Ecuador: US-backed coup is crushed by the people
Defeat of the coup
On Thursday 30th September news broke of a coup
attempt in Ecuador’s capital city Quito against the country’s president, Rafael
Correa. On the back of a protest sparked by a new law on civil service pay and
promotion, police across the country had been encouraged by opposition forces
to stay in their barracks, neglecting their duty to maintain social order.
Intervening personally, the president went to the main police barracks in Quito to reason with the police and explain the legal reforms in person. There he met
with a violent reaction: Correa was jostled, shots were fired, he was sprayed
with tear gas and a number of combat grenades exploded nearby. In short, he
narrowly escaped assassination.
Under these circumstances the president exhibited
remarkable courage and presence of mind, standing in full public view at a
window in the barracks to face down the mutiny. He told the police, “If you
want to kill the president here I am, kill me! Kill me if you’re not happy.
Kill me if you are brave. But we will continue with one policy, one justice,
dignity, and we will not take one step backwards.” Finding the mutineers
deaf to reason, Correa donned a gas mask and, with his bodyguards, took refuge
in a military hospital. The streets around the hospital were then sealed off
by rebel police, assisted by thugs in plain clothes armed by the opposition.
However, the mutineers besieging the president in
turn rapidly found themselves besieged by tens of thousands of angry Quito
citizens who took to the streets to defend the Presidential palace and do
battle with the rebels, braving tear gas grenades and other missiles in their
efforts to save their president and prevent the subversion of Ecuador’s democracy.
Finally, patriotic military forces arrived to escort Correa to the presidential
palace and end the coup attempt, which had resulted in the reported loss of
five lives.
Coup, what coup?
The imperialist response to these events was
curious. Had the coup proved successful, as was tragically the case in
Honduras last year with the US-sanctioned ousting of the democratically elected
president Zelaya, then we can be sure that, after a ritual murmur of concern
about the irregularity of the proceedings, the new facts on the ground would
rapidly be portrayed as ‘inevitable and probably for the best’. With a nod and
a wink from Hillary Clinton to Lucio Gutierrez, the waters could be left to
close quietly over democracy in Ecuador.
In confirmation of this we need only glance at Honduras, now enduring the shame of living under a US-backed government. Honduras is now a crisis-ridden society in which the assassination of journalists and
political activists is a regular occurrence. Its comprador government has failed
to win recognition from either Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina or the collective
organisation of UNASUR (Union of South American nations), despite all of Washington’s threats and cajolery. Such is the fate which US imperialism and its creatures
desire for the people of Ecuador.
However, a coup that is successfully resisted is a
different kettle of fish, as Washington discovered to its cost in Venezuela, where the struggle for national independence and democracy grew stronger after
the failure to topple Hugo Chavez in 2002. Instead of slinking back into the
shadows, the imperialist puppet-masters found themselves caught in the full
glare of political exposure, thanks to the timely defeat of the coup they had
so sedulously cultivated. The political lessons thereby learned by the people
of Venezuela were of immeasurable benefit to the national democratic struggle.
Washington is now reliving the nightmare
humiliation it suffered back then in Venezuela, and is doing its best to escape
the consequences of its actions by smoothing things over and pretending that
nothing much has really happened. A week after the coup failed, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton felt obliged to offer belated formal support for the obvious
legitimacy of Correa’s presidency, whilst offering some unsolicited and “even-handed”
advice urging “all Ecuadoreans to come together and to work … to reach a
rapid and peaceful restoration of order.”
Meanwhile the bourgeois press has been doing
everything in its power to bury the story as fast as possible, even casting
doubt on there having been a coup at all in the first place! On 1st October the
BBC’s Ecuador correspondent Irene Caselli offered the opinion that “talking
about a traditional coup in Ecuador, or even a coup at all, might be going too
far”, and other reports suggest that nothing more serious had occurred than
some “spontaneous” protests by aggrieved public servants culminating in
some minor “roughing up” of the president. Given the contrast with the
media outcry which greeted the symbolic protest by the Iraqi journalist who
lobbed a shoe at George Bush’s head, for which this patriot suffered
incarceration and torture, it seems that a US president who commits war crimes
is more deserving of respect than the president of a Latin American country who
stands up for the dignity and independence of his country.
