Ecuadors New Socialist Party Set to Win Elections Despite U.S. Intervention
and Deceptive Identity Politics
By Ron Ridenour - April 10, 2021 2
Jaime Vargas, right, the president of Ecuadors largest indigenous
organization CONAIE, supports socialist candidate Andrés Arauz, center, at
an April 3 rally. [Source: orinocotrubune.com]
[This article traces the past two months of Ecuadors chaotic national
election, supplemented with background on the past two administrations of
Rafael Correa (2007-17) and his one-time ally Lenin Moreno (2017-21).
Imperial intervention and identity politics play a major role in Ecuadorian
politics; This divide-and-conquer strategy is similar throughout American
and European politics.Editors]
Ever since the former President Rafael Correa-backed presidential candidate,
Andrés Arauz, won first place with 32.7% of the national election vote on
February 7 (first round), the U.S.-backed Pachakutik candidate, indigenous
eco-activist Yaku Pérez has been trying to defame Arauz and prevent him from
participating in the April 11th runoff election.
Andrés Arauz [Source: jacobinmag.com]
The National Electoral Council (CNE) initial conclusion for second place was
20.1% for Pérez and 19.5% for banker Guillermo Lasso, former head of Coca
Cola in Ecuador. This changed after four days of meticulous counting: Lasso
ended in second place with 19.74% and Pérez in third place with 19.38%.
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), founded
in 1986 to represent indigenous land rights, their culture and language, is
the largest indigenous organization in the country. Its political wing,
Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement New Country (MUPP or Pachakutik),
backed Pérez.
Indigenous ecologist Yaku Pérez on tour during presidential elections.
[Source: reporterre.net]
Yaku Sacha Pérez Guartambel is the son of campesino parents from the Andean
region. He changed his name, Carlos, to Yaku Sacha, mountain water in his
native language of Kichwa. He is not the left-wing, eco-socialist that he
sometimes claims to be.
Pachakutik is closely linked to NGOs funded by Washington and EU member
states. The partys leaders have been trained by the U.S. government-funded
National Democratic Institute (NDI), a CIA cutout that operates under the
auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), wrote investigative
reporter Ben Norton.
The NED publicly lists more than $5 million in grants for NGOs in Ecuador
just in the years from 2016 to 2019. Much of this money has bankrolled
anti-Correa opposition groups like Pachakutik and its allies.
Ecuador, in the sites of the U.S. [Source: resumen-english.org]
Guillermo Lasso leads the capitalist Creating Opportunities (CREO-PSC)
party. Lasso is the key founder of the center-right CREO, and stood for its
presidency in 2013. In this election, CREO merged with the Social Christian
Party (PSC). Founded in 1951, PSC has associated center-right parties
throughout Latin America and Europe.
Guillermo Lasso [Source: wikipedia.org]
Eighty-one percent of 13 million registered voters cast their votes. Ecuador
has a population of 17.3 million people, 1.1 million of whom are indigenous.
During two months of second round campaigning, Pérez maneuvered to
accomplish his objective of demonizing Arauz. He had the aid of the sitting
president, Lenin Moreno, the United States government, the leadership of the
Organization of American States (OAS), Colombias right-wing drug-dealing
government, and confused U.S./European intellectuals sympathizing with
indigenous people yet misinterpreting identity politics with justice and
equality for all.
Despite all these elite powers, as of April 3, it looked like Arauz, the
first presidential candidate of the new socialist party, Union of Hope
(UNES), has the best chance of winning the majority of Ecuadorian voters
over second place candidate Guillermo Lasso. After internal debate, CONAIE
called for support of Pérez at a rally where its president, Jaime Vargas,
and Arauz embraced.
Vargas said that the major indigenous organization officially supports
Andrés Arauz. He has absolute support of the indigenous movement,
reported the major Ecuadorian daily, El Universo.
Cecilia Velasque [Source: facebook.com]
This vote of confidence should be what it takes for UNES candidate to win
the upcoming second round. However, CONAIE sub-coordinator, Cecilia
Velasque, a leader of Pachakutik, called this decision treason. Velasque
called for voters to turn in blank ballots. In May, the divided CONAIE will
hold internal elections.
A Confusing Election Campaign
During this election, there were 16 candidates for president/vice president,
and the entire 137-seat legislature was contested. At first round figures,
Arauzs party would have 49 seats.
Taking fourth place was an alleged social democratic party, Left Democrats.
Its candidate, Xavier Hervas, won 15.69% of the vote. In his youth, he was a
baker; he then went on to study agricultural engineering and supported
capitalist policies. He publicly proposed forming an alliance with Lasso and
Pérez. Lasso agreed.
