[Marxism] IMT (Trotskyist) on Ecuador

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Ecuadorian masses deliver blow against the oligarchy and imperialism


By Jorge Martin
Thursday, 19 April 2007
On Sunday, April 15, the masses of workers and peasants of Ecuador  
delivered a blow against the oligarchy and imperialism by voting  
massively in favour of calling a Constituent Assembly. The final  
results announced by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal were 5,350,000  
votes for the Constituent Assembly (81,72%), and barely 824,000  
against (12,43%).

The scale of the victory surprised all commentators. In only three of  
the country's 22 provinces did the Yes vote score below 80%. Even in  
the province of Guayas, where the country's second largest city  
Guayaquil is located and a traditional stronghold of the country's  
oligarchy, the vote was 75% in favour and 18% against. The Yes vote  
reached 87% in the provinces of Azuay, el Oro, Imbabura, Loja, and  
85% in Carchi, Pichincha, Tungurahua and Zamora Chinchipe.

The referendum campaign was extremely polarised with all the  
country's traditional parties opposing the current president Rafael  
Correa in his proposal of a Constituent Assembly. The mass media, in  
a campaign reminiscent of those waged against Venezuelan president  
Hugo Chávez, accused Correa of being an authoritarian, a communist,  
dug up all sort of dirt on his past and his family and generally  
created an extremely polarised atmosphere.

For all these reasons the Yes vote in the referendum has to be seen  
as a reflection of a deep seated opposition to all political parties  
and to the political system as a whole.

10 years of revolutionary movements

Ecuador has lived through nearly 10 years of social turmoil. The last  
president to finish his full term of office was Sixto Durán in 1996.  
The same year saw the election of the populist Abdalah Buccaram, who  
became known as Buccaram "the mad". Having been elected on the basis  
of demagogic promises he immediately introduced an IMF-recommended  
structural adjustment plan which led to a wave of protests  
culminating in a general strike in February 1997. He tried to quell  
protests by sending the troops against demonstrators but finally had  
to flee the country.

The next elected president Jamil Mahuad followed the same policies  
and was soon facing a number of general strikes and movements of the  
country's powerful organisation of indigenous peasants, the CONAIE.  
In January 2000 he decreed the dollarisation of the country's  
economy, which was the spark for the revolutionary events that  
culminated in a national uprising and the setting up of a parallel  
Parliament of the Peoples which, with the support of a section of  
junior military officers, briefly took power on January 20 and 21  
(see: The uprising in Ecuador marks the beginning of the 21st  
century). The movement was derailed back into bourgeois  
parliamentarism but was a clear expression of the anger of the  
majority of Ecuadorians caused by the crisis of capitalism and of a  
deep mistrust towards the political institutions of bourgeois  
democracy which had proven useless as a vehicle for the masses to  
solve their problems.

November 2002 saw the election of Lucio Gutierrez, one of the army  
officers that sided with the people in January 2000 as the country's  
new president (see: Ecuador - Lucio Gutierrez victory opens a new  
revolutionary stage). He had the support of the workers' and  
peasants' movement and great hopes were put on him. However, he soon  
moved towards following IMF dictated policies and to attack the trade  
union movement. Demoralisation with his government culminated in a  
new movement of the masses in April 2005 which overthrew the  
Gutierrez government. An interim administration was set up, headed by  
Palacios, and with Rafael Correa as a finance minister (see: Ecuador:  
Popular uprising overthrows Lucio Gutierrez).

It is interesting to note that despite the demoralisation that flowed  
from the betrayal of Lucio Gutierrez, the masses of workers and  
peasants have rallied again once a clear leadership has been offered  
to them. This is in part the result of the development and  
continuation of the Venezuelan revolution, which serves as an example  
and a source of inspiration throughout the continent.

What we see clearly is how the masses once and again have taken the  
route of mass mobilisations and direct action to try and bring  
fundamental change. They have been able to overthrow 4 different  
governments in less than 10 years. This reveals that there is an  
enormous reservoir of strength in the mass movement of workers and  
peasants in Ecuador. The problem is that every single time they have  
been deceived.

