A "Turning Point" for Indigenous Rights

["Jay Moore" <research@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ecuador's Quechua Indians a powerful new force
OTAVALO, Ecuador, Feb 1 (AFP) -

The power of the Ecuadoran Quechua Indian movement that recently helped
topple the government of President Jamil Mahuad lies in people like Carmen
Yamberla, a leader in a centuries-old Andean community government system.

Yamberla, 35, was elected in local assemblies to represent some 180 Indian
communities -- about 60,000 people -- in the Imbabura province, just north
of Quito.

As the head of a quasi-parallel government for Indians that handles
everything from justice to dealings with national authorities, Yamberla
often has more real power than the mayor or even the provincial governor.

The diminutive woman smiles as she describes the events of January 21, when
some 10,000 Indians from around Ecuador peacefully took over Congress, the
Supreme Court and even the presidential palace. The turmoil resulted in
Mahuad's ouster.

"We took power -- and we didn't even use a pistol!" she said, still amazed
at their success. "We were dreaming awake."

A group of mid- and low-ranking army officers encouraged the Indians, who
were calling for Mahuad's removal and a change in the country's economic
policies, to take over the government buildings. It now seems clear that the
Indians and perhaps even the officers, were used by the top military brass
to get rid of Mahuad.

Even though the Indians were betrayed when the generals dissolved the
short-lived "government of national salvation" that they briefly formed, the
movement has gained international status and has come a long ways from the
days when their voices where ignored.

On the day of the protest, Yamberla remained at her Otavalo headquarters 60
kilometers (36 miles) north of Quito, coordinating groups that blocked
highways and collecting supplies for the protesters. "We could have stayed
in Quito a lot longer," she said.

Days after the protest she was taking phone calls from top government
officials in the new administration of President Gustavo Noboa, and meeting
with foreign reporters to tell the world that Ecuador's Indians are angry
and ready to stand up for their rights.

The surprising success of the Ecuadoran Indians is a major turning point in
the history of the indigenous movement in the Americas: ever since European
explorers reached the Americas in the 16th century Indians have been
regarded by whites and their mixed-race offspring as inferior.

Over the years the level of indigenous assimilation into the ruling European
culture varied across the Americas. Maya Indians in the jungles of Chiapas,
for example, remained largely isolated and forgotten, while Indian
communities in coastal Peru were fully assimilated or died off. The smaller
Indian populations in North America and Argentina were largely killed off in
a series of wars.

In Ecuador, where 30 percent of the population is indigenous, the community
suffers from widespread poverty, low literacy rates and high mortality rates
from easily curable diseases. But they are well organized.

Unlike the Indians from Chiapas that rose in arms in January 1994 calling
for the resignation of the Mexican president, the Indians in Ecuador have
been showing their discontent peacefully in the streets since 1990.

The main reason the Ecuadoran Indians hold mass protests is because they
have been frozen out of government for so long, Yamberla said, and largely
kept out of the electoral system by barriers similar to the way US blacks
were disenfranchised in the southern United States up to the 1960s.

The massive January protest called for Mahuad's removal, but the Indians
were really expecting to directly negotiate with him for government reforms
and policy changes as they successfully did following a mass protest in
July, Yamberla said.

"Of course we didn't know what to do in power!" Yamberla laughed. "Taking
national power after seven days of protest is absurd."

Ecuador's Indians have a major organizational advantage over other Indians
in the Americas because they were all forced to speak Quechua when the Incas
from Peru incorporated the region into their vast Andean empire around 1460.
Other native groups in the Americas even within the same country are divided
by their different languages.