[Source: commons.wikimedia.org]
Alianza PAIS candidate Ximena Peña, the only woman running, garnered only
1.5% of the votes. In the first round of the 2017 elections, PAIS candidate
Lenin Moreno, then backed by President Rafael Correa, received 39% of the
votes. After Moreno turned sharply right, the party split up. Peña went with
Moreno, and Correa forces later formed UNES.
In August 2020, the 35-year-old economist Arauz was selected for the
presidency. He had been Correas Minister of Knowledge and Human Talent
(2015-17). He planned for Correa to be his vice president, but a court
denied Correa the right to run for political office.
Rafael Correa [Source: bbc.com]
In April 2020, an Ecuadorian court found Correa guilty of corruption and
sentenced him to eight years prison, in absentia. Correa was living in
Belgium following Morenos betrayal. From there, he denied any wrongdoing.
The court found Correa and 19 other defendants guilty of accepting $7.5
million from private firms in exchange for state contracts. Those convicted
were banned from any political role for 25 years.
Well, this was what they were looking for: manipulating justice to get what
they could never get via the ballot box, Correa quipped. He has since
decided to stay in Belgium and leave the political world, preferring to
write.
As president, Lenin Moreno sacked the CNE of Correa supporters. Some current
CNE members are followers of either Lasso or Pérez. Its president, Diana
Atamaint, is a member of Pérezs party.
Lenin Moreno [Source: theglobalamericans.org]
On February 12th, subsequent to the revision of who came in second place, it
was announced that CNE planned to conduct a partial recount of votes cast
after Pérez made unsupported allegations of vote-counting fraud.
CNE president Atamaint apparently had not listened to all of its members.
She had met privately with Pérez and Lasso and decided to concur with
Pérezs request for a recount of about 40% of all votes in 17 of 24 national
provinces, singling out areas where Pérez had done poorly, which raised
suspicions of a potential swindle.
The next day, CNE announced that only two of the five members had voted for
a recount. So, with egg on her face, Atamaint declared that there would,
unfortunately, not be a recount.
Besides being an eco-activist concentrating on preventing mining for
minerals on indigenous land, Pérez is also an attorney. He used his skills
to find other means to prevent a fair electoral second round.
Lasso wanted to unite with Pérez to defeat Arauz in the second round. At
first, Pérez seemed to agree, but then he changed his mind. On February
17th, Pérez tweeted a confusing message. After four years of Pérez
supporting the political agenda, close to his own, of Lassos party, he
blasted the banker, saying that his indigenous supporters will never
support his corruption. He claimed that Lasso and even the CNE committed
fraud.
This laid the basis for government intervention. After speaking with the
U.S. ambassador in Ecuador, President Moreno sent in his Comptroller General
Pablo Celi to inspect CNEs computer system. Arauz and Lasso, as well as the
Network of Electoral Observers, rejected this tactic, and criticized the
attempt to affect the electoral calendar with technological excuses.
Taking copies of the count and recount files is something normal, but
taking the computer equipment and impeding the ballot is an attack on
democracy, said Arauz. UNES will send its citizen-overseers to scrutinize
the process, and the party warned that democracy is under real threat.
The country needs us united on the same front to make Ecuador a land of
opportunities, Lasso added, rejecting the interference of the Moreno
administration in electoral matters.
The CNE stopped its activities after receiving the audit demand from
Comptroller Celi. He stated the process should be completed in less than
three weeks and should not affect the April 11 ballot.
Ben Norton reported, The leftists overwhelming victory prompted the U.S.
State Department, the right-wing government of neighboring Colombia, and the
Organization of American States (OAS) to mobilize to prevent [Arauz] from
entering office.
The recount would be overseen by the OAS, which inspired a military coup,
November 2019, targeting Bolivias elected government.
Isabel de Saint Malo [Source: iop.harvard.edu]
The head of the OAS electoral mission in Ecuador, Isabel de Saint Malo
[Saint Bad in English] the staunchly conservative former vice-president of
Panama, was intimately involved in the U.S.-led coup attempt against
Venezuela, working closely with Juan Guaidó and the pro-Washington Lima
Group. Guaidó had declared himself president at a news conference without
being elected.
The OAS disseminated lies about Bolivias October 2019 election, falsely
accusing the government of fraud. Now, the Colombian government is spreading
a remarkably similar series of lies about Ecuadors election and its
first-place candidate, Arauz, Norton wrote.
Julie Chung [Source: state.gov]
The Biden administrations acting assistant secretary for the State
Departments Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Julie Chung, tweeted,
U.S. government applauds the February 12 announcement by [CNE] to verify
votes in 17 provinces in Ecuadors February 7 presidential election. This
allows the electoral process to advance with enhanced guarantees to the
candidates and citizens alike.
