Ecuador: Taking On the Neoliberal Agenda

...3. El Universo (Quito), June 21, 1994...

...This was not a narrow proposal of and for the indigenous...

...This general policy orientation continued until 1982, when a crash in oil prices in concert with the drying up of international credit in the aftermath of the debt crisis forced a radical change in policy...

...These combined factors led to a drastic increase in un- and underemployment in the countryside, which fueled rural migration to the cities...

...Regional federations representing communities from the highlands and coastal areas joined with groups representing lowland communities in the Amazon...

...As sociologist Alejandro Moreano observed: "the Indians had to negotiate with the Damocles' sword of the approved law and the power of the state over their heads...

...It was also an unabashed attempt to destroy the principle of communal solidarity, the foundation of the indigenous worldview...

...While the Borja government and the large landowners explained it away as "manipulation" and "foreign interference," progressive sectors of society interpreted the uprising as a response to Ecuador's worsening economic crisis...

...The law was never publicly debated, despite the fact that it would have vast repercussions for broad segliberal agenda, the present ments of rural society...

...By linking the demands of Ecuador's indigenous population and non-indigenous popular sectors, the indigenous movement has moved to the forefront of the popular struggle in Ecuador...

...attempts to "reform" the agricultural sector from the outside did not obtain any long-lasting benefits either in terms of increasing agricultural productivity or reducing rural poverty precisely because they did not take into account indigenous knowledge about the environment...

...Their presence as historic subjects is undoubtedly one of the greatest events of this century, with tremendous import for the future...

...Four people were killed, and several others received bullet wounds...

...The radio broadcast also helped stamp out rumors propagated by some sectors of government that "the indigenous leaders sold out" and that "the leaders are tricking the people, they haven't even read the law...

...Based on these premises, the Agrarian Development vere outraged not only by Law proposed the freeing up of communal land to marundemocratic methods by ket forces...

...The government's Headed by Neptalf Bonifaz, a member of the Chamber " was based on a legisla- of Agriculturalists, IDEA actively promotes marketcuador's large landowners, based reforms in the agricultural sector...

...While manufactured products became more expensive, the price of agrarian products fell or stagnated...

...Instead, the approved law was draftognize Ecuador as a pluri- ed by a small minority behind the backs of the people...

...As a consequence of this and prior mobilizations, the indigenous movement is now widely recognized as a significant social actor in contemporary Ecuadorian politics...

...rather, CONAIE sought to articulate and defend the interests of all sectors of the country by highlighting the basic demand of "food security" for all Ecuadorians...

...Translated from the Spanish by NACLA...

...Little was gained, however, regarding the issue of land expropriation...

...She played a key role in the negotiations with the government following the 1994 indigenous uprising...

...CONAIE was established in 1986 by CONFENAIE and ECUARUNARI, unifying all indigenous peoples in one national organization...

...In essence, we are questioning the ongoing exclusion of our collective rights as peoples...

...Main roads were blocked with large boulders and walls of rock, markets were boycotted, water supplies to the urban areas were cut off, and several police and local officials were taken hostage...

...Ecuador: Taking on the Neoliberal Agenda 1. Hoy (Quito), May 9, 1994...

...Communally owned lands, while legally recognized and protected under the Constitution, represent only 4% of land in the highlands...

...While it The government called on the army to restore internal order and beat back the "rebellious Indians...

...The law also granted administration conditional credit for qualified agriculturalists...

...The struggle against oppression, exploitation and exclusion led by the indigenous movement has coalesced into a key demand: the construction of a plurinational state that tolerates and encourages diversity among different groups in society...

...Since the Durnin administration assumed power in 1992, it has tried to minimize, demobilize and destroy the indigenous movement...

...Dividing up communal lands and putting them up for sale is, in reality, a legal dispossession of indigenous land, a kind of counter-agrarian reform reminiscent of colonial times...

...This sector also has a high degree of technical and organizational flexibility, which allows it to produce a variety of products...

...Delegates from the Indigenous Initiative for Peace, an organization founded by Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchd, and the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, helped monitor the process...

...To believed it could qualify for the money, get away with however, the farmer was required to receive training imposing its by a private agency that knew little about traditional forms of cultivation and Agrarian management of highland soil, or the integral use of Development Law resources...

