At about 9:45 on the morning of January 21, a thousand protesters, mostly indigenous people from the Ecuadorian highlands, burst through a military cordon and rushed the National Congress building. The soldiers who had placed large spirals of barbed wire fencing around the Congress the day before to protect it from the demonstrators had stepped aside, indicating that a faction of the military had shifted support from the government of Jamil Mahuad to the indigenous protesters. Wooden planks were placed over the barbed wire, and one by one the demonstrators scurried over these makeshift bridges to occupy one of the central seats of power in their crisis-ridden country. By mid-morning a large huipala, the rainbow-colored flag of the indigenous movement, could be seen hanging from the roof of the eight-story building as defiant protesters stood out in stark silhouette against the bright blue Quito skyline.[1]
As the protesters proceeded to install themselves in the Congress and inaugurate their own National Parliament of the Peoples of Ecuador, about 200 army officials, led by a high-ranking army colonel, filed through the middle of the euphoric gathering and officially threw their support in with the movement. A short time later, a three-member Junta of National Salvation was declared, composed of Army Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez, the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Antonio Vargas, and a former supreme court judge from the coastal region, Carlos Solórzano. As the morning wore on, other officers and their subordinates continued to arrive to demonstrate their support for this self-declared new government.
The rebellious army colonels and their new indigenous movement allies argued that these radical measures were necessary to put an end to corruption, which is seen as permeating all Ecuadorian political institutions and as the underlying cause of the current economic depression.[2] In the words of one of the colonels: “We are here so that they [the corrupt politicians] don’t pillage this country.”[3] Addressing “all the people of Ecuador,” Vargas, an Amazonian Quichua and second-term president of CONAIE, enthusiastically declared: “The people are now in power and we are going to triumph!”[4] While he spoke at times in his native Quichua, a language not understood by the majority of Ecuadorians, Vargas had clearly assumed the role of national leader. And yet this leader of the most powerful nonviolent social and political movement in Ecuador and the most well-organized indigenous movement in the Americas was also speaking as part of an unelected military-civilian junta.
The events of January 21 highlight the profound crisis of popular legitimacy of Ecuador’s young democracy. Triggered and intensified by a year-long economic depression that shows no signs of abating, this crisis is characterized by a complete loss of faith in virtually all Ecuador’s political institutions. Only 7% of those surveyed in a national public opinion poll, for example, expressed confidence in Congress, and by December the President’s popularity rating was also down to 7%.[5] As the economic crisis worsened over the past year, people increasingly perceived that the government, and in particular the President, was biased toward powerful banking interests to the detriment of the majority of poor Ecuadorians. This led CONAIE and its social movement allies to call for the removal of all three branches of government, a demand that was clearly unconstitutional. The events that began with this call and culminated in the January 21 takeover also reveal the contradictions and paradoxes that can emerge when social movements attempt to chart an alternative course and vision for social change in contexts where formal democratic institutions have failed to effectively address the profound structural problems of inequality and injustice.
Even as the new military-civilian junta was making its first public statements, it became clear that the chief institutional arbiter would be the military. Those who had joined the Indians in the Congress were high-ranking officers, but they were not members of the Joint Command, and it was unclear what the reaction of this highest echelon of the Ecuadorian military would be. Earlier in the day the Joint Command of the Armed Forces had publicly called on President Mahuad to resign, but had not made any statement regarding the self-appointed junta. Later that afternoon, Mahuad was informed that the security of the presidential palace could no longer be guaranteed, forcing him to abandon his post. In fact, it was later revealed, orders came down from above to break the protective police and military cordons and allow the protesters to occupy Congress and eventually the presidential palace. This has led many observers to suggest that high-ranking members of the military who wanted Mahuad out of office took advantage of the indigenous protests to move against the increasingly beleaguered President.[6]
For a few hours it appeared that the military high command was going to accept the new civilian-military junta. At midnight on January 21, after General Carlos Mendoza of the Joint Command met with the junta—referred to as the “Triumvirate”—it was announced that he would replace Colonel Gutiérrez as its head. But the next morning, the country awoke to the news that Mendoza had resigned from the army and was withdrawing from the Triumvirate so that the constitutional successor to Mahuad, Vice-President Gustavo Noboa, could assume power. Mendoza claimed that he never had any intention of allowing the junta to remain in power, and that joining the Triumvirate was a ruse to avoid bloodshed and facilitate a peaceful return to the constitutional order.
