 Ecuadoran high school students demand resignation of Lucio Gutierrez, April 20, 2005. Photo: Angelo Chamba |
Borrowing a popular slogan from their Argentinean neighbors, people from all over Ecuador took to the streets shouting, “¡Que se vayan todos!”—“Get rid of all of them!” Within a few weeks, Gutiérrez—a colonel who participated in the struggle to oust former President Jamil Mahuad—was ousted himself.
This sent a very strong message: those who betray the masses will have no place in history.
Ecuador has the smallest landmass in South America. Of the approximately 12.5 million inhabitants, more than ten percent live in Quito, the nation’s capital. The population is predominantly Indigenous or mestizo—mixed Spanish-Indigenous ancestry. The official language is Spanish, but the great majority speak Quechua or other Indigenous languages.
Ecuador is also the fifth largest producer of crude oil in South America. Over 50 percent of its oil exports go to the United States. The other 50 is split between Latin America and Asia.
Despite these resources, 62 percent of the population in Ecuador live below the official poverty line. Seventy percent of the workforce is unemployed or underemployed. Six children per thousand die at birth, and life expectancy has fallen from 70 to 66 years. The country’s foreign debt has reached close to $12 billon.
Growing inability to govern
This bleak situation has been the background to the growing inability of Ecuador’s ruling class to govern. For almost three decades, successive governments have imposed draconian neoliberal economic policies of cutbacks and privatization and economic austerity at the behest of the United States and its financial institutions.
These neoliberal policies have ignited a wave of resistance. In 1997, mass mobilizations ousted President Abdala Bucaram from power. Then, in January 2000, Bucaram’s successor Jamil Mahuad was also ousted by a mass uprising of Indigenous protesters and elements from the army, including Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez.
For some 12 hours, Ecuador’s workers and Indigenous peasants took power. But the Ecuadoran military backed by the United States intervened and pushed out the popular coalition. Mahuad’s vice president Gustavo Noboa became president. He presided over the “dollarization” of the economy—Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as its national currency in an effort to beat inflation and stabilize the economy.
Mahuad’s policies generated more mass outrage. In 2003, Lucio Gutiérrez won the presidential elections based on his reputation as a popular leader and his promises of profound change in the country.
At the beginning of his term, Gutiérrez implemented some measures to help the people in need. For example, he proposed creating a universal social security system for the poor, providing health care for all, distributing free food for those in need, eradicating illiteracy and improving housing conditions.
The corporate media portrayed Gutiérrez as a populist leader. Many compared him with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. It didn’t take long for Gutiérrez to prove them wrong.
During an interview with the BBC in November 2002, Gutiérrez said that he was not part of a leftist anti-globalization trend in South America. When he became president, he reassured the United States and international financial institutions that he would retain the dollar as the country’s currency and meet its debt obligations.
Gutiérrez made no profound changes and did not fulfill his presidential campaign promises. Within months, his supporters in the workers’ movement and the Indigenous organization CONAIE distanced themselves from his regime.
On top of everything, Gutiérrez tried to portray himself as a close ally of U.S. imperialism. He followed closely the prescriptions of the IMF, privatizing most sectors of the economy including electricity, oil, phone and water. As a result of this plan, thousands of people lost their jobs. The prices of gasoline, transport and electricity increased. This was in exchange for a $200 million loan from the IMF that unlocked a further $300 million in credit.
In 2003, after a meeting in Washington between Bush and Gutiérrez, the newly elected president of Ecuador said that his country would be “the United States’ best ally in the fight against drugs and terrorism.” Bush promised Gutiérrez $15 million in military assistance for the year 2004.
These measures, which previous administrations had tried to implement, unleashed a new wave of protests. In response to his broken promises, CONAIE gave the president a 30-day ultimatum to change the course of his economic policies, threatening strikes against his government.
Between hammer and anvil
Gutiérrez found himself in a very peculiar situation. On the one hand, he had no support from the traditional bourgeois parties, who had only acceded to his rule with the hope that he could sell the IMF program to the masses. The traditional white ruling elite spared no expense, resorting to racist appeals against Gutiérrez, who is of Indigenous heritage.
On the other hand, Gutiérrez alienated workers and Indigenous movements that had been his electoral base.
Between the hammer and the anvil, Gutiérrez tried to maneuver with support of marginalized political parties—the very parties of the former ousted presidents Bucaram and Noboa. His December 2004 attempt to stack the Supreme Court in order to allow Bucaram and Noboa back into the political arena triggered a wave of bourgeois opposition to his rule. The masses would not support him.
In April, growing demonstrations were calling for the president’s resignation. Gutiérrez declared a state of emergency, prohibiting the people’s right to demonstrate. But the demonstrations continued. The government was forced to lift the state of emergency.
On April 19, more than 50,000 people descended on the streets of Quito and marched to the historic downtown. Some 4,000 police were waiting for them. The repression was brutal. Two people were killed, hundreds were wounded and dozens were arrested.
The rest is history. Lucio Gutiérrez found asylum in Brazil. Vice President Alfredo Palacio assumed the presidency.
The Organization of American States asked Ecuador’s new government to explain how Congress concluded the president needed to be removed. In response, Indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso, who actively participated in the uprising, asked for the urgent creation of a citizen commission to go to Washington and the OAS to explain to them what sovereignty means and to protest the permanent interference of the United States.
Other political leaders also rejected the OAS position, proclaiming the right of the Ecuadoran people to defend their sovereignty and self-determination.
Palacio has tried to dampen protests by promising everything to everyone. He has given concessions to the right-wing Social Christian Party for autonomy in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s economic center. He has also offered key posts to CONAIE in return for promises of social stability.
The new government insists on its allegiance to Washington in its foreign policy.
The people of Ecuador have shown that they are willing to mobilize in defense of their interests. The Ecuadoran ruling class and their U.S. backers have yet to find a formula to defend their rule based on exploitation.
What has yet to emerge, after battles against three successive governments, is a leadership capable of organizing the working class and Indigenous peasants into a political force independent from the ruling class political parties. The experience of the Gutiérrez presidency shows that the masses will have to experience both defeats and treacheries.
But the challenge of the next step remains—only the oppressed classes taking control of the state apparatus once and for all can change the structures of a corrupt system. The capitalist system has time and again been shown incapable of solving the problems of the great majority.
Across Latin America, governments that try to curry favor with U.S. imperialism are facing increasing challenges. But those who stand against U.S. imperialism and mobilize the working classes, like Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, gain in strength.
The Ecuadoran masses continue to gain experience in struggle. Thousands of workers and peasants are gaining valuable training in the class struggle. The other struggles on the continent—Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, Colombia’s revolutionary insurgencies, and Cuba’s socialist example—provide encouragement and support for the struggle ahead.