At the same time, Colombias right-wing Iván Duque government intervened. It
sent its justice department head, Francisco Barbosa, to Ecuador claiming
that Arauz had been funded by Uriel, a guerrilla leader of the National
Liberation Army (ELN). The lie was revealed by linguistic and forensic
experts evaluation of a falsified viral video.
Francisco Barbosa [Source: nytimes.com]
Even Colombias ex-president, Ernesto Samper (1994-98), warned that his
countrys government was in a plot with the OAS to steal Arauzs electoral
victory. On February 13th, the liberal wrote:
Ernesto Samper [Source: wikipedia.org]
I can confirm that these claims are slander and form part of a dirty game
that radical right-wing sectors from both countries are organizing, from
inside Colombia, to interfere in the second round of the Ecuadorian
presidential elections.
Despite the lie being uncovered, Ecuadors right wing and Pérez persist in
spreading the fake news. They apparently hope that if UNES wins the
election, it will be stamped as fraudulent by a conspiracy of Pérez and the
U.S./OAS/Colombia axis and make it difficult for UNES to rule. The
consequences would be regime change as usual.
Yet another ploy of Pérez is to smear the veracity of the excellent
journalist Ben Norton by making damaging accusations without any evidence.
A collection of coup-supporting academics are lobbying to censor The
Grayzones factual journalism exposing Ecuadors presidential candidate Yaku
Pérez. Pérez is a self-declared environmentalist from a U.S.
government-backed party who has supported numerous right-wing coups in Latin
America, advanced xenophobic conspiracies, and demonized poor people in his
country, Norton said.
Ben Norton [Source: thegrayzone.com]
The academics have published a deceptive and distortion-laden open letter
that egregiously misrepresents my factual reporting and absurdly smears me
as racist and misogynist, based on absurd insinuations and outright
falsehoods.
Besides deploying a litany of baseless ad hominem smears, the academics
resorted to a wild array of demonstrably false claims that were contradicted
by the very same article they are seeking to censor.
The academics open letter called on the left-wing website Monthly Review
to retract a report that it posted on February 10. The story was a reprint
of an article initially published at The Grayzone a few days before, titled
How Ecuadors US-backed, coup-supporting ecosocialist candidate Yaku
Pérez aids the right-wing.
Monthly Review promptly succumbed to the censorship campaign, removing the
article from its website. [1]
In addition to targeting my reporting, the open letter attacks The Grayzone
contributor Denis Rogatyuk, calling on Jacobin Magazine to censor an article
that he published documenting Pérezs reactionary views and political
record.
The academics diatribe represents a desperate defense of Yaku Pérez,
flagrantly whitewashing the candidate and leaving out all of the
inconvenient facts that my reporting revealedsuch as Pérezs support for
the 2019 military coup in Bolivia; his endorsement of the soft coup against
Brazils Workers Party government; his cheering for violent U.S.-backed
coup attempts against leftist governments in Venezuela and Nicaragua; his
classist deprecation of poor people in his country; his racist incitement
against Venezuelan immigrants, and his repeated echoing of a debunked
right-wing conspiracy theory targeting Ecuadors leading socialist
candidate.
Yaku Pérezs wife and campaign advisor, Manuela Picq, is a prominent
French-Brazilian academic with close links to some of the very same scholars
who signed the letter. In fact, Picqs own mother, Lena Lavinas, is a
signatory, and was involved in a similar denunciatory open letter a week
before that featured high-profile supporters of the 2016 soft coup that
toppled Brazils democratically elected left-wing government.
False Prophet Yaku Pérez Backs Counter-Revolutions
Pérezs activism is based on limiting mining and fossil fuels. He decided to
become a lawyer to fight international mining companies from drilling by
court order, especially in indigenous territories. To do so, he has also
helped mobilize many people in legitimate protests. At the same time, he
befriends and supports businessmen, and takes handouts from the U.S.
government.
Pérez supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. . . .
Pachakutik and its supposedly left-wing environmentalist campaign is being
promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists, wrote Norton.
In November 2016, Pérez praised the U.S.-backed soft coup, which removed
Brazils left-wing Workers Party government from power, while also
endorsing a right-wing legal warfare campaign targeting Argentinas
progressive President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Corruption ended the governments of Dilma [Rousseff] and Cristina, Pérez
tweeted approvingly. Now all thats missing is for Rafael Correa and
[Venezuelan President] Maduro to fall. It is just a matter of time. In
another tweet, he wrote that, Arauz is the Maduro of Ecuador.
Pérezs ostensibly progressive ideology is filled with contradictions.
While the Correista candidate Arauz has proposed giving $1000 checks to one
million working-class Ecuadorian families, Pérez has attacked the plan on
the grounds that poor citizens would spend all the money on beer in one
day, Norton wrote.