The rule of this unprecedented junta thus lasted less than 24 hours. But the events of January 21 clearly represent a major watershed in Ecuadorian politics, highlighting the fact that the indigenous movement has taken center stage within this complex array of forces. On that day, the indigenous movement declared unequivocally its desire to play a leadership role in national politics, even as its actions and those of its leaders brought to the fore unresolved and thorny strategic contradictions within the movement itself. Indeed, since its jump into electoral politics in 1996 with the formation of the Pachakutik political movement, the indigenous movement has been attempting to juggle—at times more successfully than at others—two parallel strategies. The first, related to its social movement origins, is one of opposition and protest from outside the system; the other is a more recent strategy of working within existing political institutions via the formation of an official political movement. On January 21 these two strategies collided head-on, and the impact of this collision on the future direction of the movement remains unclear.
The indigenous movement in Ecuador stands out among similar movements in Latin America due to its impressive mobilizational capacity and the fact that it has succeeded in uniting a variety of different ethnic groups throughout the country. These two characteristics—mobilizational capacity and unity in diversity—are key to explaining the prominent political profile that the movement now enjoys, as well as the significant gains it has made over the last 20 years.
While a social movement cannot be conflated to a single organization, the fact is that the vast majority of social movement activities carried out by indigenous peoples in Ecuador are led and/or coordinated by a single national-level organization, CONAIE, or by one of its member organizations.[7] CONAIE was founded in 1986 when two regional organizations, one representing highland indigenous peoples and the other Amazonian Indians, joined forces. CONAIE’s organizational membership includes federations representing all 12 indigenous nationality groups, which, CONAIE organizers say, represent 70% of the country’s total indigenous population.[8] This population is itself very diverse, with over two million living in the Andean highlands, over 100,000 in the Amazonian lowlands and a small number in Ecuador’s tropical coastal region.[9]
Since its inception, CONAIE has consistently combined a strong emphasis on indigenous identity with efforts to address the pressing economic situation of the majority of the indigenous population as well as other marginalized groups.[10] One of the first identity-related goals achieved by CONAIE was the creation of a national bilingual education program, designed so that indigenous students could study in their native languages as well as in Spanish. Another achievement was winning the recognition of Ecuador as a “pluricultural” and “multi-ethnic” state in the first article of the Constitution. Another key CONAIE demand—that indigenous communities be granted some form of political and legal autonomy within the confines of the Ecuadorian national state—has been opposed by many non-indigenous politicians, who argue that such a proposal would dismember the country.
CONAIE has also worked together with its member organizations on the key question of land rights and aid to small farmers and campesinos. While the substantive issues related to land tenure and use are very different in the Oriente (the Amazonian jungle) and in the highlands, the land issue is of central concern to CONAIE constituents in both regions. Major achievements in this area include the legalization of territorial and land rights; obtaining legal recognition of land rights for several Amazonian groups; and blocking passage in 1994 of an agrarian reform bill which would have benefited agro-exporters at the expense of small peasant production for the national market.
Whether to obtain land rights, stop a concession to an oil company, or institute the bilingual education program, the principal goals and strategies of the movement have tended to center on effecting change at the level of national policy. The movement has been creative and flexible in its use of tactics, primarily direct negotiations with the national government. For example, the National Intercultural-Bilingual Education Agency, administered by indigenous educators under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, was established after President Rodrigo Borja agreed to negotiate with the movement after years of political pressure. Though the program held out much hope in its early years, it has since come under attack. Critics say that innovative pedagogical practices initially proposed have been stifled by bureaucratic control, and that instead of developing new holistic educational models, the program has tended to replicate the rigid scholastic methodologies used in the public education system that emphasize repetition and rote memorization.[11]
One of the main tactics employed by CONAIE to bring the state to the bargaining table has been the indigenous “uprising.” The term harks back to a long history of spontaneous but isolated indigenous rebellions that occurred repeatedly in the colonial and republican eras. In contrast to the historical uprisings, these modern mobilizations are coordinated at the national level by CONAIE, and have involved the participation of tens of thousands of people throughout the country. Actions include roadblocks, marches and the refusal to bring food to market. These mobilizations have always been nonviolent and usually involve civil disobedience.
