[Marxism] Roger Burbach on Ecuador

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(This article appears in the latest www.nacla.org.)

Ecuador’s Popular Revolt: Forging a New Nation
by Roger Burbach

Upon his inauguration, Correa issued a decree calling for a plebiscite 
on the constituent assembly. The oligarchy and the partidocracia moved 
almost immediately to gut the call for the assembly. Congress refused to 
accept the president’s initiative, passing its own law saying that such 
an assembly would not be empowered to refound the country’s 
institutions, and that it would not have the right to limit the tenure 
of congressional deputies or any other elected officials until their 
terms expired.

Then, with the intent of turning the election of assembly members into a 
virtual circus, the Congress declared that anyone could put their name 
on the ballot. No signatures or petitions were required, meaning 
hundreds or more could simply sign up to run for any given seat, making 
the balloting practically impossible to administer.

Correa responded by eliminating the onerous clauses from the 
congressional legislation, tailoring it to his original decree for a 
constituent assembly, and sending it to the country’s Supreme Electoral 
Tribunal. Hopes were not high, since the Tribunal is historically viewed 
as part of the partidocracia. The popular movements began to demonstrate 
in front of the Tribunal and Congress, calling for Correa to simply 
issue a decree for the Constituent Assembly.

“To the surprise of virtually everyone,” says Rene Baez, a political 
analyst at the Catholic University of Ecuador, “the popular repudiation 
shook the consciousness of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.” Led by its 
president, Jorge Acosta, a member of a traditional right-wing party, the 
Tribunal declared that Correa’s original statute proposing to refound 
the country’s institutions would be the one voted up or down in April.

Outraged, 57 of the 100 congressional deputies voted to depose Acosta. 
The next day Acosta and the Tribunal responded by expelling them from 
Congress for their unconstitutional actions.

The people took to the streets in a jubilant mood. Backed by 
demonstrators, Correa ordered 1,500 policemen to surround the Congress 
to enforce the Tribunal’s decree, preventing any of the 57 deposed 
representatives from entering. The deputies dispersed to various hotels 
around the city. At the Hotel Quito, they attempted to convene a rump 
session, but it went nowhere, with demonstrators ridiculing them 
outside, showering them with chicharones (pieces of dried pork fat) as 
they entered and left.2 Since a quorum of 51 members is required in 
Congress to conduct business, the deposed members hoped to provoke an 
institutional crisis. But through a quirk of Ecuadoran law, each 
congressional deputy is elected along with a substitute legislator from 
the same party. The Correa government made it clear it would seat any of 
the substitutes if they accepted the Electoral Tribunal’s ruling. Twenty 
substitutes almost immediately broke ranks with their parties, and 
Congress had the quorum necessary to function.

Some of the deposed deputies went to Bogotá, Colombia, asking for 
political asylum; others went to Washington to lodge a protest with the 
Organization of the American States, claiming that the country’s 
constitution had been violated. But these appeals and protests achieved 
nothing. More than 70% of the country’s voting-age population went to 
the polls April 15, with four out of five voters casting their ballots 
in favor of the Constituent Assembly.

But how far will the Constituent Assembly go in “refounding the nation”? 
Will it be simply reformist or will it establish a framework for a new 
socialism of the 21st century? In Bolivia, the oligarchy and the 
right-wing political forces have mounted a virulent offensive both 
inside and outside of the halls of the assembly. They managed to tie up 
the assembly for months, mainly because a two-thirds majority is 
required for enacting a new constitution, and the MAS and its allies 
control only 60% of the vote. In Ecuador just a majority vote is 
required, but even more importantly, the right wing is now a less potent 
force.

“One thing is clear,” says Alejandro Moreano, a sociologist who is 
active in the social movements. “The back of the partidiocracia is 
broken. A new constellation of political and social forces will come to 
the fore with the Assembly, and they will predominate in the new 
governing institutions that are founded.” Correa has already announced 
that if the forces aligned with him take control of the Assembly, one of 
its first acts will be to abolish Congress and establish a 
constitutional framework for a new legislative chamber that will be more 
responsive to popular interests.