Leonidas Iza Salazar, a Kichwa-Panzaleo and president of MICC (Indigenous
and Peasant Movement of Cotopaxi), warned that, right-wing activists and
members of the banker Guillermo Lassos conservative CREO party are in
Pérezs inner circle and are advising him.
Yaku Perez on the campaign trail [Source: writersrebel.com]
Pérezs eco-socialism policies include seeking money from the IMF;
promoting commercial relations with the U.S. and big business; reducing the
role of government in social welfare; and even reducing the role of
grassroots assemblies.
Some Western ecological organizations, however, which do not take on
imperialism or support socialism, such as Extinction Rebellion, oppose the
socialist and anti-imperialist UNES and support Pérez.
Beth Pitts is such a voice. She wrote that the current election pits the
indigenous defender against the former president who jailed him, [providing]
a battleground for two opposing ideologies. On one side, an expansion of
extractivism and authoritarianism. On the other, a ground breaking move
towards a more democratic and ecological future for Ecuador.
Beth Pitts [Source: writersrebel.com]
No doubt the most pertinent conclusion about such contradictions, and within
Ecuadorian Identity Politics today, is how Ben Norton concluded his piece:
The United States is desperate to prevent the socialist wave that washed
across Latin America during the first decade of the 21st century from coming
back. And in Washingtons bid to stop the tide, eco-socialist figures like
Yaku Pérez are perfect tools.
Yaku Pérez with U.S. Amabassador Michael Fitzpatrick. [Source:
thegrayzone.com]
Lenin Moreno Campaigns for Pérez
Lenin Moreno came from a left-wing middle class mestizo family. His father,
who became a senator, admired Vladimir Lenin and named his son after him.
This Lenin studied public administration and psychology. In 1998, he was
shot in a robbery attempt and lost the ability to walk. He has since used a
wheelchair.
Lenin Moreno with Trump, Pence and Pompeo as Ecuador election campaign
unfolds. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]
Within months of winning the 2017 election, Moreno started moving away from
his election platform, thus igniting a feud with ex-President Correa. Moreno
reversed several key pieces of legislation passed by the Correa
administration that targeted wealthy individuals and banks. He allowed
greater profit for national and international corporations by paying less in
taxes, and let them mine in areas protected by indigenous peoples
ecological base culture. [2]
In February 2019, Moreno announced that he had obtained a loan of more than
$10 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Muellers team investigated a meeting between
former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and President Moreno in Quito
shortly after he became president.
Moreno talked with Manafort about removing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, in a plot to get him extradited to
the United States. Correa had granted Assange citizenship and political
asylum in 2012.
In June 2018, Moreno met with Vice President Mike Pence to consolidate
security measures with the U.S., including buying weapons, radar sets, six
helicopters, as well as sharing military training and intelligence. They
also spoke about the mutual threat of Julian Assange.
Lenin Moreno and Julian Assange [Source: express.co.uk]
In August 2018, Moreno withdrew Ecuador from Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of Our America (ALBA).
In January 2019, Moreno supported Venezuelan opposition leader and
self-declared president Juan Guaidó. Soon thereafter, the IMF approved a
$4.2 billion loan for Ecuador. Then the World Bank approved the Social
Safety Net Project for Ecuador, a $350 million loan designed to assist poor
households that was to be repaid over 30 years.
Juan Guaidó and Lenin Moreno in Quito. [Source: infobae.com]
On April 11, 2019, Moreno revoked Assanges citizenship and asylum, allowing
British police to drag him out of the embassy. Judges threw him in a maximum
lock-down prison where he remains. The police left all his possessions at
the embassy; WikiLeaks documents and his legal documents were then turned
over to U.S. intelligence.
By mid-2019, Moreno moved Ecuadors diplomatic position even closer to U.S.
dominance by allowing it to use a military airstrip on the Galápagos
Islands, allegedly to monitor drug trafficking and illegal fishing. Charles
Darwin had studied the Galápagos ecosystem, which became an essential part
of his Theory of Evolution. Correa accused the government of capitulating to
U.S. pressure. Morenos government faced protests from environmentalists at
the airbase on Galápagos Islands.
Ecuadoran woman holds a sign that reads in Spanish Galápagos is not to be
sold, but to be defended and another calling Moreno a traitor during a
protest against plans to allow the U.S. military to use Galápagos Island as
a military base. [Source: theguardian.com]
In September 2019, pro-choice demonstrators protested proposed legislation,
which would have relaxed the nations strict abortion laws to allow for
abortion in the case of rape. The legislation failed to pass.
