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On Sept. 30 between 600 and
2000 Ecuadorean police and air force
officers, angry over proposed austerity measures that would limit their
bonuses, tear-gassed and seized Ecuadorean
President Rafael Correa as Correa tried to negotiate with them. The
officers shut down highways, seized the main airport, and took control
of police barracks in the capital city of Quito and in other places.
President Correa was only
freed when Ecuadorean army commandos stormed
the police hospital where he was being held, an operation in which at
least five of the “dissident” police officers were killed. The
opposition in Ecuador is downplaying the incident, refusing to label it
a “coup attempt,” but Ecuadorean state media
has played taped recordings of police radio traffic in which orders are
given to kill Correa.
Groups that represent social
movements in Ecuador are clear about what it is as well—an attempted
coup. And these groups, like CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities of Ecuador), don’t withhold their criticisms for the
Correa administration either: “CONAIE, with its regional Confederations
and its grassroots organizations states … their rejection to economic
and social policies of the government, and with the same energy we
reject the actions of the right…
“We demand that the national
government firmly depose every possible concession to the right. We
demand that the government abandon its authoritarian attitude against the
popular sectors, that they not criminalize social protest and the
persecution of leaders: the only thing this type of politics provokes
is to open spaces to the right and create spaces of destabilization…
“The best way to defend
democracy is to begin a true revolution that resolves the most urgent
and structural questions to the benefit of the majority…”
It is important for people
inside and outside of Ecuador to support the popular defense of the Correa
government against right-wing coup attempts, despite the fact that
Correa has at times attacked indigenous groups and is merely pursuing
capitalist reforms. But ultimately, the masses of Ecuador will need a government truly based on the rights
and needs of the oppressed to manifest revolutionary change and protect
themselves from a dangerous right wing.
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