Working people were reacting to the president's announcement that he would replace the country's currency, the sucre, with the U.S. dollar at the rate of 25,000 to one—slashing already meager wages in one fell swoop. The uprising came after the government repressed previous protests against rampant unemployment and rapidly deteriorating living standards during a year in which the rate of inflation topped 60 percent.

Thousands of protesters entered the parliament building in Quito, the country's capital, January 21 and occupied it for several hours. The military guarding the premises did not interfere with the demonstration. A number of officers from the armed forces initially appeared to back the protest actions. Antonio Vargas, president of the main indigenous organization, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), joined Gen. Carlos Mendoza, the country's defense minister, and former Supreme Court president Carlos Solórzano in a three-person junta, which announced that it had replaced the president.

The military brass maneuvered quickly, however, to keep the ruling capitalist families in control. Mendoza dissolved the junta and handed the presidency to Vice-president Gustavo Noboa the next day. Noboa became Ecuador's sixth head of state since 1996. Calling the move a betrayal, leaders of indigenous and other organizations have pledged to continue their fight for justice.

Thousands of unionists, students, peasants, and others blocked roads and staged rallies for days, leading up to January 21, calling for Mahuad's resignation. The government deployed 35,000 soldiers and police around the country in an attempt to maintain order and prevent peasants and other working people in rural areas from reaching Quito. According to some reports, as many as 25,000 indigenous people had entered the capital city from around the country to protest. "We want justice so that we can live, so that our children can go to school, so that we can have healthy lives," said Pedro Jami, a farmer who walked 60 miles overnight from the province of Cotopaxi into Quito.

In Guayaquil, the capital of Guayas province where rebellious sentiments run deep, trade unions, student groups, and indigenous and community organizations occupied the main government building. "The January 21 demonstration of more than 2,000 people lasted for two hours and paralyzed the main streets," said Hugo Yulán, a student participant in the action, in a January 26 telephone interview with the Militant from Guayaquil. "We established a Popular Assembly," he added. "It lasted a few hours, until the military took over and removed everyone out of the government building."

Yulán, also a youth coordinator of the Organization of Rice Producers of Guayas (OPAG), said that students, workers, and peasants feel betrayed but that "we'll be ready to mobilize again whenever another action is called." He referred to the statement by Vargas who has given the new government three to six months to meet popular demands or face a new revolt. The ruling class in Guayaquil decided to unite to end their nightmare of a popular uprising. Representatives of the military, big entrepreneurs, and other conservative and liberal parties met at the house of former president Febres Cordero, a well known rightist, and decided to intervene in order to end the occupation by students and working people.

Earlier, taxi and bus drivers had stopped service in Guayas. They were protesting the increase of fees and tolls. Meanwhile, the indigenous communities in Tungurahua, Chimborazo, and Cotopaxi had started to block highways to prepare for the big mobilization. In Quito, the Unified Workers Front, with 600,000 members, launched a series of protests despite the state of emergency declared by Mahuad. Similar actions took place in Guayaquil and Cuenca.

Many protest leaders gave working people the false impression that they could trust the military. After 5,000 occupied Congress and the Supreme Court in Quito January 21, and the three-person junta was declared in power, protesters celebrated, placing the banner of the Indigenous peoples atop the Congress building and encouraging a march to the presidential palace.

Hours later the ruling class countered through General Mendoza. The defense minister announced the end of the junta and resigned from his post, saying he took that step only "to prevent a blood bath." Top military officers said they opted against attacking protesters, and a number gave the impression of joining the demonstrators, to avoid "a social explosion." Mendoza was more forthcoming later, indicating that the formation of the junta was just a "strategy" to demobilize the thousands of indigenous people who had taken control of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidential Palace, and denying he supported the uprising.  
 

'We'll continue the struggle'

"We'll continue the struggle," Vargas told El Universo of Guayaquil. "We could march again on Quito. We will be even much stronger by then." Many leaders of indigenous organizations refuse to recognize the government of Noboa and called the generals betrayers. "The three generals betrayed the country, betrayed the people, broke their word of honor," said Vargas in a January 24 press conference in Quito. They believe the new president will try to deal with the country's worst economic crisis in decades using policies similar to his predecessor. In fact, Noboa stated that he will go ahead with the "dollarization" plan of the previous government. "If they don't back off [with the dollarization] there may be a great social explosion and even a civil war," warned Vargas.