On October 2, 2019, Moreno abolished fuel subsidies, sparking the greatest
and longest protests in his term. The government lost control of the capital
and moved its headquarters from Quito to Guayaquil. Accounts vary, but
between seven and 11 people were killed, up to 1500 wounded, and 2,100
arrested during the resistance, which forced Moreno to restore the
subsidies.
Protests in Quito in October 2019 after Moreno slashed fuel subsidies.
[Source: axios.com]
Moreno enjoyed a popularity rating as high as 77% shortly after his election
in 2017. His approval dropped to 69% by the start of 2018. After the October
2019 Ecuadorian protests, Moreno reached an all-time low approval rating of
7%. He decided not to run again.
In yet another Norton investigative article, he wrote:
While [Morenos] government was busy clamping down on the left in Ecuador,
Lenin Moreno himself was in the United States. Just two weeks before the
election, he visited DC for several days.
Moreno had a series of meetings with powerful figures, including:
the director for the Western Hemisphere of the U.S. National Security
Council, Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, a special assistant to President Joe
Biden;
the secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis
Almagro, who helped oversee a coup against Bolivias democratically elected
socialist government in 2019;
the director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva;
hawkish U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Ben Cardin (D-MD);
and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Maurico
Claver-Carone.
Lenin Moreno and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the new chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on January 28, 2021. [Source:
foreign.senate.gov]
Encouraged by the Empire, Perez Persists in Trying to Steal the Election
Even though the ploy for a recount and confiscating CNE computers failed,
Pérez persisted in his anti-democratic campaign.
On March 9th, he called upon the states Contentious Electoral Tribunal
(TCE) to intervene. Again, he approached an electoral authority privately.
The U.S.-backed candidate seeks a recount of votes
[TCE] agreed to
process an appeal filed by candidate Yaku Pérez to recount over 20,000 tally
sheets from the first round
The appeal occurred amid the controversy unleashed by an alleged meeting
between the Indigenous candidate and TCE judge Ángel Torres in a private
building in Quito. According to the Tribunal regulations, no candidate can
meet with electoral judges.
The same day that TCE judge Torres said the Tribunal would look into the
matter, Ecuadors third-place presidential candidate, Yaku Pérez
Guartambel, has called for direct military intervention in his countrys
political system, requesting a purge of electoral authorities and a
nullification of the results of the February 7 election that he lost, Ben
Norton reported.
Pérez has also demanded that Ecuadors corrupt and undemocratic Lenín
Moreno government immediately issue a legal judgment against the
socialist-oriented candidate Andrés Arauz, who won the first round of the
presidential election in a landslide, in an effort to disqualify him based
on a debunked conspiracy alleging he received money from Colombian socialist
guerrillas in the ELN.
In a post on his official Facebook page on March 9th, Pérez endorsed an
extremely controversial article that demands that the Ecuadorian military
take-over, that Arauz be tried, that all of the members of the National
Electoral Council be replaced, and that the first round of the election be
nullified.
The next day, March 10th, TCE judge Torres apologized for meeting with Pérez
privately.
On March 14th, the TCE voted unanimously (four judges) to deny Pérezs
request for a recount, which they considered subjective, and not based on
evidence of fraud. This put an end to Pérezs and his party Pachakutiks
attempts to stop the election date and impose an arduous recount of votes
cast.
On March 16th, the majority five-member CNE voted once again not to take a
recount. National Electoral Council vice-president Enrique Pita said that
he doubted whether the call to spoil ballots would affect the result of the
run-off.
The desperate loser had called upon supporters to spoil their ballots after
he lost the battle for a recount bid.
UNES Program
Andrés Arauz during January 5, 2020, Insurgente interview.[Source:
insurgente.org]
Since Rafael Correa was disallowed as a political candidate, UNES chose
communicator and political analyst Carlo Rabascall Salazar as its
vice-presidential candidate. In his campaign launch event, he condemned
Morenos decision to make an advance $2 billion payment on the foreign debt
during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. The funds were taken from
public health and education systems. Thousands of health workers were fired
during this pandemic. This caused the second highest death rate per capita
in the world, after Peru.
Carlo Rabascall Salazar [Source: wikipedia.org]
Shortly after UNES candidates Arauz-Rabascall won the first round, Moreno
sent a bill to the National Assembly that aimed to place the Central Bank
under the control of private interest groups. Arauz rejected the defense of
dollarization bill, which would place corporate-sponsored people on the
board of directors of the Central Bank of Ecuador.
If this pro-bankers bill is approved, the next government will not have
effective instruments to make positive changes on issues such as credit
management, Arauz said.
