Condemnation of the repression and state of emergency in response to the massive National Strike amidst a serious socio-environmental, economic and health crisis in Ecuador

El CLACSO Working Group on International Health and Health Sovereignty It expresses its condemnation and deep concern for the social, health, economic, environmental and human rights protection situation, and stands in solidarity with CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), the social organizations and sectors of Ecuadorian society mobilized that have been promoting the National Strike in the face of the deepening of neoliberal and extractive policies in force in the country.

First, we reject the institutional violence perpetrated by the Ecuadorian government's security and military forces against CONAIE, including arbitrary arrests and repression. This violence has a history spanning decades, with repeated instances of political and governmental justification through the persecution, criminalization, and attacks against CONAIE, as well as against other organizations and universities that autonomously mobilize for well-being and the protection of territories, addressing the socio-environmental crisis resulting from extractivism, promoting the integral and intercultural rights of women, and highlighting the shortcomings of Ecuadorian democracy in transforming public, universal, and common goods to protect collective health and life.

The streets, roads, communities, and cities are mobilized and demanding:

– Shortages in the public health system;

– Limited access to universities, poor educational infrastructure;

– Violence, insecurity and corruption;

– High fuel prices;

– Price increases for basic necessities;

– Low prices for agricultural products and abandonment of the countryside;

– High interest rates on debts from banks and cooperatives;

– Disrespect for the labor rights of workers;

– Mining in indigenous territories, reserves and protected areas;

– Politicization of the 21 collective rights;

– Privatization of the assets of all Ecuadorians.

The public health system in Ecuador is currently experiencing a profound crisis of shortages of essential medicines, supplies, and basic equipment, as well as precarious working conditions in the health sector. This health crisis is compounded by the chronic epidemiological crises based on social class, ethnicity, and gender prevalent in the country, and occurs within a health system that continues to perpetuate commodification and public transfers to the pharmaceutical and medical-industrial complex and private healthcare establishments.

So far, the demands of medical associations and public health professionals have not received a response from the Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador.

Rather than guaranteeing the geopolitics of financial power and the structural adjustment of post-pandemic disaster capitalism, from the CLACSO Working Group on International Health and Health Sovereignty We call upon the current Ecuadorian government to immediately guarantee the decriminalization of the CONAIE National Strike and the opening of genuine spaces for intercultural dialogue for institutional responses to the multiple crises that Ecuador is experiencing.

We call upon academic institutions and university centers, especially those in the field of critical thinking on health and health sovereignty in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as social organizations, movements, and popular actors of the continent, to increase regional solidarity strategies with the protests and social struggles of CONAIE, together with the national actors mobilized in Ecuador.

June 21th, 2022
CLACSO Working Group
International health and health sovereignty

This statement expresses the position of the Working Group International health and health sovereignty and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.