Severe and Dangerous Protests after the Presidential Decision to Eliminate Subsidies

ECUADOR - In Brief 08 Oct 2019 by Magdalena Barreiro

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The last economic measures taken by President Moreno have been the root of violent protests in Ecuador. Albeit we expected social unrest, the level of violence we are witnessing on the streets and highways has no precedence, at least in the last decades. Social groups including the transportation sector, some students from public universities, workers and the indigenous groups are well organized and leading these protests. It is not easy to quantify the number of people out there as the protesters exaggerate the number but given that 24,000 military have been in some places outnumbered, we believe that at least there are 15,000 from the indigenous groups alone. Apparently, the government reached an agreement with the transportation sector whose leaders declared they are abandoning the protests, but public transportation is still non-existent. On the other hand, the indigenous groups have been responsible of serious incidents including attacks to factories, flower plantations and small businesses –especially south of Quito in the province of Cotopaxi in addition to blocking many of the most important highways. Albeit some indigenous leaders have denied their participation in the riots and insist theirs is a “peaceful march”, there are is well-sustained suspicion that certain political groups are mixed and/or leading some of these riots. Several police and military were kidnapped by the Indians in the past days, and some have been liberated but others remain retained. Also, two oil camps including the important camp of Sacha in the Amazon region were taken and remain under the Indians power as the number of the attackers was higher than the military guarding the camps. W...