(Quito) The Ecuadorian government announced late Wednesday a resumption of negotiations with indigenous protesters, as a state of emergency was declared again in four provinces after two weeks of often violent protests against high prices.
Updated yesterday at 11:51 p.m.
In an effort to “bring peace to the people of Ecuador, we have decided to accept the mediation now offered by the Episcopal Conference of Ecuador (CEE),” Government Affairs Minister Francisco Jimenez said.
Without revealing when the talks might begin, Mr. Jimenez said the EWC would organize the details of the negotiations, “so that we can come to a final solution in this conflict”.
On Tuesday, conservative President Guillermo Lasso suspended the dialogue initiated the day before with indigenous representatives, including Leonidas Iza, head of the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie, spearhead of the protests), after an attack in the Amazon during which a soldier was killed.
Previously, as the mobilization entered its seventeenth day, a few thousand natives marched in the streets of the city center as well as around the presidency, in the historic district of the capital, to demand “the resumption negotiations”.
In more or less small groups, and without notable incident, the demonstrators surveyed avenues and crossroads near the Parliament and around the Ecuadorian Cultural Center (CCE), a vast indigenous cultural center which serves as their headquarters and base of life.
“We are here to resist […], we will stay until the government gives us an answer, ”stormed Isak, 28, disguised as Captain America, star shield included. “We are poor, we are hungry, we have nothing to lose”.
“We don’t want dimes, we want results!” chanted the motley crowd, women in red ponchos at the head of the procession, surrounded by spearmen in construction helmets and sheet metal shields.
On Sunday, the government announced a reduction of 10 cents of dollars for fuel, but the demonstrators consider this reduction insufficient and demand a reduction of more than 20%.
In the narrow streets with elegant buildings in the historic center flown over by a helicopter, all the traders hastened to lower their curtains as the procession approached. Since the start of the protest on June 13, the surroundings of the Palais Carondelet, the presidency, have been fortified behind heavy iron gates and police cordons.
Back from curfew
President Lasso set as a condition for a resumption of discussions the presence of “legitimate representatives” of the natives “open to a real and frank dialogue”.
“We are ready to listen, to dialogue, but we will not do it with a gun to our head,” added its Minister of Government Affairs, Francisco Jimenez, on Wednesday.
“They cannot continue the attacks on the population, block the roads, try to create chaos in the country”, accused the minister on a local media, judging however the last demonstrations “much smaller”.
For his part, Leonidas Iza seemed to adopt a more conciliatory posture: “All marches and mobilizations must take place calmly. Let’s no longer use excuses for not wanting to dialogue”, he pleaded in the night, shortly after having assured “leaving the door open” to a resumption of dialogue.
Six people, five demonstrators and a soldier, have been killed since the protests began. More than 600 people, civilians or members of the security forces, were injured, with some 150 arrests, according to observers.
During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, two police stations were set on fire north of Quito.
The capital, where thousands of indigenous demonstrators are gathered, out of the 14,000 in the whole country according to the police, is at the heart of the mobilization. Some small pro-government counter-demonstrations are also taking place there, in vehicles, in the northern and affluent part of the city, spared by the demonstrations.
The government had ended Saturday the state of emergency decreed a week earlier in six of the 24 provinces. On Wednesday, he decreed it again in four provinces outside the capital, in the Andean part (Azuay, Imbabura) and in the Amazon (Sucumbios and Orellana).
This 30-day measure, which also provides for a curfew, was taken after “violent actions that disturbed public order”, and aims to guarantee public safety and the supply of these provinces with basic necessities.
The indigenous peasants of Cotopaxi, about fifty kilometers south of the capital, promised for Thursday a “massive mobilization” in Quito, where the indigenous presence seems to have been reduced in recent days.
The dispute weighs on the country’s economy, in particular oil extraction. Past mobilizations of the indigenous movement caused the fall of three presidents between 1997 and 2005.