...One of the key conceptual points conceded by the government was that the process of agrarian reform had not terminated, and that the redistribution of land-especially the most fertile land that remains in the same few hands as always-was an ongoing necessity...

...Before the bill was signed into law by the President, CONAIE, along with the National Ecuadorian Federation of Campesino and Indigenous Organizations (FENOC-I), and the Evangelical Federation of Indigenous Ecuadorians (EFIE), convened an emergency assembly in June to prepare for a national "Mobilization for Life" in protest...

...The indigenous organizations demanded that the negotiation process be broadcast without interruption on the radio to ensure both the transparency of the dialogue and the government's serious consideration of the indigenous proposals...

...While the law now formally recognizes demographic pressures as one of the reasons why land is taken over, the practical value of this change is unclear...

...cuador, like most Latin American countries, pursued a state-led model of development in the 1960s and 1970s...

...The Agrarian Development Law also included an extremely controversial provision that would have privatized the public water supply...

...Following the orthodox recipes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the government of Oswaldo Hurtado (1979-1984) devalued the local currency, eliminated subsidies and price controls, and increased the cost of public services...

...The coexistence of a communal land system with individually- and family-owned small parcels allows us to maintain our values of solidarity and community participation, while permitting individual initiatives...

...An important proportion of this group are Quichua-speaking indigenous communities located in the central highlands (or Sierra), the majority of whom subsist on agriculture...

...At the same time, growing demand for land meant that existing parcels were shrinking rapidly in size and availability...

...This marked the first time in Ecuadorian history that an indigenous movement forced the government to enter into a serious dialogue about national policies...

...A commission was established to debate proposed reforms to the Agrarian Development Law...

...The persistence of colonialist mentalities prohibited the country's elite from really considering the proposals set forth by the indigenous movement...

...By submitting these lands to the market forces of supply and demand, those who have little money will sell their small parcels, and those who have more money will begin to buy up all the land...

...Because of demographic pressures and the inability of most communities to acquire more land, the situation is growing worse-giving way, for example, to indigenous landlessness, a phenomenon that would have been unthinkable a decade ago...

...The army occupied many indigenous communities, harassing and beating the "rebellious Indians" and destroying homes and crops...

...The law would have led to an even greater concentration of land in few hands, and the proliferation of small private landholdings...

...In fact, they argue that the hold that and signed into law by these "new landowners" have on agricultural land is a 1994, over the objections barrier to further growth in the agricultural sector...

...The movement derives strength from the growing unity among the country's different indigenous organizations and its extraordinary capacity to mobilize people, indigenous and non-indigenous alike...

...This combination of the negative impact of neoliberal policies and the growing lack of The army destroyed the offices of the billingual education program in Caiar during the 1994 mobilization...

...As a consequence, they reason, an crests of indigenous and agrarian reform that would redistribute land is no e. The new law was passed longer necessary...

...Based on a f Agriculturalists and the number of highly questionable "investigations," IDEA's oducers...

...The direct line, however, began in 1972 with the founding of ECUARUNARI, which focused on land and cultural rights...

...2 The effort to put water under the dominion of the market caused tremendous commotion among Ecuador's indigenous and rural sectors, who argue that water is a natural, public resource...

...The pro od of two years, was the process of consultations wi constituents, including indige as non-indigenous campesino Members of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza (OPIP) march in the nationwide uprising in 1990...

...The majority of the rural population, however, remains mired in extreme poverty and lacks access to credit...

...Trade unionists called a general strike, stopping the delivery of goods into the city...

...In the 1970s and 1980s, indigenous organizations tended to focus on local issues-such as higher wages for farmworkers or access to a piece of land-and cultural issues-such as bilingual education-without a broader political perspective...

...In the highlands, traces of indigenous organization can be detected in the Ecuadorian Indigenous Federation (FEI) in 1940s...

...3 If the government implemented policies that developed the potential of the indigenous-campesino sector, food security for all Ecuadorians could be guaranteed and agricultural production for export could be stimulated...

...It has this power because of its strong links to the grassroots, as well as its ability to articulate local d of an absentee landlord in demands at the national level...

...CONAIE's munities, cooperatives and agriculturalists," says Luis 28NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 28REPORT ON INDIGENOUS MOVEMENTS Macas, president of CONAIE...

...Like other Latin American countries with large external debts, Ecuador was pressured by multilateral lending institutions to implement structural-adjustment policies...