Made in the USA
Despite all these efforts to pretend that the coup
never happened, or that it did happen but should not be taken seriously, or
that it should be taken seriously but imperialism had nothing to do with it,
the humiliating truth crawled out of the wreckage: the coup had been deadly
serious and it had Washington’s fingerprints all over it. As Mark Weisbrot
posted on the Huffington Post on 7th October (‘Attempted Coup in Ecuador
Fails, But Threat Remains’), “to anyone who watched the prolonged, pitched
gun battle on TV last night, when the armed forces finally rescued President
Correa from the hospital where he was trapped by the police, this did not look
like a protest. It was an attempt to overthrow the government. The coordinated
actions in various cities, the takeover of Quito’s airport by a section of the
armed forces – all of this indicated a planned coup attempt. And although it
failed, at various points during the day it was not so clear what the outcome
would be”.
Radio Havana joined up some of the dots of
the plot to foist regime change on Ecuador (‘Sinister long arms behind the coup
in Ecuador’). They noted that just a week before the coup, the opposition
leader Lucio Gutierrez – a disgraced former president brought down by popular
protests in 2005 – paid a visit to Florida to address the “American
Institute for Liberty and Democracy”. This outfit is run by the Cuban
renegade and terrorist Carlos Alberto Montaner, a man who does services for the
CIA, is lionised by the Miami Mafia and stays in close contact with the
Republican party. He was one of the most vocal supporters for the coup against
President Zelaya in Honduras whose kidnapping and deportation he publicly
supported. Clearly at home in this nest of vipers, Gutierrez “pointed to the
need to oust President Correa to resolve what he called a ‘crisis’… there were
sections of the army that were unhappy with what he called the proximity of the
Armed Forces with Colombian rebel groups. Sitting close to him at the time of
his speech was Colonel Mario Pazmiño, former head of military intelligence.
Pazmiño has been accused of having links with the CIA and was discharged after
the Colombian incursion into Ecuador in March 2008, when Colombian rebel leader
Raul Reyes was killed. Among the audience who carefully listened to
ex-President Gutierrez’s lecture were notorious Republican leaders, closely
linked to the U.S. extreme-right, plus the usual counterrevolutionary fauna
that always rants and raves against Cuba and Venezuela. When Montaner
introduced the speaker, calling him ‘a true democrat’, he said that Gutierrez
was the only one who could take Ecuador out of the crisis into which, according
to him, 21st century socialism has plunged the nation.”
Further light on the CIA’s machinations is provided
by Nil Nikandrov in an article posted on Global Research on 5th October
(‘Ecuador Coup Attempt Engineered by the CIA’). He reports that “The
subversive activity targeting president Correa is coordinated by Heather Hodges
who was appointed as the US ambassador to Ecuador in August, 2008. She did a
job in Guatemala during the reign of its bloody dictator Rios Montt and served
as deputy director of the US State Department’s Cuban division which is known
to be tightly interwoven with the CIA. Mrs. Hodges also worked with USAID [United
States Agency for International Development] in several countries and served
as the US ambassador to Moldova where her mission was to alienate the country’s
leadership from Russia and to organize a colour revolution with the help of
pro-western NGOs and the energetic youths from the US Peace Corps. At the
moment her trainees are employed by the CIA stations in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador… Hodges was instructed to launch the operation aimed at weakening
Correa’s positions and – in the longer run – toppling him. USAID alone made a
$40m financial infusion into the cause, former president Lucio being the key
figure in the plot. Gutierrez’s disastrous presidency ended with his escape
from the country. Following an amnesty, he challenged Correa in the 2009
presidential race which he explainably lost… According to the coup blueprint
drafted by the CIA, Gutierrez was to announce the removal of ‘dictator’ Correa
and the transfer of authority to a provisional government in a televised
address. The plan additionally included the disbandment of Ecuadorean
parliament and the organization of snap elections. The conspirators, however,
were dispersed by the defenders of the legitimate president and failed to clear
Gutierrez’s access to TV.”
It is clear from such facts that it is the friends
of imperialism who seek to precipitate crisis, not the guardians of the
country’s democracy and sovereignty.
Correa’s record
What is it about the present government and
presidency that excites such wrath in certain sections of Ecuadorean society?
A brief retrospect of Correa’s record in office should help to explain the line
of demarcation between his allies and his opponents. Correa was first elected
at the end of 2006, winning a large popular vote for his left-wing platform.
