The Ecuadorian Political Irruption: Uprisings, Coups, Rebellions, and Democracy

In this article I present and analyze the events that resulted in the overthrow of Ecuadorian president Jamil Mahuad in January 2000 and offer a brief discussion of what has transpired since Gustavo Noboa assumed the presidency. My intent is to actively involve the reader in “living” the crucial moments that emerged day by day during the week of 15 January and to illuminate the complexity of Ecuador’s political, economic, and social crisis, as well as the increasing political force of the indigenous movement. By offering various ways to read what happened in the so-called coup, I hope to reveal the different motives and interests behind the indigenous, military, and government roles in the events of 21 January and make clear the present result: a strengthening of the neoliberal agenda and the consolidation of business and elite sectors within the government institution.

Lived and Televised Events

Saturday, 15 January. The people’s uprising announced by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) begins. The government employs a thirty-five-thousand-member police force and sanctions the use of violence in order to ensure, on the one hand, that the main roadways remain open and, on the other, that the indigenous people cannot reach Quito—the nation’s capital and the designated meeting site. There is no sign of the indigenous people on that day, and everything seems to be under control.

16 January, at daybreak. A labor union leader and two leaders of the social movements are arrested, forcibly taken from their homes by men wearing hoods. Despite the fact that no one is able to explain this arrest at the time of the event, the press later reports that the armed forces have agreed to permit the indigenous march on Quito on the condition that the labor unions, the social movements, and the Democratic Popular Movement (MPD)—a political party with Maoist tendencies—not be involved.

Monday, 17 January. The indigenous people begin to arrive in Quito, at first by the major highways, some in buses, some in rented trucks, others on foot, and in small groups so as not to arouse suspicion. Police control and militarization on the roads are strengthened. People are forced out of the buses; trucks and supplies are confiscated. Many of the compañeros indígenas choose to walk; women, men, and children dodge the police and the armed forces, taking secondary roads or mountain footpaths in the darkness of the night, or, when there is an opportunity, hiding under fruits and vegetables in the back of produce trucks on the way to market. Upon arrival in Quito, they scatter to small neighborhoods so as to be able to move unsuspected toward their final destination: the Parque del Arbolito, situated behind the Casa de Cultura (House of Culture), a place that, both in name and function, ironically singularizes, homogenizes, and “folkloricizes” the millennial cultural diversity of the nation. On Tuesday, the press reports that five thousand indigenous people have arrived. Less than twenty-four hours later, this number has more than doubled.

Meanwhile, despite strong militarization, the indigenous people have blocked the main roads in most of the provinces. Apparently, the armed forces are giving their implicit support to the indigenous people—how else could the indigenous people take over roads and come by the thousands from the countryside to Quito?

In the principal cities and county seats, there are demonstrations and marches that continually grow in strength. And in Quito, since Monday, 17 January, the People’s Popular Parliament for National Salvation has been in session, presided over by Monsignor Alberto Luna Tobar.¹ This Popular Parliament intends to build a new political authority, an alternative to the national Congress and a participatory space in which the people can discuss social, economic, and political problems and collectively make proposals without having to go through the bureaucratic mechanisms of the electoral and political party structure...