Syndicate: URGENT!! support the struggle in Ecuador!

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

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>Date: 15 Jan 2000 17:34:39 PST
>From: Andrew.Bacelis@directory.reed.edu (Andrew Bacelis)
>Subject: URGENT!! support the struggle in Ecuador!
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>--- Forwarded Message from "el desaparecido" <desaparecido@gmx.de> ---
>>Subject: URGENT: support the struggle in Ecuador !
>PGA Action at WTO Seattle - http://members.aol.com/pgacaravan
>
>
>-- please spread widely --
>
>dear all,
>
>I just received this fwd message coming from Ecuador saying that there are
>currently mass protests going on against the dramatic situation in a country
>that has suffered neoliberal exploitation and that "the revolution is
>starting".
>
>I was sceptic, so I picked up the phone and phoned an organisation called
>"Accion Ecologica" whose phone number I had just received recently. I had
>the chance to speak to someone who is the representative of this
>organisation at the alternative parliament who is currently debating a
>strategy
>for the coming days. He said that the mobilisations have started
>progressively in the last days already and that several cities are already
>"taken". He said the large mobilisation for Quito (the capital) is going
>to be
>for monday and tuesday. He said at least 40.000 indigenas are expected to
>come into the city, but the mobilisation involve many sectors of society. He
>said also that international observers are expected to come in the next days
>and that they hope that from then on the news will be spread internationaly.
>So far the state controlled media has been promoting non stop lies about
>how wonderful the neoliberal policies have been in the last years. Nobody
>believes it anymore. As I asked him if this was a struggle for power, for
>taking control of the governement, he said no, it's a Poeples Power, there is
>a Poeples assembly who works in a complicated system of representation [I
>didn't understand everything in this short phone call].
>
>Infrastructure for communication is being set up, there is a press
>commission that has been created (comision de prensa) by the Peoples
>Assembly.
>
>I asked him also if they were afraid of repression and he said he hoped the
>international support would be able to avoid it.
>
>We are likely to get more information in the next days and clarification on
>what kind of "revolution" this is. So stay tuned !
>
>Most of the information is likely to be in Spanish, so if there are people
>willing to help doing spanish-english translations (or spanish to any other
>language) please contact me: desaparecido@gmx.de and also
>e7888@risc_usfq.edu.ec
>
>Hasta la victoria !!
>Our resistance is as transnational as capital !!
>
>Luciano
>
>the following is
>- a fwd letter sent by Spanish students currently in Ecuador. This is a rough
>translation I did, feel free to correct the English.
>- an pasted article from August 99 which gives a good insight into the
>situation in Ecuador
>
>
>
>To everyone getting this information:
>
>This is a text that was fwd by companher@s from Barcelona which are
>currently in Ecuador for motives related to their studies and are currently
>assisting to probably one of the most encouraging news of the millennium.
>
>Please distribute this message as wide as you can and organise yourself to
>find ways of supporting peoples struggle in Ecuador.
>
>REVOLUTION BEGINS IN ECUADOR !
>
>Dear companher@s
>
>Ecuador is very close to a national revolution y it is currently necessary
>to do
>solidarity actions in support of this peoples movement who aims to put an
>end to neoliberal economic exploitation which has lead to the current crisis.
>
>We are some students from UAB (university) in the country y we see the
>urgent necessity to create a platform of international support in order to
>prevent a indiscriminated repression of this popular movement.
>
>We ask you:
>
>1.- to spread this information through as many ways as possible
>2.- that you send us contacts for the spreading of further communiques to:
>e7888@risc_usfq.edu.ec
>3.- That people take initiative to coordinate platforms at continental o
>national
>level
>4.- it is necessary to create a network that will reach mass media and
>alternative media. It is possible that United States may react with
>repression
>in case this popular movement succeeds in his attempt to overthrow the
>power.
>5.- We are currently waiting for a document with the strategy that is
>discussed at the Parlament of Ecuatorian People (a rebel parlament), which
>will be a document of international strategy addressed to all movements of
>the world, NGOs etc. We ask you to create the necessary conditions for
>such a network to function.
>
>General Situation in the Country
>
>The economic, social and political crisis that Ecuador has been going
>through in the last years has been worsening dramatically in the last months.
>
>As a matter of fact since Jamil Mahuad came into power, the sucre (national
>currency) has only been losing acquisition power compared to the dollar: the
>price of the dollar has doubled since 1999 (is it 25000 sucres for a
>dollar now)
>
>For the minority of people, those who have acquisition power and a bank
>account, this means that their bank accounts have been frozen. They cannot
>withdraw money from their accounts for the banks not to collapse.
>
>And for the majority of people who live in misery, this means that basic good
>of consumption have become very expensive. Besides that the social
>conditions have never been so restricted, there is basicaly no kind of social
>service.
>
>As a response to this situation the government of president Mahuad opted for
>a dollarisation of the economy.
>
>Peoples reaction is lead by the movement of the indigenous people and
>several unions [and students - editor] that want a total change in the
>structure of the State. They want to get rid of the three powers of the State
>and put a Peoples Governement in place (Gobierno Popular).