Despite its state-centered focus, until the mid-1990s the movement maintained a discourse that rejected the state in its existing form as “exclusionary, hegemonic, antidemocratic and repressive.”[12] CONAIE program documents propose the construction of an alternative state—”A New Pluralist and Participatory Nation”—based on a utopian vision of a nation free from poverty and discrimination and in which the cultural values of all Ecuador’s ethnic and cultural groups would be valued and respected.[13] The movement’s rejection of the legitimacy of the existing state was most evident in its stance towards the electoral process. Until 1995 CONAIE’s official position was to urge its members to boycott all elections and prohibit its leaders from running for elected office. “We were questioning the system,” says Miguel Lluco, now National Coordinator of Pachakutik, “a system that did not offer any guarantee of responding to the interests of the whole, much less to Indian interests. So we said: ‘invalidate your vote.’ “[14]
In 1995, however, CONAIE made an about-face and helped form a political movement to run candidates for elected office. The Pachakutik Movement is a coalition with non-indigenous social movements and thus is not solely an indigenous party. In both the 1996 and 1998 elections Pachakutik candidates won seats at all levels of government, from town councils to Congress. Currently there are 53 indigenous politicians elected on the Pachakutik ticket holding local and provincial seats, and four holding seats in Congress.[15] With two mestizo deputies, there are a total of six Pachakutik members within the 123-member Congress. Pachakutik also won seven seats to the National Constitutional Assembly, established in 1998 to reform the Constitution.
Considered “the political wing” of the CONAIE and the non-indigenous Social Movement Coordinating Committee (CMS), Pachakutik maintains close ties to both organizations. At the same time, however, the lines of authority between Pachakutik and its parent organizations are not well stipulated, and the dynamics of a social movement as compared to a political party have generated tensions at different points over the years. Tensions were evident in the weeks before the January 21 uprising, as CONAIE insistently pressed its demand that all three branches of government be dissolved. Elected Pachakutik members agreed with CONAIE’s analysis of the crisis facing the country, but were frustrated that they were being lumped together with all the other congressmen into the category of “corrupt politicians.” They have also expressed disagreement with the CONAIE and CMS demand for a plebiscite in which one of the questions asks whether the Congress’ mandate should be revoked.[16]
While this is not the first time that tensions have surfaced between CONAIE and Pachakutik, in the past they have been prompted primarily by disputes over candidate selection or alliance strategies.[17] Today’s tensions appear to be more fundamental in nature in that they revolve around two different political strategies that are difficult to reconcile, if not fundamentally contradictory. While the indigenous movement’s strategies have always been eclectic and creative, the more radical strategy of calling into question the legitimacy of the whole political system cannot easily coexist with efforts to get out the vote for local and provincial elections scheduled in May. Something will surely have to give. To the movement’s credit, the various actors are approaching these differences in a spirit of dialogue, but the outcome of these discussions remains uncertain.
The fact that the indigenous movement, which represents primarily rural peoples and some of the poorest and most marginalized sectors of Ecuadorian society, has attained a degree of political power such that their actions can be instrumental in bringing down a standing president is quite remarkable. Any attempt to explain the movement’s success must take into account both external contextual factors and characteristics particular to the movement itself.
A confluence of propitious factors at the international and national levels at the time of the founding and the initial building of the movement provided the necessary political space for it to grow and make concrete gains early on. This space, in turn, was wisely and adroitly taken advantage of by a mature leadership that focused on the strengthening of a pan-Indian identity as the symbolic glue to hold the movement together. An imperfect but essentially democratic and participatory decision-making structure has thus far prevented usurpation by any one faction or leader.