Refounding the Ecuadoran nation involves an international realignment 
that runs deeper than a mere rejection of neoliberal economics. The 
Correa government has moved assertively in its relations with the United 
States and international financial institutions during its early months 
in office. Minister of Foreign Relations María Fernanda Espinosa, in a 
meeting with the Foreign Press Association in Quito, declared that 
Ecuador intends to close the U.S. military base located at Manta, the 
largest of its kind on South America’s Pacific coast. “Ecuador is a 
sovereign nation,” she said. “We do not need any foreign troops in our 
country.” The treaty for the base expires in 2009 and will not be renewed.

Manta was ostensibly established in 1999 to help monitor 
narco-trafficking over the ocean and in the nearby Amazon basin. But it 
has become a major operations center for U.S. intelligence gathering and 
for helping coordinate counter-insurgency efforts against the leftist 
guerrillas in neighboring Colombia. The base’s runway, built at a cost 
of $80 million, can accommodate the largest, most sophisticated U.S. spy 
aircraft. Manta is also used as a port for U.S. naval operations in the 
Pacific Ocean.3 Upward of 475 U.S. military personnel are continually 
rotated between Manta and the U.S. Southern Command, based in Florida.

The Manta base has little relevance for narco-trafficking in Ecuador. 
Even though the coca plant grows well there, the country has never 
produced cocaine or other illicit drugs in significant quantities for 
the international market. However, after it adopted the U.S. dollar as 
its official currency in 2000, international drug traffickers, 
particularly from Colombia, began to use Ecuadoran-based banks, some of 
which are controlled by the likes of Citibank, to launder their 
ill-gotten gains.

Popular sentiment in Ecuador overwhelmingly supports closing the base. 
In the years since it was established, the civil war in Colombia has 
spilled over into Ecuador, bringing refugees, violence, and social 
conflict, particularly in the Amazon basin. The spraying of herbicides 
by planes originating in Colombia wipes out food crops and poisons 
Ecuadoran children and adults.

The Colombian and U.S. governments claim that the defoliants are used 
only on the Colombian side of the border and that there are no flights 
over Ecuador. Correa vehemently disagrees.

“We will not permit the continual violation of Ecuadoran air space by 
planes, that are not even Colombian, but from the United States,” he has 
said. “They enter our country and then fly back to Colombia.” Correa has 
ordered the Ecuadoran air force to intercept any planes that violate the 
country’s air space.4

At the same time, Ecuador is negotiating special bilateral trade and 
economic agreements with presidents Chávez and Morales. Venezuela has 
agreed to refine Ecuadoran oil and help fund social programs in Ecuador, 
while the Bolivian government has concluded an agreement to import 
foodstuffs from small- and medium-size producers in Ecuador. Correa has 
also signed several petroleum accords with Venezuela, of which the most 
important is a $4 billion project for a refinery backed by PetroEcuador, 
a state-owned company, and the Venezuelan state firm, PDVSA.

While there has been no direct confrontation with the United States over 
Ecuador’s assertion of its sovereignty, the Pentagon has manifested its 
displeasure. Every year since 1959, the U.S. Southern Command, together 
with the Pacific coast nations of South America, have undertaken joint 
naval exercises called Unitas. This year they were to be hosted in 
Ecuador, but the United States opted to conduct them in Colombia, its 
closest regional ally. Ecuador responded by announcing it would not 
participate in this year’s exercises, with Correa proclaiming, “It 
appears the Southern Command believes we are a colony of the United 
States, that our navy is just one more unit controlled by their country.”5