That initial support has held up well, judging from the 67% approval rating the
president registered in Quito shortly before the abortive coup.
Under his presidency spending on health care has
doubled and other areas of social spending have also seen substantial
increases. $3.2 billion of foreign debt was successfully repudiated on the
grounds that the debts had been fraudulently contracted. Despite the global
crisis, Ecuador is expected to show growth of around 2.5% in 2010 – hardly
grounds for the “crisis” scaremongering indulged in by Gutierrez and his pals
in Miami.
On the international front, Correa won warm popular
support for his closure of the US airbase in Mante, his espousal of close
relations with Nicaragua and Venezuela, and his opposition to US efforts to
turn Colombia into a centre for counter-revolution in Latin America.
Mark Weisbrot, from whose Huffington Post
article the above figures are taken, notes that not all is plain sailing
however. For one thing, Ecuador adopted the dollar back in 2000, which means
there is no governmental control over the exchange rate. This consideration,
says Weisbrot, means that Correa “has had to use heterodox and creative
methods to keep the economy growing in the face of external shocks”. Clearly,
maintaining Ecuador’s independence cannot be divorced from keeping her solvent,
so decisions have to be taken which do not suit all sections of society. It looks
like featherbedding of the police department is one thing that had to go.
In actual fact, in the course of Correa’s
presidency police salaries have gone from $700 a month to $1,200 a month,
bringing their pay up to more than double the average wage. For some in the
higher reaches of the police service, however, such a relatively privileged
status within society cannot compensate for the determined manner in which the
government has severed the corrupt connections with the US Embassy which
previously compromised the integrity of the service. Elsewhere in his Global
Research piece, Nil Nikandrov notes that, “Over the past several years
the police of Ecuador was courted by the US Embassy which no doubt had its own
interests in mind. Money from funds run by the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, and other
US agencies was routinely poured into bonuses for the police top brass and
operatives, equipment for various police divisions, etc. The cooperation became
so cordial that occasionally the US intelligence community used Ecuador’s police and army intelligence service to keep under surveillance the country’s politicians,
journalists, and others regarded as potential opponents of the US. Ecuador’s intelligence services rushed information to their US partners during the crisis that
hit the country’s relations with Columbia after the latter bombed FARC camps in
the territory of the former, leaving their own government blind to details of
the situation. The January, 2007 advent of Correa’s patriotic administration
largely put an end to the abnormal arrangement.”
The indigenous question
Sadly however it is not alone from such quarters as
the police, local oligarchs and disgruntled elites that opposition to some of
the government’s policies has come. From the outset the government has sought
to unify Ecuador, paying a good deal of attention to the question of the rights
and responsibilities of her indigenous peoples. Across Latin America it was
the spontaneous struggle of Amerindian tribes against the wholesale
privatisation and plunder of natural resources by multi-national companies
which helped create the conditions favouring the current wave of left-leaning
governments standing for democracy and independence. In recognition of this
Correa oversaw the drafting of a new constitution in 2007/8 which established Ecuador as a “plurinational” state, guaranteed indigenous rights and pledged to
protect the environment.
Yet the anti-Correa quote that was most eagerly
picked up by the BBC and others and relayed all over the world was that from
Lourdes Tiban, leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE) and an erstwhile supporter of the president. At the precise
moment when the coup was disintegrating under the pressure of popular support
for Correa, setting off alarm bells all the way back to Miami and Washington,
the hapless Tiban threw the reactionaries a lifeline. She told the BBC that the
violence was “the result of months of protests all of the social sectors
that have been trampled on by the government,” adding that “Correa can’t
act as a victim right now and say there’s been a coup attempt. There’s been no
coup attempt whatsoever. What’s happening now is his responsibility, he’s
calling for a confrontation.” As the elected representative of the Ecuadorean
people was narrowly escaping with his life, Tiban was to be heard blurting:
“If all the president needs is to go home and rest his leg – we’ve never asked
for the president to resign but if the government falls, it will be Correa’s
own fault out of his ignorance for not having wanted to listen to the
Ecuadorean people.”
Clearly, Ecuador faces a real dilemma over how best
to manage her natural wealth. Back in 2007 when Tiban still supported the
government, she proposed at the UN that the international community, in accord
with its professed concern for the environment, should make funds available to
preserve certain areas like the Yasuni national park. Such places were the
site of rich bio-diversity and were also the tribal homelands of many people.