>
>There has been a call to popular insurrecion and a national strike which will
>start on the 15th  January with a take over of Quito (the capital).
>
>Meetings in the Parliament of Ecuadorian Peoples have been going on for
>three days.
>
>This alternative parliament includes representatives of many (not all) social
>movements of the country (indigenous movement, church, unions, etc.) and
>is currently defining a new policy for the country in all fields.
>
>They pretend to reinitiate national production, cancelling the external debt
>and stop the neoliberal exploitation of the resources, etc..
>
>end of message
>
>the following website willbe available for more information
>http://conjuntos.es.fortunecity.com/social/6
>
>
>**********************
>
>04-AUG-1999
>
>Four Hundred Arrested, Thirteen Shot: IMF and
>Ecuadorian government provoke violent reaction
>
>Four months after a crisis provoked by an IMF inspired structural adjustment
>plan, the country is again in the grips of the multi-lateral organisation.
>This
>time the social convulsions, which were provoked by a another rise in fuel
>prices, have been confronted in repressive fashion. Five more people were
>shot yesterday as they tried to march from Guallabamba, a small town 40
>kilometres north of Quito, to the capital to protest the impacts of the
>economic measures introduced during the past six months. In Latacunga, a
>town of about 500,000 one hour to the south of the capital, indigenous
>groups which had been closing roads, charged a military vehicle
>
>full of troops on Saturday night. The vehicle turned tail and fled. On Sunday
>the native people were not so lucky, eight were shot as they confronted the
>military attempting to keep the road open. One later died.
>The protests and the indigenous uprising have been brought about by the
>severity of the economic measures taken to supposedly pull Ecuador out of
>its economic plight. The now discredited IMF recipe of provoking inflation
>and
>removing subsidies in order to balance the budget has been applied without
>relief since the effects of the global economic crisis hit Latin America late
>last year. The dollar has risen by almost 100% against the local currency,
>the Sucre, since beginning of the year, food costs have risen by about 70%,
>gas, electricity, gasoline, diesel, and water costs have all risen
>substantially,
>and all this before the latest round of transport fuel cost rises,
>
>provoked by indexation to the dollar. In the meantime the basic salary (a
>form of minimum wage) has been raised by an insulting 30%.
>
>The taxi drivers hit back first, blocking roads and demanding that fuel
>prices
>be reduced to their pre- June levels and frozen for two years. They blocked
>roads and brought the cities to a standstill. Indigenous groups throughout
>the
>central mountain region have joined them in an uprising which has blocked
>roads, occupied state electricity offices and taken control of communications
>towers. Indigenous areas are amongst the poorest in the country and the
>native population, which has been badly affected by the privatisation and
>globalisation agenda, is calling their actions a fight for life, and against
>hunger.
>Meanwhile, teachers and medical workers who have not been paid in months
>have also joined the strike, along with banana workers, bus and transport
>workers and even informal sellers. Whole neighbourhoods have taken over
>roads in an attempt to convince the government to change course. And in the
>latest of a series of actions, the offices of the Catholic Church,
>criticised as
>pro-government, have been occupied by a number of social groups intent on
>emphasising their demands that the neoliberal policies being applied to the
>country be changed. Ironically, the police, charged with repressing the
>demonstrations, also find themselves unpaid and without funds to ward off
>their own creditors.
>
>Part of the government's answer has been to declare a general state of
>emergency, endowing the President with extraordinary powers to control the
>state budget, and to order military intervention wherever and whenever he
>pleases. Congress, in which the government does not have the majority, is
>outspokenly opposed and will probably fight the measure, although it should
>be pointed out that the majority of members are also neo-liberals (or at best
>the more apologetic Blair style third wayers) and simply jockeying for power.
>The other part of the strategy has been to create diversionary tactics.
>Jailing
>a corrupt banker and paying the people whose savings were locked up in the
>now officially bankrupt bank (one of Ecuador's largest). On the other hand an
>overwhelming silence has surrounded the accusation that the majority of high
>government officials took their money out of the country
>(apparently some $200 million) a little while before all bank accounts were
>frozen in March of this year.
>
>Whether these officials, and other corrupt bankers, will ever be investigated
>and brought to trial is a major question. But perhaps more important in the
>long run, both for Ecuador and other countries in the region, is whether
>it will
>be possible to find a  way out of the neoliberal export lead growth trap in
>which Ecuador finds itself, given that this model favours the governing elite
>which controls almost all political parties.
>The fact that it needs to is not in question. The country has only gone
>backwards in economic terms since the debt crisis of the early eighties, and
>finds itself porting increasing amounts of primary material, only to watch
>prices fall or at best fluctuate wildly on markets over which it has no
>control.
>The cost in terms of concentration of land, power and wealth is huge. The
>cost in terms of the environmental and social impacts related to finding and
>pumping more oil, growing more flowers, farming more shrimp, and growing
>more bananas are devastating a country which is defined by its
>cultural and natural diversity.
>
>(spanish)
>
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