Correa is also standing up to Occidental Petroleum, a U.S.-based 
corporation whose Ecuadoran holdings were taken over by PetroEcuador 
last year for selling some of its holdings to a Canadian company, 
violating its contract with the Ecuadoran state. Significant deposits of 
petroleum were first discovered in eastern Ecuador in the 1960s, leading 
to a bonanza as transnational petroleum corporations rushed in to tap 
the fields during the 1970s. The corporations crudely exploited the 
tropical rain forest where indigenous peoples have lived for millennia, 
strewing it with contamination from thousands of seismic grids, oil 
wells, and open waste pits.6 Like the 16th-century conquistadors, the 
corporations tore the indigenous communities apart through displacement, 
disease, and efforts to buy off and divide villagers. The workers, many 
of whom were brought in from the highlands because most rainforest 
Indians refused to work, were harshly exploited.

With the takeover of Occidental’s holdings, PetroEcuador now controls 
more than half of the country’s petroleum exports, which themselves 
account for about 40% of Ecuador’s total exports and one third of 
government revenues. Meanwhile, Correa has denounced Occidental’s 
“lobbying” the Bush administration to regain its holdings. “We are not 
going to allow an arrogant, portentous transnational that doesn’t 
respect Ecuadoran laws to harm our country,” he said.

After the euphoria of Correa’s May Day speech, Ecuador’s popular forces 
encountered difficulties as they drew up lists of candidates for the 
Constituent Assembly. Correa and his close political allies sought to 
unify all the progressive forces under the banner of “Movimiento Pais,” 
the Country Movement, but it quickly met with opposition, mainly from 
left political parties and their allies in the social organizations, 
some of which questioned the government’s commitment to fundamental change.

“All the sectors of the left claim they want unity with us,” says César 
Rodríguez, an organizer of the Country Movement. “But they pull back 
when their leaders are not put at the head of the list of candidates for 
the Constituent Assembly.”

On the other hand, Luis Macas, the head of the Confederation of 
Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, declared that he “feels distant 
from the government” and demanded that it immediately nationalize all 
petroleum companies while fearing that it will renege on its promises of 
agrarian reform.7

Because of this discord, distinctive lists of progressive candidates 
were put forth in the balloting for the 30 national candidates for the 
assembly.8 At the provincial level, however, where 100 assembly members 
will be elected, local coalitions did come together in some cases to 
present more unified tickets. In spite of this factionalism, the Country 
Movement and the other left forces are expected to win a clear majority 
in the Assembly, given that the right-wing parties are also divided. Due 
to Correa’s popularity and the broad support he enjoys among the 
forajidos and most of the social movements that are generally disgusted 
with all the established political parties, the Movement candidates will 
likely predominate in the Assembly.

Correa has indicated that the Assembly may enshrine a ”socialism of the 
21st century” in the new constitution, but it remains unclear exactly 
how this will be defined. The move to socialism in Ecuador will be an 
unfolding process, impossible to predict this early. But the 
transformation will definitely go beyond the reformist policies of the 
past, largely because a consensus exists among the candidates of the 
Country Movement and others on the left that neoliberal capitalism, 
particularly the ascendant role played by the banks and finance capital, 
must be taken on. Correa has already expelled Ecuador’s World Bank 
representative and has virtually terminated the country’s relations with 
the International Monetary Fund. Ecuador has also joined the Bank of the 
South, an alternative international lending institution proposed by 
Chávez, with Argentina, Bolivia, and other South American nations 
participating.

Correa has also repeatedly denounced the private banks in Ecuador for 
their exorbitant profit-taking and high interest rates. And in six 
months his government has taken stronger measures to rein in local and 
international finance capital than the Brazilian government of Luis 
Inacio Lula da Silva has in more than four years. The Assembly will no 
doubt empower the new government to exert tight state control over the 
country’s financial system and the role of foreign banks.

Many think the Constituent Assembly will assert greater control over 
Ecuador’s petroleum and natural resources for the benefit of the 
country’s 13 million people, almost half of whom live below the poverty 
line.