UNES main four-year objectives are:
Justice for life and the reproduction of life
Participatory and deliberative democratic justice
Productive and economic justice
Intergenerational justice
Global justice, sovereignty and integration
De-colonial, pluri-national and inter-cultural justice
Ecological justice and energy transition
Equal justice for women and excluded groups
Digital justice and the new economy
Cognitive justice
Fair and impartial justice
Once the impact of Pérezs and his associates scurrilous attacks waned, and
manipulations by governmental authorities had largely failed, Arauz and
Lasso settled down to discussing and campaigning about real politics.
They have been debating how best to end the coronavirus pandemic, whether an
unfettered free market economy is superior to state-supported programs
(similar to New Deal social democracy), free or paid education and health
care, what to do with Ecuadors U.S. dollar value, relations with all the
Americas, and other practical matters.
The presidency of Rafael Correa has not taken a central place in the
campaign, but his legacy is very much on the minds of most Ecuadoriansa
good portion of whom remember him and the progress he brought to the working
class and poor with nostalgia.
Rafael Correa Presidency
Governments preceding Rafael Correa instituted neoliberal austerity and
privatization programs, prompting inequality, poverty and unemployment to
soar. Ecuador deteriorated into one of the poorest and least developed
nations in the region. Poverty reached 56% of the population. Two million
people fled the country between 1998 and 2003.
Ecuadors Citizens Revolution arose from popular repudiations of
neoliberalism and neocolonialism, similar to Chavista Venezuela and
Moraless Bolivia. It did not reject capitalism entirely but redirected
government budgets away from the wealthy and toward social programs and
infrastructure investments to benefit the majority.
Correa speaks in Guayaquil in January 2016 to commemorate the 9th
anniversary of Ecuadors Citizens Revolution. [Source: greenleft.org]
Rafael Correas rule (2007-17) was characterized by a new constitution,
which advanced rights of the indigenous peoples; nationalization of oil/gas
companies, which would not share profits with the state; large-scale social
welfare spending and infrastructure projects, as well as defaulting on
foreign loans; and tensions with the U.S. government, military and
corporations.
Correa, right, with Bolivias leftist president Evo Morales, and Nicolás
Maduro on the left. Washington has worked to remove all three populist
leaders. [Source: links.org]
William Blum wrote in Killing Hope that the CIA in Ecuador had infiltrated,
often at the highest levels, almost all political organizations of
significance, from the far left to the far right. In virtually every
department of the Ecuadorian government could be found men occupying
positions high and low who collaborated with the CIA for money.
Ecuador was saddled with the U.S.s largest air base in the region at Manta,
which was instrumental in the murderous Plan Colombia, and in enforcing
international banking and corporate rule over Ecuador. The new constitution
of 2009, based upon a referendum, banned all foreign military bases on
Ecuadorian soil.
U.S. soldiers patrol Manta Air Base before Correa had them expelled.
[Source: gettyimages.com]
We can negotiate with the U.S. about a base in Manta, if they let us put a
military base in Miami, Correa quipped. These bases are used to assure U.S.
control of other nations natural resources, and kicking a base out of the
country is often met by Washingtons retaliation. (In 2014, U.S. defense
department staff was expelled).
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, President Rafael Correa and Minister of
Foreign Affairs Ricardo Patiño. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]
A year later, groups of police held violent demonstrations against a law
that they claimed cut their benefits. Correa tried to speak to officers at a
police barracks, but was physically attacked. After being overcome by tear
gas, he was taken to a police hospital where he was basically held captive
by police. The Correa government had actually doubled police wages over the
past four years. The law would not cut benefits but rather restructure them.
This misunderstanding was used to rationalize the police protest.
The most extreme attempt at destabilizing Correas government came with a
violent U.S.-backed coup attempt on September 30, 2010. Defectors from the
Ecuadorian police and military occupied the parliament, blocked major
streets, took over state institutions, and effectively kidnapped Correa.
Military officers involved in attempted coup against Correa in 2010.
[Source: telesurenglish.net]
Five people were killed in the attempted putsch, and hundreds were wounded.
Ecuadors opposition nearly succeeded in removing the elected president from
power.
Pachakutik published an open call for Correa to be removed from power,
expressing public support for the police and soldiers who had defected.
Nevertheless, thousands of ordinary Ecuadorians mobilized to defend him,
surrounding the hospital. Tires were burned in front of every police
station, causing smoke to cloud the sky. Citizens and soldiers freed their
president.
Many indigenous people and alliances were outraged at MUPP and Pérez, and
then again when he supported the U.S.-backed military coup in Bolivia in
November 2019. When Luis Arce won the October 2020 election in Bolivia,
numerous Ecuadorian indigenous leaders were invited to the inauguration but
Pérez was not. When asked why, it was made clear that Pérez was shunned
because he had supported the coup.
Quite similar circumstances to the Ecuadorian coup attempt occurred in
Venezuela, April 11, 2002. Right-wing groups kidnapped President Hugo
Chávez, declared a new government, which the U.S. immediately backed. Within
48 hours, thousands of citizens and loyal soldiers freed their president.