The same thing happened with the Alfredo Palacios government. This  
time the spark of the movement was the attempt of Palacios to sign a  
Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Mass demonstrations and  
strikes took place in March 2006 (see: Ecuador: State of emergency  
declared to halt protests). This time the movement found an  
expression in the election of Rafael Correa (who had resigned as  
finance minister in the Palacios government in protest at his  
economic policies) as the new president in November 2006 (see:  
Ecuador: Neither the millions of dollars, nor the corrupt brown  
envelopes could defeat the dignity of the people).

The masses and the Constituent Assembly

From the beginning Correa had a clear programme: no signing of the  
FTA with the United States, end the contract for the US military  
basis in Manta and to organise a referendum to call a Constituent  
Assembly. The latter was the key point of his campaign and was seen  
by the Ecuadorian masses as a chance to get rid of the whole of the  
political system in the country, always dominated by less than 200  
families that make up Ecuador's oligarchy. So insistent was Correa  
about doing away with the country's political set up that he  
deliberately refused to put forward any candidates for the National  
Assembly.

The choice was clearly expressed by the candidate opposing Correa in  
the second round of the presidential election: banana plantation  
magnate Alvaro Noboa, the country's wealthiest man (with assets worth  
an estimated US$1bn). In a very polarised campaign Correa soundly  
defeated Noboa by 58% to 41%.

The last few months have been marked by the battle over the calling  
of the referendum for the Constituent Assembly. The country's Supreme  
Electoral Tribunal agreed to Correa's proposal, and when members of  
the national assembly tried to block it, the Electoral Court  
suspended 57 of them. This was accompanied by demonstrations of  
Correa's supporters surrounding parliament to prevent the suspended  
assembly members from going in.

It is in this context that the masses of Ecuador have put their hopes  
in the Constituent Assembly, which they see not just as a way of  
changing the country's constitution but as a the beginning of a  
radical transformation of their lives, as they can see is happening  
in Venezuela. Indigenous peasant leader Humberto Cholango before the  
referendum was convinced that "millions of conscious poor that demand  
change will prevail against the millions of dollars of the pro- 
imperialists". Reflecting what is behind this massive vote he asked:  
"How is it possible that 173 people are the owners of 3 million  
hectares of land in this country and control most of the water... it  
is time to rise up and put an end to this injustice. Oil and water  
must belong to all".

The president of the powerful peasant indigenous confederation  
CONAIE, Luis Macas, added: "We are going to rule from the Constituent  
Assembly. We are going to brush aside the old state and put an end to  
the privileges of a handful of rich"

The first announcement of president Correa after the referendum was  
that Ecuador was going to pay off the remainder of its debt to the  
IMF, break all further links with that institution and expel the  
representative of the World Bank from the country. This move, which  
has also been taken by Venezuela this week, without being as radical  
as a full repudiation of the foreign debt, surely has a powerful  
symbolic impact on the minds of the masses as well as on the minds of  
the oligarchy and imperialism.

Like in Venezuela, even the attempt of Correa to make the rich pay  
taxes has become a revolutionary move. According to figures compiled  
by ALAI journalist Eduardo Tamayo, the 17 largest economic groups in  
the country control 563 companies and have an annual income of 5  
billion dollars (14% of the country's GDP), but their tax payments  
represent only 6% of the state's tax revenue. Amongst these groups is  
Noboa's own company with an annual turnover of more than 500 million  
dollars and annual profits of 3.9 million.

It is this obscene concentration of wealth and power in the hands of  
a small number of families linked and subservient to US imperialism,  
together with the fact that between 60 to 70% of the population live  
below the poverty line, that makes social conditions in Ecuador so  
explosive. The number of Ecuadorians forced to emigrate from their  
country has gone over the 2 million mark (mainly to Spain and the  
US); this in a country of barely 13 million inhabitants. For the  
masses the Constituent Assembly is not viewed just as a change of  
form of government but as a way to achieve radical change in their  
living conditions.

