Statement on the violence in Ecuador

The violence was created by the government, not by the workers, the people, or the Indigenous people who are in the streets. They created it with the decree and by saying we can't mobilize. United Workers' Front

From CLACSO Working Group Critical Studies of Rural Development We express our solidarity with the popular struggle for life and the future that is taking place these days in Ecuador.

On October 1st, the government of Lenín Moreno Garcés, citing a supposed crisis and the well-being of the citizenry, announced a package of reforms that has mobilized widespread public rejection. The government, subservient to the demands of the IMF, has proposed eliminating the fuel subsidy for gasoline and diesel (which is driving up transportation and food prices, a particularly sensitive issue for the population); requiring public sector workers to forgo one day's pay per month and 15 days of their vacation time; and stipulating that all renewed temporary service contracts within the government will be renewed at a 20% reduction in value. Simultaneously, it is eliminating the single income tax on bananas; eliminating the advance payment of income tax; and halving the tax on capital outflows. Thus, the government is placing the burden of overcoming the crisis squarely on the shoulders of workers and other social sectors while guaranteeing greater profits for the economic elite.

These measures are another step in the government's policy of impoverishing society and privatizing nature. The population is in the streets because they were promised a space for the democratization of society, but instead, the system of political exclusion has only been reinforced. In the name of the crisis, the

The government forgave companies $4.295 billion in tax debt while taking on $4.200 billion in debt to the IMF. In the name of morality, it promised to prosecute corruption but fails to account for its companies in Panama. While the population, through a popular referendum, demanded the protection of Yasuní in the Ecuadorian Amazon and nature as a whole, the government has expanded extractive frontiers and the plundering of common resources in Ecuador.

We observe with grave concern the events and the escalation of violence that has occurred in Ecuador in recent days. The people have taken to the streets to express their rejection, and the government has responded by declaring a state of emergency and deploying military tanks to confront the protesters. We must warn that this violence stems from the government and its systematic policy of alliances with elites and transnational corporations. The government has handed over the reins of the state to representatives of corporate interests; it is proposing the privatization of state resources; it is rapidly advancing labor and environmental deregulation; and it is rolling back the rights of citizens and peoples. In doing so, it is reinforcing the most ferocious features and tendencies of neoliberalism and aligning itself with the rise of conservative governments in the region.

Latin America has a wealth of experience with this, and we know that the violence does not originate from its people, but rather stems from the regional and global implementation of a model that appropriates life and nature at the expense of the significant democratic advances achieved by grassroots organizations, advances that in Ecuador were powerfully enshrined in its 2008 Constitution. For this reason, we stand in solidarity with the marches and mobilizations of Indigenous peoples, students, women, peasants, and workers in Ecuador who are once again taking to the streets to forge paths toward other possible futures. We stand in solidarity with their demonstrations against capital and the economic and political elites who dominate the country and seek to impose their model of death and destruction.

We also hold the government of Lenín Moreno responsible for the violence against society, the detention of 676 protesters, and the violence perpetrated by the security forces against the people. The State of Emergency and the declaration of a curfew encourage police and military violence, and with it, the violation of the population's rights. We call on the international community and human rights organizations to speak out and remain vigilant regarding this grave situation, and we urge the various social organizations of our Americas to stand with our brothers and sisters in Ecuador in their historic struggle.

CLACSO Working Group
Critical studies of rural development