Venezuelans celebrate victory of Hugo Chávez against U.S.-backed coup plot
in 2002. [Source: thecubannadshake.org]
The year before the coup attempt against Correa, another U.S.-backed coup
succeeded in the original Banana Republic, Honduras (November 2009).
Nobel Peace Prize recipient President Barack Obama recognized the military
coup as another change of government when U.S. Army School of the
Americas-trained generals overthrew capitalist rancher President Manuel
Zelaya.
He had taken measures to improve social conditions and joined ALBAa great
sin by U.S. standards.
The coup-makers subsequently withdrew from the progressive alliance.
Manuel Zelaya [Source: harvardpolitics.com]
Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro founded ALBA, in 2004, hoping to consolidate
regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering
and mutual economic aid. Correa brought Ecuador into ALBA in 2009. The
alliance has stood firm against U.S. subversion in Latin America, and
cultivated relations with Russia, China and Iran.
Between winning independence from Spain in the 1830s, to the First World
War, Honduras underwent 200 armed conflicts, most of them due to U.S.
intervention in the Banana Wars for United Fruit Company profits.
United Fruit workers load bananas onto ships under armed guard around the
turn of the 20th century. [Source: ancestry.com]
A major weapon in the world policemans arsenal is the hideous use of
torturing humans who the United States armed forces/CIA view as
non-compliant to its rule.
U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military
officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture,
blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents
released yesterday show, reported Dana Priest, in The Washington Post on
September 21, 1996.
In 2000, the U.S. Congress renamed the School of the Americas the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), rather than closing
it down.
We resisters still call it the School of Assassins. I flew from Denmark to
be with a friend at a large demonstration in front of the base on November
13, 2013. We made crosses and drew or painted victims names on them.
As we marched outside the torture chamber military base surrounded by three
layers of barbed wire, each of us carried a cross with the name of a person
tortured/killed by an SOA graduate. We stopped before the fence and shouted
his or her name. My spiritually connected brother was Felix Rolando Murillo
López, murdered on September 17, 2001, in Honduras. Presente camarada
Murillo!
Liberation theology priest Roy Bourgeois spoke for us: It has always been
about solidarityto accompany and to make anothers struggle for justice and
equality your struggle.
Photo of me holding brother Murillos cross on my terrace in Denmark. Jette
Salling photo.
Progress Under President Correa
Correa rejected IMF and World Bank policies, which had made Ecuador
numerous loans to entrap the country in debt, a game plan for Western
countries to dominate the global economy. Ecuadors debt was $14 billion in
1980, the country paid back $7 billion, and it still owed $14 billion
because of interest. The IMF demanded cuts in wages and state budgets, that
80% of the oil revenues go to debt payment, or it would use international
courts to seize their fleet and their contents, wrote Stansfield Smith, a
COHA scholar.
Correa renounced one-third of the then-existing debt as illegitimate
interest. He imposed significant taxes on the rich, including on capital
flight. These measures generated $1 billion in revenues in three years.
He compelled the Central Bank to repatriate billions in assets held abroad
and renegotiated more favorable oil contracts with multinationals, which he
used to triple investments in infrastructure and public services. Correa
diversified the economy so that non-oil exports accounted for two-thirds of
export income. These measures enabled Ecuador to earn a 4.2% annual growth
rate from 2007 to 2015, even during the international financial crisis
brought on by Wall Street corruption.
Correas government invested $20 billion in education, making all education
free for everyone. Financing came largely from royalties for mining projects
and state oil revenues. Low-income students were provided with free school
supplies, books, uniforms, and meals. More than 300,000 children who used to
have to work went back to school.
Correa visits a new school built through state oil revenues in Azuay in
October 2015. [Source: telesurenglish.net]
To preserve Original Peoples identity, the government provided new schools
in native languages, and fostered public TV and radio stations promoting
programs in Quechua and other languages. The 2013 Media Law gave the
indigenous communities greater access to community media. By December 2014,
14 radio frequencies, combined with funding and training, were assigned to
each of the countrys indigenous groups.
Ecuadors minimum wage was doubled, from $170 a month to $375, one of the
highest in Latin America. Companies could not pay dividends until all
employees earned a living wage. The labor of homemakers, contributing to 15%
of the GDP, was legally recognized. Consequently, 1.5 million homemakers
received social security benefits, including disability compensation and a
pension.
Correa invested $16 billion in quality free health care over his entire
administration. In the 40 years prior to the Citizens Revolution, not one
new public hospital was built in any of the main cities. During Correas
time, 13 new hospitals were constructed and 18 more were under way. The
health system added 34,000 medical professionals. Thanks to free health care
(still a dream in the U.S.) and greater access to services, visits to the
doctor have almost tripled in ten years.