...The protesters rallied behind the alternative proposal developed by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) [see "CONAIE's Agrarian Law Proposal", p. 25...

...Government authorities have not hesitated to lash out against indigenous leaders in a blatant attempt to delegitimize them...

...This proposal called for establishing fairer terms of access to land, and improving local technologies and productive capacities...

...The provincial administrative office of the bilingual education program in Cafiar was burnt down and destroyed...

...Commerce throughout Ecuador ground to a halt...

...The movement is focusing on the historic necessity of changing the rules of the political game: how resources are distributed, how the state is structured, and how policies are formed...

...The Federation's bilingualeducation programs became a prototype for other such programs in Ecuador in the ensuing decades...

...The government is apparently not concerned with these problems...

...The government agreed to recognize water as an essential public resource that cannot be privatized...

...While industrialization marched on with the help of generous government subsidies, the agrarian reform was stunted by the tenacious resistance of the landowners, grouped in the Chamber of Agriculturalists and the Association of Livestock Producers...

...The mutual coexistence of an exchange-based subsistence economy and a moneybased economy has facilitated the survival of the indigenous-campesino sector in times of economic crisis...

...Indigenous organizations set up roadblocks and boycotted marketplaces nationwide to protest the law...

...Land has become a key rallying point for indigenous groups across the country, and has helped unify the struggle...

...An impressive array of international human rights and environmental groups offered their support as well...

...Nor do we object only to the state's administrative apparatus...

...Our demands are not based only on immediate economic concerns...

...The way the law defined who was a qualified agriculturalist would have actually prevented indigenous people and campesinos from obtaining credit...

...If the indigenous people and campesinos, who are the primary owners of these small parcels, sell their land, there will be a huge food shortage, which will result in price speculation and price increases...

...Military rulers in power in Ecuador during a good part of that era sought to develop the country through import-substituting industrialization, a continuation of the agrarian reform initiated in 1964, state-regulated commercialization of basic foodstuffs, and state control over the oil industry...

...The Federation, located primarily in the southern Oriente, sought to ensure Shuar landholdings and to maintain Shuar culture...

...There were widespread rallies and protest marches in Quito and other urban centers...

...ignored many of CONAIE's 16 principal demands, the social democratic government of Rodrigo Borja did finally make two important concessions: the administration gave CONAIE the authority to name the director of the bilingual education programs, and granted large tracts of land to the Huaoranis and the OPIP in Pastaza...

...In the agrarian sector, neoliberal policies later on promoted the cultivation of "nontraditional" exports, such as flowers and tropical fruits like papayas and mangos...

...The mobilization's central objective was the repeal of the Agrarian Development Law, though its leaders also called for a halt to unrestrained oil exploration in the Oriente and to the persecution of indigenous leaders...

...The army Quichuas march to occupy lan did not even respect indige- September 1991...

...One of the first modern indigenous organizations in Ecuador was the Federation of Shuar Centers, founded in 1964 with the assistance of Salesian missionaries...

...pletely ignored the concerns of Ecuador's indigenous people, campesinos, and small farmers...

...The uprising was not only about alleviating the economic hardship in the countryside in the wake of structural-adjustment policies...

...It comNina Pacari is a lawyer and a leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE...

...The Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INERHI), a government agency, currently regulates concessions regarding water usage...

...Unlike the landowners, who see land as an instrument of production like any other, indigenous people see land as an essential foundation for our cultural, political, organizational and economic development, and of life itself...

...The Catholic Church mediated the negotiations...

...Many landowners were trying to assert their control over the water supply...

...Under the rubric of "modernizing agriculture," these regimes promoted the importation of machines and agricultural products, such as fertilizers and insecticides...

...communities representing all of Ecuador's indigenous nationalities participated in the mobilization...

...The protests were directed against the new so-called Agrarian Development Law, a key piece of the larger neoliberal structural-adjustment program being implemented by the government of Sixto Duran Ballen...

...Arrogant in the face of the severe weakness of the labor movement and certain that its tactics would also weaken the indigenous movement, the Durdin government believed that it could get away with imposing its Agrarian Development Law without any sort of national debate...

...At the same time, salary increases failed to keep pace with most people's dramatic loss of purchasing power...

...Campesino groups, small farmers, trade unions, popular organizations and other progressive groups joined the mobilization...

...Our true capacities have, however, often been neutralized by the context of domination in which we have subsisted for 500 years...

