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Ecuador indigenous protests in ecuador { March 22 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/international/americas/22cnd-ecuador.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/international/americas/22cnd-ecuador.html
March 22, 2006
Ecuador's President Declares a State of Emergency
By JUAN FORERO
BOGOTA, Colombia, March 22 —President Alfredo Palacio of Ecuador declared a state of emergency late Tuesday as growing antiglobalization protests by thousands of Indians threatened to paralyze Latin America's fifth-largest oil producing country.
Troops deployed to rural highland communities outside of Quito, the capital, cleared tree trunks and burning tires Tuesday, while firing tear gas at demonstrators. But protest leaders today vowed to press on.
The government's move came on the ninth day of mounting protests that have closed off highways, leading to millions of dollars in lost commerce.
"We're declaring the state of emergency to allow people to get back to work and the country to progress," the presidential spokesman, Enrique Proaño, said on Ecuadorean television this morning.
The state of emergency prohibits marches, sets curfews and gives broad police powers to the government's security forces in four of Ecuador's 22 provinces, as well as in parts of Pichincha, the province where the capital is located. The authorities said they wanted to act to keep protesters from blocking access to Quito.
Still, indigenous leaders said the protests would continue. They demanded that the government back out of negotiations with the United States for a free trade agreement, saying such a pact would decimate rural farming in Ecuador.
The president of the powerful Conaie Indian confederation, Luis Macas, told a group of foreign reporters today that protesters also wanted Ecuador to wrest control of the oil industry from foreign multinationals like EnCana and Occidental Petroleum. While protest leaders said their purpose was not to remove President Palacio from power, they demanded that the government revamp itself.
"We are concerned about the state of emergency, but we will continue the protests," Mr. Macas said.
Political analysts say that the Indians have been unable to gain wide backing in Quito or other large cities, nor are they united in their demands. But the movement remains potent, threatening for a government that is chronically weak.
"Ecuador has shown in the past that it does not have the ability to establish public order," said César Montúfar, a political analyst at the Simon Bolivar Andean University in Quito, in a phone interview. "So even though you have a state of emergency, the mobilizations are the same, and you don't see that the government is in a position to apply force and establish public order."
The tiny country of 13 million has long been rocked by protests, with three Ecuadorean presidents toppled by political turmoil since 1997. The latest was Lucio Gutiérrez, who in April 2005 was removed from office by the Congress in the wake of a series of protests against his heavy-handed rule and unpopular austerity measures.
Mr. Palacio, a cardiologist who had been the vice president, took over and immediately signaled that his government would be different, with less focus on the kinds of free market reforms that have been rejected by many Latin Americans. "From today, we will restore a republic with a government of the people," he said in a speech on the day he took power.
But with neighboring Colombia and Peru agreeing to free trade pacts with the Bush administration, Mr. Palacio's government had made securing a trade deal with Washington a priority. A key problem has been that Mr. Palacio has little backing for any of his initiatives.
"This is a government that's extremely weak," said Adrián Bonilla, a political analyst at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Quito. "The president doesn't have a bloc in Congress to offer support, there's no political force to offer support, there's no support from any economic or social group."
Mr. Palacio, though, has vowed to continue with trade talks, including a final round of negotiations with the United States on Thursday.
Carla D'Nan Bass contributed reporting for this article from Quito.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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