With some of the richest agricultural lands and maritime resources in 
all of South America, the country’s resource base has mainly benefited 
the corporate agribusiness interests that control the country’s 
diversified exports of bananas, shrimp, coffee, cocoa, cut flowers, and 
fish. As Pedro de la Cruz, the head of the National Federation of 
Peasants, Indians and Blacks, notes, “We need to reclaim the country’s 
lands for the people who work them and achieve food sovereignty, 
breaking the hold of the large landed and foreign interests who have 
kept us in misery for centuries.”\

In early June, the local populace in the gold-mining southern highland 
province of Azuay, backed by environmental and human rights 
organizations, blockaded major highways, demanding the expropriation of 
the mining companies, many of which are controlled by transnational 
corporations that have polluted local rivers and aquifers. Former 
minister of energy and mining Alberto Acosta, one of Correa’s closest 
and most progressive advisers, who resigned his post to lead the Country 
Movement ticket for the Assembly, met with the protesters and told them 
the mining concessions couldn’t be annulled outright.

“This is a task of the Constituent Assembly,” he said. “It can establish 
a legal framework that will enable us to revise all the concessions.”9 
Mobilizations continued in Azuay and in other provinces over natural 
resources as the popular organizations make it clear they are not 
content to rely simply on promises by the Correa government.

In Ecuador, as well as in much of Latin America, we are witnessing a 
revolution from below, a popular awakening that is challenging the 
traditional political parties and demanding a new system of governance 
that responds to the interests and needs of the popular classes. It is 
this rich mixture of forces at the grass roots that is opening up new 
vistas as the 21st century advances.

An “Open Letter to Ecuadoran Society,” signed by many of the individuals 
and organizations that are partisans of the Constituent Assembly, 
declares: “Never before has the theory that it is the people who make 
history been so certain. Today we are at the beginning of an era of 
popular power, of the Constituent Assembly’s power. The impulse flows 
out of the depths of the Ecuadoran people. It is potent and tumultuous.”10

###

*Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas 
(CENSA), based in Berkeley, California. He has written widely on Latin 
America and U.S. policy and is currently working on a book titled The 
New Fire in the Americas. For more information on CENSA’s publications, 
projects, and activities, see http://globalalternatives.org/

1. For a more in depth account of the rise of the popular movements, see 
CENSA’s strategic study, “Ecuador: The Popular Rebellion Against the 
‘Partidocracia’ and the Neo-Liberal State,” 
http://globalalternatives.org/strategicreports.

2. Roger Burbach, “Hard Correa,” The Guardian (London), March 23, 2007, 
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/roger_burbach/2007/03/ecuador.html.

3. Manuel Salgado Tamayo, Drogas, terrorismo e insurgenica (Quito: 
Ediciones La Tierra, 2002), pp. 319–25.

4. Burbach, “The Pink Tide Flows,” The Guardian (London), March 16, 
2007, 
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/roger_burbach/2007/03/the_pink_tide_flows.html.

5. “La Cancillería alista una nota de protesta contra EE.UU,” El 
Comercio (Quito,) May 7, 2007.

6. Suzana Sawyer, Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and 
Neoliberalism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2004), p. 13.

7. “La izquierda ecuatoriana, otra vez, irá dividida a las urnas,” El 
Comercio, June 3, 2007. See also “Luis Macas propone nacionalizar los 
hidrocarburos sin esperar a la asamblea,” El Comercio, June 4, 2007.

8. Of these 30 candidates, six will be elected internationally, given 
Ecuador’s large emigrant population, estimated at more than 1 million: 
two from Europe, and two each from North and South America.

9. “Gobierno dejará que la asamblea regule las concesiones mineras,” El 
Comercio, June 8, 2007. Acosta has written an excellent economic history 
of Ecuador, Breve historia economica del Ecuador (Quito: Corporacion 
Editora Nacional, 2001).

10. “Carta abierta a la sociedad ecuatoriana,” Quito, February 21, 2007, 
www.asambleaconstituyente.ec/asamblea/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=172&Itemid=13.

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