By Alberto Giovanelli
New frenetic days we are living in Ecuador, between a mobilization that does not stop, requests for “cross death in the National Assembly, negotiations that are interrupted and resumed, interlocutors that are modified, decrees of exception that are lifted and re-established.
For today, Thursday 30, CONAIE is expected to agree to resume the dialogue process and at the same time ratify a march planned for the afternoon. The Government, which left the negotiation table last Tuesday, announces that it will resume the dialogue with the indigenous movement. It will do so with the mediation of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, which will determine the methodology, the place, the representatives and the topics to be discussed. “The will of the government is to be able to resume peace for the Ecuadorians”, said the Minister of Government, Francisco Jimenez.
The official representatives return to the table, with a little more tranquility, after having narrowly overcome the request made by a sector of the opposition before the National Assembly, for the application of art. 130 of the National Constitution, which would have meant the obligation of resignation of the president and all the legislators (cross death) and a new call for elections in 90 days. For the approval of the impeachment, 92 votes out of 137 representatives would have been needed, and 84 voted affirmative. But this vote also further damaged the regime as it provoked realignments, rifts and under-the-table negotiations. The Government manages to avoid impeachment but is left in a situation of alarming weakness, especially if we take into consideration that there are still 3 years to go before the end of its mandate, in which it will have to survive with a clearly opposing Assembly and an almost absolute level of rejection by the population.
Today, the dialogue will be resumed after the Government had announced that it would not do so. Leonidas Iza, president of CONAIE, said that they will go to a new dialogue, with the mediation of the Church; he also called on the bases to put down “belligerent attitudes” for future marches: “We need to guarantee this march of peace, of the rebellion without generating confrontations”.
Meanwhile, the effects of the national strike are being felt more and more strongly in several cities of the country, where protests continue. The shortage of basic commodities, domestic gas, fuels, oxygen tanks and medicines are critical.
At the same time, the number of deaths in the context of the national strike totals six people, five civilians and one military and a dozen missing.
Yesterday, Wednesday 29, the new state of emergency decreed by President Lasso was announced, which will be in force in Azuay, Imbabura, Sucumbios and Orellana, which confirms that the only response Lasso has at hand is repression. In three of the four provinces there will also be a curfew.
CONAIE seeks negotiation bridges
The grassroots that are heroically mobilizing are increasingly clear that it is impossible for the Lasso government and the IMF to respond positively to the 10 points that originated the protests. The partial answers (a decrease of 0.10 cvs in the price of fuel) are far from satisfying the demands and on the contrary are interpreted as a provocation that only encourages the struggle.
The CONAIE leadership finds itself in this contradiction; to continue asking for positive answers and at the same time trying to support the government so as not to break “the constitutional order”, are absolutely incompatible tasks. Only by defeating the Lasso government in the streets, and with a government of CONAIE and the social organizations will it be possible to find a way out of the economic, political and institutional crisis. But to achieve these objectives it is indispensable the regroupment of revolutionaries, of anti-capitalists who understand that all the evils are the result of the decadence of a system impossible to make up. THERE IS NO WAY OUT WITHIN CAPITALISM. That is why we will continue in every mobilization and struggle for the construction of a socialist and revolutionary alternative that is capable of overcoming the hesitations, doubts and betrayals of the traditional leaderships.