenous rights be respected, but also that state companies not be privatized and that mining and oil activity increased.

“We have seen our economies suffocated,” Chalán points out when raising the flag of those populations that most accuse the inequality of an economy that has not yet finished recovering from the crisis of the covid-19 pandemic and that has been hit, like the rest of the world, by the war of Russia in Ukraine.

“We demand social justice. The ten points are to minimally balance the unequal balance that we live in the country”adds the vice president of Ecuarunari before giving a speech at the state-owned Central University of Ecuador.

“HERE ARE THE VAGOS THAT THE RIGHT SAYS”

This university campus has become the improvised reception center for the thousands of indigenous people who have come to Quito These days, and in its Plaza Indoamérica, there is a festive atmosphere with traditional dances and music in which there are practically delegations from all the native peoples and nationalities of the country.

The Andean peasants are there and, well trained, as if it were a praetorian guard, also the Amazonian indigenous spears in hand and with a rudimentary brass shield that these days they have used to protect themselves from riot police.

“These are the bums that the Ecuadorian right says. Here are the bums. If we don’t produce in the fields, you don’t eat. If we don’t work, you are not going to eat the banknotes that are piled up in the banks,” says Chalán.

As part of that crowd is Yaku Covenant, representative of the Federation of University Students of Ecuador (FEUE), who reminds Lasso of the promise he made in the electoral campaign to allow free admission to universities.

“Many of the brothers have migrated to other countries and have died at international borders because they did not have the quota to study”, regrets Covenant, a student at the Technical University of Cotopaxi, who comes “from the high moors of the Alausí canton (municipality).

“WE ARE NOT TERRORISTS OR CORREISTS”

There is a generalized feeling of “indignation” in the environment, particularly with President Lasso, to the point that some demand his dismissal in the National Assembly (Parliament) for considering him the main person responsible for the deaths of demonstrators that occurred in the protests.

They also reproach him for labeling them as violent from the government, despite the fact that there have been isolated episodes of great violence such as the fire and burning of a police station in the city of Puyoin whose courtyards 18 vehicles were incinerated, and the attack on a military convoy near Quitowhich left 17 wounded soldiers.

“They are discriminating against us. They tell us that we are terrorists, that we are correistas… we are indigenous at heart and we fight for our rights,” the young Marcio Marcatoma, who arrived in Quito six days ago from the canton of Guamote, in the province of Chimborazo, tells Efe.

His intention is to remain expectant until the demands of the indigenous movement are satisfied, in a conflict that could be channeled through dialogue after on Saturday there was a first contact between the Government and indigenous people and the president repealed the state of exception decreed by protests in six of the country’s twenty-four provinces.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

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.