They were also the site of vast natural wealth in the form of unexploited oil
resources. In exchange for preserving this natural heritage on behalf of the
world (and also the livelihoods of its inhabitants), Tiban proposed that the
international community should compensate Ecuador for the potential oil
revenues she must needs forgo in order to preserve these sites intact.
Given that imperialism does not give a damn about
the livelihood of indigenous peoples, has no interest in assisting the economic
independence of Ecuador and regards the resources of the entire planet as fair
game for imperialist plunder, it is not surprising that the response to Tiban’s
proposal was less than lukewarm. This left Ecuador with two possible roads to
travel. The road chosen by the elected leadership is to try and balance the
material needs of the country as a whole with the livelihood of indigenous
areas. The road followed at present by CONAIE is to demand an embargo on all
oil extraction in the tribal zones, even in the absence of the international
compensation denied by the international community. This is what is meant by
CONAIE’s repudiation of what it calls the “extractive model”.
This latter approach blurs the distinction between
unfettered imperialist plunder of Ecuador’s resources on the one hand and the
regulated development of these resources that ties in with Ecuador’s overall
economic progress as a single – albeit “plurinational” – sovereign
country. A good proportion of the increase in social spending has been funded
by revenues from Ecuador’s own resources, to the benefit of Ecuador as a whole,
and whilst curbs must be put upon the relative influence of multi-nationals in
the economy, this complex struggle is not assisted by those who simply reject
the “extractive model” out of hand and cultivate the illusion that
salvation lies in reversion to more primitive modes of existence and abstention
from all industrial development. Whilst such fantasies may comfort some green
reformists and “noble savage” fans in the West, they are of no practical help
to those countries trying to get out from under the Anglo-American imperialist
net and take control of their own resources and development. Rest assured that
the rights of indigenous people will be so much chaff in the wind should a
breach in the unity of the democratic forces allow Uncle Sam yet again to trash
the sovereign rights of these countries.
Of far greater assistance to the struggle are the
relations of mutual support now being established between those democratic
Latin American countries which have signed up to the ALBA alliance (Bolivarian
alternative for the Americas). The presidents of eight of these countries came
together in Ecuador last June. Such meetings are not like the big imperialist
jamborees organised by the G8 or the World Bank, well-deserving of the mass
popular protests which greet them at every turn. On the contrary, each of these
democratically elected presidents spoke for the progressive forces of his own
country in a common endeavour to improve life for all the people of the region.
Yet CONAIE took offence that no special seat had been reserved for them at the
table, pretending that this omission was a grave attack upon “plurinationality”.
On this pretext three thousand protestors were mobilised to march through the
city which was hosting the event. Protestors broke through the police barrier
which was protecting the visiting presidents, and in one incident a policeman
was robbed of his handcuffs.
The government’s response (some leaders were
detained on public order charges) was condemned by CONAIE as heavy-handed and
authoritarian. Yet whilst no doubt these massed ranks of protestors – in many
cases probably the same people who took part in the important struggles which
cleared the way for today’s democratic government – believed themselves to be
acting in the interests of grass roots democracy, the irresponsibility of their
leaders in compromising the security of the ALBA meeting – attended as it was
by the eight men who Washington would most like to see swept away from its “backyard”
– is glaring. The rights of the Amerindian tribes, just as the rights of all
citizens of Ecuador, can be secured and advanced only through uniting the
country, acting in concert with fellow countries in the region, and jealously
guarding the right of Ecuador to carve its own path without seeking the approbation of the West.
Least of all will the indigenous cause be served by the
meddling of reformist busy-bodies in the West, incapable of fighting
imperialism at home but only too willing to hand out duff advice to those
engaged in genuine revolutionary struggle across the planet. Correa was
weighing his words carefully when he spoke of the mischief which can be done by
those in the West who dabble in Ecuador’s affairs. In his national radio
address, he had a timely word to say about some of the NGOs. “These little
gringos come here with their bellies full to convince the indigenous that they
shouldn’t extract oil, nor operate mines. They give them money, achieve their
goal and then go, leaving the indigenous more poor than ever before.”
Long
live the unity of the Ecuadorean people!
Down
with the coup-makers and their imperialist masters!
Solidarity
with Ecuador!