In the mountainous highlands, marches of indigenous peoples filled the streets. In Riobamba, a demonstration to reject turning power over to Noboa extended 20 blocks from downtown. Protesters armed with sticks and other objects carried signs rejecting dollarization and government plans to sell off state-owned enterprises to foreign investors.

In Ambato, the population rejected the new government with street actions and called the generals who backed the short-lived junta betrayers. Luis Miniguano, a leader of the Indigenous Movement of Tungurahua, said actions in that region will continue with the support of teachers and other workers. Troops and police hurled tear gas grenades against demonstrators at a nearby church, hurting women, children and pedestrians.

In Latacunga, the main representative of the Indigenous Movement of Cotopaxi, Pablo Ante, acknowledged that leaders of the popular movement made three mistakes, "putting too much trust in the military, who lied to the people and favored the rich as usual; not preparing in a timely way; and not negotiating as politicians with the politicians." Ante also added that now "there is nothing else to do but to put pressure on the new president to meet the 10 demands of CONAIE, among them fighting corruption, lowering interest rates, creating more jobs, transforming and not privatizing state enterprises, enacting a moratorium on the foreign debt, and creating popular parliaments in the provinces." Working people have maintained the occupation of the courthouse and the main government building in Latacunga as of January 23, and have continued to block the highways and a bridge that connects that city with the road to Quito.

When Mahuad stated January 10 that he would attempt to push dollarization through, in order to curb inflation and attract foreign investors, the sucre had already been devalued 18.6 percent since New Year's Day. In 1999, the sucre dropped more than 70 percent against the dollar and the economy contracted 7 percent. The banking system was considered insolvent. Ecuador is saddled with a foreign debt of $13 billion, owed primarily to banks in imperialist centers.

Last September, Ecuador's rulers defaulted on bond debt payments. Around that time, Mahuad promised more severe austerity measures in order to get an International Monetary Fund loan. The Noboa government announced it will go ahead with replacing the sucre with the U.S. dollar. An IMF delegation headed by John Thorton already met with Noboa to discuss implementation of such a move.

The plan to exchange the sucre for dollars at a rate of 25,000 to one will drastically cut wages. The minimum wage, for example, will drop under $30 a month compared to more than double that figure six months ago.

These measures have already devastated the livelihoods of millions of working people, hitting especially the indigenous peoples that include 11 nationalities and comprise 45 percent of Ecuador's 12.4 million population. A large group of Quichua-speaking communities live in the central highlands. They rely mainly on agriculture while others driven off their lands live on the coast. Another group of more than 100,000 comprise six indigenous nationalities who live in the Amazon jungle and subsist by harvesting the rain forest soils. The main sources of Ecuador's staples, 70 percent, come from indigenous and campesino communities, and small farmers who own less than 25 acres of land per family.

Land is concentrated in the hands of a few rich landowners. In the highlands, according to a 1994 report, 1.6 percent of farms occupy 43 percent of the land. On the coast, 3.9 percent occupy 55 percent. Lands owned communally represent only 4 percent in the highlands in the steep mountains that produce only pasture. With the highest inflation in Latin America and with only one out of three workers having full-time jobs, the indigenous say they can barely subsist with $4 a month per family they get from selling their crops on the market.

Land ownership and use has been a key question for the indigenous peoples who have led uprisings throughout the years to assert this right. In June 1994, under the government of Sixto Durán Ballén, a mobilization shut down the country for two weeks. His government adopted a new Agrarian Development Law that called for the elimination of communal lands, ignoring the interests of indigenous people and small farmers and favoring the rich landowners. At that time, trade unions called a general strike, while the indigenous organizations set up roadblocks and boycotts in the markets around the country. In the Amazon, they occupied oil wells to protest privatization of Petroecuador, the state oil company.

The government declared a "State of Emergency" calling on the army to restore order. The armed forces occupied indigenous communities and unleashed a brutal repression, destroying homes and crops, and beating women, and youth. Far from backing down, the mobilization forced the government to agree to revising the new agrarian law. Some of CONAIE's proposals were incorporated into the revisions. That action gave the indigenous movement social power and prestige and has placed them in the forefront of struggles of working people in Ecuador.  
 
 
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