The government of President Gustavo Noboa has pressed ahead with drastic economic austerity measures, including a new round on May 25, that have sparked further protests. They are a continuation of the economic policies carried out by his predecessor, Jamil Mahuad, who was ousted in a January 21 popular rebellion led by rural indigenous organizations.

The government's policy of "dollarization--replacing the sucre with the U.S. dollar as the official currency--is having a devastating impact on the livelihoods of working people in Ecuador. The regime has eliminated subsidies on basic goods and services, leading to brutal price increases for essentials such as gasoline. These measures hit the superexploited rural population even harder.

The government's attacks on the living standards of working people have only worsened the land crisis in Ecuador.

"The question of the land has not been settled," said Pedro de la Cruz, president of the National Federation of Peasants, Indian, and Black Organizations (FENOCIN) in an interview. Land in Ecuador is concentrated in the hands of a few rich landlords. According to a report by Nina Pacari, an Indian parliamentary deputy who played a leading role in the 1994 indigenous uprising, 1.6 percent of the farms occupy 43 percent of the land in the highlands, and 3.9 percent occupy 55 percent on the coast. Communally owned lands, while legally recognized, represent only 4 percent of the land in the highlands, most of it on steep slopes that is good only for pasture.  
 
Fight for real land reform
De la Cruz said FENOCIN and other groups are fighting for a real land reform. "We want to have access to the land, marketing and technical assistance, and fair credit. Small farmers produce 60 percent of what is consumed in the country," de la Cruz noted, including potatoes, corn, barley, and other staples, while wealthy farmers produce mainly for export.

The capitalist government has carried out measures that have driven many small farmers off the land. The 1994 Agrarian Development Law approved by the government at the time called for selling off communal lands and other moves benefiting capitalist landowners and corporations.

In response, a wave of marches, rallies, roadblocks, and boycotts of markets called by Indian organizations shut down the country in June 1994. Labor unions called a general strike. In the Amazon, indigenous communities occupied oil wells in opposition to the sell-off of the state-owned oil company Petroecuador.

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), founded in 1986, presented an alternative proposal called the "Integral Agrarian Law." The five main points of the platform included fair access to land for all farmers, better prices for agricultural products, a priority on meeting food needs for the country's population, protection of the soil and the environment, and an increased role by peasant, Indian, and Black organizations in the implementation of such an agrarian reform law.

Despite repression against the indigenous movement that claimed several lives, the government was finally forced to negotiate and incorporate some of CONAIE's demands. Since then, by linking its demands to the interests of working people in the cities, the indigenous movement has gained in influence among broader layers of society.  
 
Superexploitation in the countryside
The indigenous movement is fighting conditions of superexploitation in the countryside. In a nation of 12 million, an estimated 7 million Ecuadorans live below the official poverty level. Among peasants--almost half the population-- the poverty level reaches 90 percent. One indicator of the social conditions is the fact that 80 percent of women in rural areas have barely reached elementary education or have had no education at all.

FENOCIN president De la Cruz pointed to the racist discrimination, fostered by the ruling elite, that the indigenous movement has been battling. Through their struggles, "we have won some rights as indigenous peoples, " he explained. "Just two years ago our language, Quichua, was finally officially recognized." There are 11 indigenous nationalities in Ecuador, many with their own languages, such as Awa, Chachi, Cofán, Epera, Huao, Manta-Huancavilca (today Spanish-speaking), Siona-Secoya, Shuar-Achuar, Tsachila, and Quichua.  
 
Visit to cooperatives
FENOCIN activists took these reporters to two cooperatives near Guayaquil whose members told us how they have been struggling to keep their communally owned land.

Angel Chacón, member of the Monte Sinaí Cooperative, a 400- hectare farm (162 acres) worked by 50 families, explained that they grow mostly corn, rice, cucumbers, watermelons, and some cotton. This co-op is part of the Union of Rice Producers of Guayas (UPAG), an affiliate of FENOCIN. Their collective efforts allow them to organize transportation to sell their produce and obtain the supplies they need for the harvest. This is a special challenge now that gasoline prices have gone up to 30,000 sucres a gallon.

"We also face another problem," said Chacón. "Because of the housing and land crisis, there are occupations by speculators who take the land of small producers and then sell it to people who are desperately in need, then leave them to their own devices after taking their money." Chacón reported they had been subjected to this phenomenon not long ago. "As you could see, at the entrance we now have a checkpoint with guards watching the land 24 hours a day." He pointed out the speculators target vulnerable peasants, not wealthy landowners.

Teresa Chacón, wife of Angel Chacón, is the vice president of a women's group on the cooperative that teaches skills such as sewing and reading and writing. It also presses the authorities to open more elementary schools in the area. The Monte Sinaí cooperative is about an hour and a half away from the city, and the roads are not paved in most instances, making access to services difficult and expensive.

"What we make on the farm is not enough, so as women we have to learn skills to supplement the income of the cooperative now that everything is so expensive," she said.

In Babahoyo, capital of Los Ríos province, a three-hour drive from Guayaquil, we visited the Guarel Rice Cooperative, owned by 30 families. The 400-hectare co-op is also affiliated to UPAG, and like the Monte Sinaí it is struggling to keep from going under.

Over the past 10 years, said co-op president Víctor Ortiz, the number of cooperatives in the region shrank from 100 to 18 as production costs skyrocketed. Small farmers "have sold land to the big landowner thinking it's the best way to solve the problem of large expenses," said Ortiz. "But what happens instead is that they go from being small farmers to becoming farm workers, hired by the big ones. So we discuss this and try to convince other cooperative members not to sell their plots of land even if the price sounds right," he added.

At this cooperative the women are also taking steps to become small producers. María Solís, president of the Star of Guarel Women's Committee, is planning to raise chickens and, through FENOCIN, is trying to get a water well installed. "I've been campaigning for it for a year," she said. "The women here want to help the cooperative and also each other."

Other cooperative members are also trying to establish medical posts and schools, since they live so far from the city--almost two hours from Babahoyo. "When somebody gets sick, we have to find somebody with transportation to take the sick person to the closest hospital. Most of the time have to wait until the next day." Ortiz said.

It's conditions like these, and the growing willingness by peasants to speak out and press their demands, that has fueled the continuing mobilizations by rural toilers in Ecuador.  
 
 
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