...We are demanding that the government recognize the different )test the indigenous nationalities that exist in Ecuador...

...Eleven different indigenous nationalities coexist in Ecuador today, comprising 45% of a total population of 12 million inhabitants...

...Soldiers dragged them out of religious temples and beat them...

...The Amazon jungle region (or Oriente) is home to six indigenous ethnic groups, numbering about 120,000 people, who use sophisticated sustainable systems to cultivate the fragile rainforest soils...

...The use of chemical inputs also severely contaminated the environment...

...Racist comments against the indigenous people were constantly batted around by the government to mobilize public opinion against the indigenous cause...

...access to land detonated the first indigenous uprising in June, 1990...

...This, however, overlooks several advantages of this sector...

...ent articulated what has proposal was completely ignored by both the Congress he reform of the first arti- and the President...

...According to 1994 data, in the highlands, 1.6% of farms occupy 43% of the land, while on the coast, 3.9% of farms occupy 55% of the land...

...The uprising also reflected the fruition of a long-term process in which the indigenous people recognized the importance of developing our own identity, constructing an indigenous perspective on national politics, and defining our role in the broader struggle for civil, political, economic and cultural rights...

...The underlying premise of proposals such as the Agrarian Development Law is that indigenous and campesino agriculture cannot be profitable given the small size of their parcels and the subsistence nature of their agriculture...

...nous places of worship, where many women, children, youth, and elderly people had sought refuge...

...After weeks of organizing, and frustration with stagnating talks with the government over indigenous land rights, CONAIE orchestrated this uprising that nearly paralyzed the country for a week...

...The country does not want to discuss its most profound dramas...

...In order to propose strategies to attack the social and ecological crisis:' states one study, "it is imperative to begin with the supposition that the social agents, in this case the popular sectors of the countryside, are in general both knowledgeable and able administrators of their own resources...

...A central element was recovering the lands that had been stolen from indigenous people...

...The government finally had to agree to negotiate with the indigenous organizations about how to revise the agrarian law...

...These are not without any sort just agricultural techniques-they are a fundaof national mental part of the indige- nous worldview...

...This would ostensibly permit new investThe National Agrarian ment and productivity in the rural sector, as well as 1 by CONAIE and other resolve the problem of supposedly inefficient commu-ganizations, had drafted a nal properties...

...The government promised to fund training workshops and other efforts by indigenous organizations to improve productivity in the indigenouscampesino sector...

...Agribusiness, which is closely tied to international consumer markets and has the money to buy the latest in technology, has profited from these market policies...

...rm of the nation's agrarian The idea that the indigenous people are Ecuador's the legislature for consid- "new landlords" is absurd...

...The few bits of land given to the indigenous and campesino population were of poor quality and located on precarious mountainsides...

...In the end, the fragmentation of communal lands would threaten the very existence of indigenous The Dur~in communities...

...Arrest warrants were issued against indigenous leaders, and peaceful rallies were violently repressed...

...Land in Ecuador is concentrated in the hands of a few...

...The uprisings also illustrate that our demands go beyond a concern for agrarian issues...

...The landowners' researchers claim that "the Indians are the new landgains won by the agrarian lords" in Ecuador...

...Commission (CAN), former indigenous and campesino or detailed proposal for the refo laws and had submitted it to eration in June, 1993...

...The government prefers to imbue the political debate with its own arrogance in order to hide its incapacity to understand the historic dimensions of these problems...

...The mobilization ended when the government agreed to national-level negotiations with CONAIE...

...As one observer suggests, "there are many reasons to believe that at the heart of the present crisis of civilization, the hour of indigenous people has arrived...

...Durin Ball6n decided to Part of the conceptual framework of the Agrarian Reform Law of 1964 with Development Law came from the conservative thinkgovern the rural sector tank Institute of Agricultural Strategies (IDEA...

...This was an especially important issue for landowners who grow flowers for export since flowers require an extraordinary amount of irrigation...

...It was the first time that the indigenous movem become its central demand: t cle of the Constitution to rec national country...

...In addition, the government agreed that the communal lands would not be divided up and sold...

...In the 1990s, while these concrete demands remain central concerns of the indigenous movement, they are now accompanied by demands of a more political stripe: the right to selfdetermination, the right to our cultural identity and our languages, and the right to develop economically according to our own values and beliefs...

