Ecuador Protest Update - 14 October 2019
Ecuador's president agreed to revoke the decree and negotiate with indigenous groups.
Happy sort-of holiday Monday. I received several questions and requests from subscribers for an update on Ecuador.
Ecuador’s president reached an agreement with CONAIE, the main indigenous group in the country.
The agreement reached on Sunday evening does the following:
Decree 883 regarding fuel subsidies is revoked.
CONAIE will cancel their protests.
The president will invite CONAIE to participate in a commission of experts to review a decree to replace 883. Moreno suggests the next version will balance the need for economic austerity with programs that make sure Ecuador’s most vulnerable populations are protected.
Moreno is likely to remain in power.
Even prior to the agreement, as I wrote last week, the security forces backing Moreno combined with divisions in the president’s opposition meant Moreno was likely to remain in power. A president being pushed from power is certainly a risk in Ecuador given the country’s history, but Moreno appears to understand how to manage a balance of repression and negotiation.
The agreement between Moreno and CONAIE adds to the president’s stability in several key ways:
The immediate round of protests will be reduced (but not gone) in both urban and rural areas of the country.
Negotiations are over the details of the decree and economic policy, but not the president’s tenure in power.
Oil production should resume as rural indigenous protesters leave and the government can focus on any provocateur movements that try to disrupt production or transportation.
The agreement relieves some of the immediate tensions and kicks the can down the road.
It was smart and easy for Moreno to agree in principle to change his decree and find a better balance. That is especially true as the agreement divides his opponents and takes the largest groups of protesters off the streets this week.
The agreement raises three issues for the weeks and months to come:
Negotiations over the details of the new decree are likely to be very difficult and contentious. Every time they threaten to break down, there will be new threats to protest.
The groups that do not get enough support in the new agreement are likely to return to protesting. Indigenous groups, in particular, know that protesting is leverage and are likely to return to some protesting if they do not receive maximum benefits from the new decree.
Financial markets are not going to be pleased with the delay and potential rolling back of austerity measures. Moreno appears committed to real economic reforms, but the country’s economy could continue to take hits while negotiations are ongoing.
The protests are not over.
Prior to the agreement, protests continued throughout the weekend. They were especially large and disruptive in Quito, with incidents of violence, looting and vandalism. Local human rights groups documented the use of excessive force by police in repressing protests. The government of President Lenin Moreno extended the curfew to daylight hours.
Though the agreement reached Sunday evening will lead to the reduction in protests, some disturbances will remain.
To understand why, it’s important to consider three groups of protesters.
Indigenous - Indigenous groups led by CONAIE have blocked major inter-city highways and moved into urban areas to protest. They have agreed to halt their protests.
Legitimate urban protesters - Many of Ecuador’s urban poor are legitimately angry at the austerity measures and how those measures will harm their lives. This group is largely leaderless at the moment, though politicians from dissident factions of Alianza Pais will be looking to represent their concerns in the future. This group cheered the announcement of the revocation of the decree.
Provocateurs - A group of left-wing protesters, almost certainly backed by former President Correa and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, are using tactics similar to Black Bloc to commit acts of violence and vandalism and provoke the state security forces into increasingly repressive responses. This group represents a small portion of the total protesters, but its presence has escalated the violence, challenged the government and placed negative international attention on Ecuador. It also distracts the government from dealing with the other protest groups.
Those groups of provocateurs are not going to stop protesting. Instead, they will pivot to new forms of protest that will continue to pressure the government. They will likely focus on the human rights violations and arrests that occurred during the protests, trying to draw additional allies from the left side of the political spectrum. They will focus their continuing protests and violence on strategic points that inflict the most pain on the government. They will try to provoke the government into additional repression that will bring outrage from domestic groups and the international community.
Moreno has worked to publicly acknowledge the divisions among the protesters, saying that those who commit crime and vandalism are not the same as the indigenous groups who have protested against his policies. Moreno knows and has publicly committed to a strategy of negotiating with the protesters who have legitimate policy grievances while repressing the groups that simply want to disrupt and possibly overthrow his government.
Moreno should use the relative calm to review the events of the past two weeks.
Moreno’s crackdown is not surprising. Recent history in Latin America and around the world suggests leaders are more likely to survive in power when they crack down early, often and harshly.
Still, Moreno should be better than that. Acknowledging the presence of these provocateurs, Ecuador’s government is still responsible for the excessive use of force, the shutting down of media outlets and any human rights abuses that occurred in the past weeks. In the upcoming negotiations, with the knowledge that more protests are likely in the future, Moreno should include a review of the repressive tactics that were used, acknowledge where the government made mistakes, and work with the more legitimate protest groups to improve the situation in the future.
Doing a review will diffuse some of the key ideological arguments that will be abused by the provocateurs to attempt to pressure Moreno’s government further.
Moreno should be careful to not blame the whole protest movement on former President Correa or Venezuelan financing. It gives those individuals and groups outside the country too much credit and attention while also undervaluing the legitimate concerns citizens had about his decree. However, understanding that those provocateur groups did play a role in some of the most violent events, Moreno also needs to come up with a strategy to combat their activities and the foreign influence and financing that is backing them.
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