Lessons from Venezuela

President Correa's programme is not a socialist programme of bringing  
the wealth of these 200 families into public ownership and democratic  
planning and redistributing the land they owned. But like in  
Venezuela, even a programme of progressive reforms backed by the mass  
mobilisation and organisation of workers and peasants, is a direct  
threat to the rule of the oligarchy, the wealthy landowners, banana  
magnates, bank owners and captains of industry who have dominated the  
country since its foundation to the benefit of US imperialism. In  
Venezuela the oligarchy and imperialism organised a military uprising  
against Hugo Chávez. If Correa stays true to his programme of  
reforms, there is no doubt that the oligarchy and imperialism are  
going to try the same thing.

The campaign to prepare for his violent overthrow has already  
started. A deafening chorus in the media, particularly in Spain and  
in the US, is preparing public opinion, by accusing Rafael Correa of  
being an authoritarian who is concentrating all power into his own  
hands.

Following his Venezuelan counterpart, Rafael Correa has also come out  
in favour of socialism. This is really the only solution. The  
experience of the revolutionary movement in Venezuela shows that  
there are three main obstacles that need to be overcome for the  
revolution to succeed:

One is the question of the state apparatus. As Marxists have always  
argued, the old state machinery cannot be taken over and used to  
serve the interests of working people, it must be destroyed and  
replaced by a new form of organisation based on democratic assemblies  
and elected and recallable representatives. The Ecuadorian masses  
already have the experience of the Peoples' Parliaments that were set  
up during the January 2000 revolution.
Two is the question of the economy. While important sections of the  
country's economy remain in private hands the ruling class will use  
them to sabotage the democratic will of the majority. In Ecuador this  
means the expropriation of the wealthiest 200 families and  
imperialist companies that own the natural resources, the land, the  
banks and industry.
And three is the question of the revolutionary organisation. This  
must be democratic and based on the mass activity of workers and  
peasants.
What needs to be understood clearly from the Venezuelan experience is  
that the masses can only rely on their own strength, organisation and  
mobilisation in order to implement and defend revolutionary change.  
The Constituent Assembly can be a tool used by the masses, but cannot  
solve all their problems. For ten years the Ecuadorian masses have  
brought into office and then removed a number of governments in an  
attempt to improve their conditions. Now it is necessary to  
understand that only by the taking over of the fundamental levers of  
the economy by the workers and peasants themselves can this be achieved.

The next few months and years will see a further sharpening of the  
class struggle in Ecuador. The most advanced elements need to draw  
all the necessary conclusions and organise to give a clear leadership  
to the movement.


See also:
Ecuador: Neither the millions of dollars, nor the corrupt brown  
envelopes could defeat the dignity of the people by Dax Toscano  
(November 28, 2007)
Ecuador looks to the left in presidential election by Rob Sewell  
(October 12, 2006)
Ecuador: State of emergency declared to halt protests by Patrick  
Larsen (March 27, 2006)
Ecuador: New explosions are being prepared by Patrick Larsen (March  
3, 2006)
Ecuador: Interview with Marcelo Roman, historic leader of the oil  
workers' trade union (February 23, 2006)
Ecuador: Popular uprising overthrows Lucio Gutierrez by Miriam  
Municio (April 21, 2005)
Brutal repression against teachers' strike in Ecuador by Jorge Martin  
(December 12, 2003)
Ecuador - Lucio Gutierrez victory opens a new revolutionary stage by  
Julian Costas (November 26, 2002)
10 Days Which Shook Ecuador by Jorge Martin (February 14, 2001)
Ecuador, 2 months after the revolution by Jorge Martin (March 14, 2000)
The uprising in Ecuador marks the beginning of the 21st century by  
Jorge Martin (January 23, 2000)
 
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