...The response of the indigenous movement was immediate...

...In the face of this nationwide protest, the government declared a "State of Mobilization," putting the Armed Forces in charge of restoring order...

...We are conscious that we are an essential part of the country, and that we possess a substantial part of the human potential as well as productive resources of Ecuador...

...ir organizations...

...Most of this land is located on steep mountain ridges, and is useful only for pasture...

...Much will depend on the strength of indigenous and campesino organizations to make it a reality...

...In parts of the Amazon, indigenous communities took over oil wells to protest the privatization of Petroecuador, the state-owned oil company...

...The law approved by Congress called for the elimination of communal lands in favor of agricultural "enterprises," along with other measures that favored the interests of the big landowners...

...4. Hoy (Quito), May 9, 1994...

...These attempts to repress and intimidate the indigenous mobilization did not force the movement to back down...

...In June, 1994, a mobilization called by indigenous organizations in Ecuador shut down the country for two full weeks...

...Previous debate...

...We are questioning the very concept of an "Ecuadorian Nation" at the same time that we question the model of capitalist development that sustains it economically and the "civilizing project" based on material progress and individualism that sustains it culturally...

...This will nous communities as well become a serious social problem for indigenous com,s and farmers...

...A smaller number of indigenous Quichua-speakers also live on the coast, as the growing difficulties of rural life led them to leave their highland homes in search of better economic opportunities in coastal cities...

...After its attempts to quell the mobilization by violent means failed, the government finally agreed to negotiate the terms of the law with the indigenous organizations...

...s part of its larger neo government of Sixto replace the Agrarian new legislation that would according to free-market pri "Agrarian Development Law tive proposal developed by E grouped in the Chamber of Association of Livestock Pr' proposal rolled back the few reform, threatening the inter campesino communities alike by Congress in May, 1994 President Durin on June 13, of CONAIE and other popul Indigenous organizations the law's content, but by the which it came into being...

...Building upon the organizational development that has been achieved thus far, the indigenous movement is trying to formulate an alternative project to defend our communities against the dangers presented by the neoliberal model...

...The government also expressly recognized the diversity of actors in the rural sector, and the state's obligation to respect their cultures, forms of organizing, and technologies...

...nciples...

...All sectors of Ecuadorian society were surprised by the magnitude and the broad-based nature of the 1990 uprising...

...4 The negotiation process was extremely difficult for the indigenous movement, which had the weaker hand...

...The products that feed the majority of Ecuadorians are produced by small landowners (under 25 acres)":' says CONAIE president Macas...

...These policies had an immediate impact on rural communities, because the mechanization of agriculture meant that the large estates had less need for laborers...

...In the Oriente, these included the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo (FOIN) and the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza (OPIP...

...As a result, the number of rural people who migrate to the city will increase significantly, and the misery in the shantytowns will also increase...

...Moreover, indigenous and campesino communities provide 70% of Ecuador's main staples, such as corn, potatoes and barley, despite the fact that the land is of relatively poor quality...

...I do not know if it is ignorance or premeditated, but the government fails to see the historical anguish that is the basis of the indigenous peoples' actions," wrote the journalist Javier Ponce Cevallos in the Quito daily Hoy...

...Because we are not the only sector of society that has been marginalized, we have found important allies in our struggle among non-indigenous people...

...While not all of CONAIE's demands were incorporated into the revisions of the law, the government was forced to concede important points to the indigenous movement...

...Indigenous land ownership, in general, is very limited...

...INERHI should focus on providing the water," said one landowner, "and the water itself should become a negotiable product...

...2. Hoy (Quito), May 9, 1994...

...The article in the law regarding the privatization of water was also completely modified...

...The most fertile lands in the posal, drafted over a peri- Ecuadorian countryside remain concentrated in the outcome of an elaborate hands of a small group of large landowners, and many ith CONAIE's grassroots of those lands remain idle and unproductive...

...Over 3,500 indigenous The indigenous movement's central demand is the reform of the Constitution to recognize Ecuador as a plurinational state...

...Provincial and regional indigenous organizations were created in the 1970s...

...In 1980, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENAIE) was founded to represent the indigenous population of the entire Oriente...

...The nationwide indigenous uprisings of 1990 and 1994, as well as more regional actions such as the March of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza in 1992, have helped indigenous people reaffirm our identity realize our limits, and develop our proposals...