The Guardian 22 March, 2006
Ecuador hit by anti-FTA actions
The Ecuadorian Government last week was hit by national indigenous mobilisations that have blocked off nearly the entire Andean region of the country in protest against the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that Ecuador is negotiating with the United States.
Passenger and cargo vehicle traffic was virtually paralysed in most of the northern, central and southern Andean region due to road blocks created by indigenous activists.
The situation became more complicated for the Alfredo Palacio Government when Minister of the Interior Alfredo Castillo, a man of progressive ideas, resigned in disagreement with the official use of violence that has left seven wounded and 16 detained.
The indigenous protest has been joined by an indefinite general strike in two provinces in the central Andean and Amazonian regions of the country in demand for public works.
The National Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador (CONAIE), that is heading the mobilisation, is also demanding the termination of the state contract with the US transnational Occidental Petroleum (OXY), for not meeting commitments.
Sources from the indigenous organisation confirmed that their president Luis Macas met last week with Felipe Vega, government under-secretary in Latacunga, the capital of Cotopaxi, one of the principal scenarios of the mobilisation.
The parties did not reach any agreement other than to wait for the Palacio Government to respond to the indigenous demands.
After his surprise visit to the United States, President Palacio had seemingly returned willing to sign the FTA.
The capitalist theory of "divide and rule" is being used by the US government; what it was unable to achieve with a bloc of countries, it is trying to do in a bilateral form.
The Ecuadorian authorities had planned to conclude the FTA negotiations in December 2005. However, during the 14th negotiating round in Washington the country stated that it was not willing to cede on the issue of intellectual property rights beyond what was agreed with Central America.
Agriculture is another controversial issue in the negotiations. In exchange for the introduction of a few export products in the US market, Ecuador would "grant considerable access to products exported by the United States". This would bankrupt Ecuador’s small-scale agriculture and dairy farming as these cannot compete with the large-scale subsidised agricultural produce of the United States.
As time gets shorter, concern is growing among the social sectors that would be affected by the agreement. According to CONAIE, "The signing of the FTA would mean the destruction of the country’s agricultural production, which is the base of our economic sustenance and Ecuadorian food security and sovereignty, currently threatened by the introduction of subsidised and transgenic products. Another threat is the privatisation of water located in the highlands and in the indigenous constituencies of the Amazon. Oxygen is to be privatised with the buying and selling of ‘environmental services’, another geo-imperial strategy of the United States."
With the FTA, "the precarious health of Ecuadorians would be aggravated by a rise in the price of medicines and the disappearance of generic drugs. The ancestral knowledge of our people is in danger. Unemployment, poverty, crime and migration will increase", added CONAIE.
Another combined demand of the indigenous movement and the social sectors in general is related to the expulsion of the US transnational OXY, a review of all contracts harmful to the country’s interests and the nationalisation of oil. The Attorney General and the Petroecuador state oil company have demanded the termination of the OXY contract due to breaking a contract with the state by selling 40 percent of its exploitation rights to the Canadian ENCANA company without asking the Ministry of Energy and Mines for authorisation, thus giving them grounds for nullifying the contact.
And finally, CONAIE is calling on the Government to convene an Assembly with full powers and with the participation of all the peoples and nationalities of Ecuador with a view to forming a multi-ethnic national state.
The labour unions of Ecuador, with some 200,000 members, announced last Wednesday the start of a staggered strike against the Alfredo Palacio Government. "We are going to show him that if he doesn’t listen to us he will have to go home, because the general slogan, from the countryside to the city, is: ‘FTA signed, Palacio out’", said Mesías Tatamues, President of the trade union federation Cedoc-Cut.
Tatamues added that the unions will also take to the streets to demand the annulment of the contract with OXY — implied in the lawsuit with the state — a wage increase of $30, and the rejection of Plan Colombia against drugs and the insurgency movement, because of its effect on the Ecuadorian people.
"A government that only has 14 percent support cannot sign the Free Trade Agreement on behalf of all Ecuadorians, and this he must understand. Unfortunately here the people are only heard when they take to the streets", added the Cedoc-Cut leader.
Ecuador expects to wrap up negotiations on the trade agreement with the United States after March 23, the date for what could be the final round of discussions in Washington.
Feelings of great uncertainty have invaded Amazonian inhabitants due to the state of emergency declared in this area and government inflexibility in ending the strike by subcontracted oil workers.
Granma