The United Nations recognizes only eight countries as meeting the two
minimum criteria for sustainable development. In the Americas, there are
only three, Ecuador, Cuba and Colombia. Ecuador made major advances in
converting to renewable energy, one of the highest percentages of renewable
energy in the world (85-95%). By 2015, Ecuador had cut the rate of
deforestation in half.
Correas government made it illegal for employers to discriminate due to
sexual orientation and same-sex unions were legalized. A gender identity law
allows citizens to state on their ID their gender identity instead of the
sex given at birth.
Affirmative action laws require companies to reserve 4% of jobs for people
with disabilities, and other quotas for minority ethnic groups, indigenous
and Afro-descendants.
Four of the five TV channels were owned by the four largest banks. Correas
government backed a referendum that prohibited banks from owning the media.
Airwaves were divided into three groupings: one-third private, one-third
state-owned, and one-third for community grassroots outlets. A company
cannot own more than one AM station, one FM station and one television
station.
Achievements of Ecuadors Citizens Revolution. [Source: greenleft.org]
During 2016, the nation suffered a recession due to lower oil prices, and a
severe earthquake that cost 668 peoples lives and $3.3 billion in damage.
Still, when Correa ended his term the annual growth rate was 3.3%. Poverty
had been reduced from 37.6% to 22%.
When Correa became president, the richest 10% accounted for 42 times as much
wealth as the poorest 10%. At the end of his terms, this gap was cut in
half, one of the most dramatic reductions in inequality in Latin America.
Conclusion
If Arauz wins the presidency, he may appoint an important economist and
ideologist of the Citizens Revolution to a government post. Ricardo
Patiño was Correas first minister of economy, then minister of foreign
affairs (2010-16), and defense minister at the end. In the early 1980s, he
aided the Nicaraguan Sandinista governments socialist economic direction.
Ricardo Patiño [Source: wikipedia.org]
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) conducted
an interview with him as Ecuadorians went to the polls on February 7. He
spoke about the Citizens Revolution during the time of Correas
presidencywhat went well and what was lacking:
We ran a good government from the top but not enough with the people, and
that was a serious mistake, which we must correct, he explained. Our
political process did not sustain the peoples movements. We did not prepare
our people to carry out the historic movement.
When Moreno took power and immediately turned his back on our advances, our
population did not have enough consciousness and did not mobilize to undo
that betrayal, not for some time. Many got confused by Morenos lies,
which the mass media propagated.
We [leaders] must [focus on] a systematic structural basis to aid in
strengthening social movements to consolidate, to advance, to become
historic agents for [fundamental] change. [3]
Patiño believes Arauz understands that damage and will seek to repair it.
Patiño believes that work to broaden the media base, in order to represent
peoples needs and movements, is one of the first essential tasks of a new
government. More cooperative self-production must become incorporated in the
infrastructure. Better education of teachers and students should be a
priority, as should much less dependence on foreign companies and their
technology.
Russell Means [Source: wikipedia.org]
[1] Monthly Review has been a solid anti-imperialist, pro-socialist magazine
for decades. I certainly hope that the current editors apologize to Ben
Norton and replace his articles on its site. The left is becoming even more
divided, because so many white leftists refuse to comprehend that some
people of color can be wrong in their politics. Another example of this
dilemma is that of Oglala Sioux and American Indian Movement (AIM) leader
Russell Means. In 1973, Means co-led the occupation of Wounded Knee, in
South Dakota, in which I participated and worked with Means. Yet in 1985, he
aligned himself with Miskito natives in northern Nicaragua and southern
Honduras in their opposition to the revolutionary Sandinistas. Means even
declared that he would take up arms with Miskitos, who became supporters of
the CIA/Reagan-backed Contras. This reactionary action led to further splits
within AIM and its supporters. Means soon became a Hollywood actor in
Cowboy-Indian movies.
[2] I have been unable to find any source that explains what made Moreno
turn tail so drastically and so quickly.
[3] Given my eight-year long experience as a media worker in Cuba (1988-96),
a year in Nicaragua working with the Sandinistas, months in Chávezs
Venezuela and with Moraless Bolivia, I view Patiños judgment to be exactly
what has been missing to various degrees with all revolutionary governments.
Delivering power from top to bottom, in which the working class and citizen
allies can become the key protagonists to provide real leadership, has never
occurred. That is a key reason for the dissolution of the Russian
Revolution/Soviet Union. Following its dissolution, many people who were
revolutionary minded, also in the major capitalist countries, either gave up
struggling for such or reduced visions to liberalizing the establishment.