At the international level, interest in and support for indigenous peoples’ struggles increased as the Cold War waned and eventually ended. In 1982 the UN commissioned a working group to develop a set of principles on indigenous peoples’ rights, which resulted in the UN Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 1989 the International Labor Organization (ILO) passed Convention 169, which stipulates a wide-ranging set of rights for native peoples, including collective rights, protection of languages and cultures, and the right to be consulted by governments when proposed laws will affect them.[18] These and many other actions, including the UN’s decision to designate 1993 the International Year of Indigenous People, have drawn attention to native peoples’ struggles and facilitated contacts between indigenous organizations around the world. This interest and concern at the international level has served to legitimate the identity agenda of the movement, as well as to provide it with important international contacts, solidarity and monetary support.
At the national level, three main factors have shaped the movement’s evolution: a relatively non-repressive military, a divided and factionalized political elite, and an economically bankrupt state without the capacity to undertake large-scale populist projects. Compared especially to the Southern Cone and Central American militaries, the Ecuadorian Armed Forces have never been extremely repressive. This has meant that in the past ten years the indigenous movement has been able to carry out five uprisings that have shut down roads and markets throughout the country for days and sometimes weeks at a time with no massive retaliation by the military.[19] Given that the “uprising” has become a central tool of the movement, both for bargaining with the state as well as for its symbolic impact, it is clear that the movement’s success cannot be fully understood without taking into account the nature of the Ecuadorian military.
Ecuador’s highly fragmented party system, exacerbated by deep regional divisions among the country’s economic and political elites, has meant that the movement has not had to face a unified ruling class or a monolithic state. The fact that a coherent neoliberal economic program has never been implemented in Ecuador is as much due to the infighting and lack of unity at the elite level as it is to the indigenous movement’s opposition to such measures.[20] Even so, as one of the most vociferous opponents of neoliberalism, the movement can claim at least partial credit for having blocked the neoliberal advance in Ecuador even as it has swept inexorably across the rest of Latin America. Likewise, the fragmented party system has made it possible for a relatively small minority party like Pachakutik to wield a certain degree of political power at the national level.[21]
Finally, the fact that this movement emerged onto the national arena in the 1980s—when statist populism and the co-optation of social sectors that this model often implied was no longer viable—meant that the risk of full-scale co-optation was much lower. Different governments have of course attempted to divide the movement and co-opt its leadership, but the lack of resources necessary to mount economic and social programs grand enough to draw grassroots allegiance away from the movement has stymied such efforts.
In terms of its own internal structure, CONAIE sits at the top of a pyramidal organizational network. At the base are local associations and cooperatives that began to proliferate in the countryside in the early 1970s.[22] These local organizations are linked together through provincial federations, which in turn belong to one of three regional federations, representing the highlands, the Amazonian lowlands and the coast.[23]
The fact that CONAIE was constructed upon a previously established network of organizations helps explain its relatively rapid institutional consolidation. All member organizations are guaranteed representation and voting rights in CONAIE and their leadership is consulted and included in all major policy decisions. For example, in the initial meetings held to set the ground rules for talks between CONAIE and President Noboa in the wake of the January 21 uprising, some 40 movement leaders participated, including the presidents of all member federations.[24] The pyramidal structure facilitates fairly fluid communication from the rank-and-file up to the national leadership, and a practice of “consulting the bases” has developed within the organization. While there are times when the “consultation” process can in practice become more of a means of transmitting directives or perspectives from above down to the grassroots, nevertheless it does serve to keep lines of communication open between different sectors and levels of the movement. One mechanism that has served to maintain unity between the two major regional groups—the Amazon and the highlands—has been the informal practice of striking a regional balance in the top leadership of CONAIE.[25]
The diverse make-up of the indigenous movement, including marked regional differences, concerns and interests, has led to occasional disagreements over strategy and internal elections. On the whole, the organization has been quite successful at resolving these differences internally and presenting a united front to the public. “Don’t air our dirty laundry in public” has become an informal organizational norm.
Finally, it is important to take into account the movement’s consistent and express avoidance of violence. The leadership has repeatedly reinforced this policy of nonviolence, which appears to have widespread grassroots support. This has bolstered the movement’s legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the population, despite the continued prevalence of racist attitudes within much of Ecuadorian society.
The indigenous movement’s popular support appears to have grown in the wake of the January 21 uprising. In a survey taken the day of the congressional takeover, 71% of those polled said they were in favor of the indigenous movement and 64% approved of the takeover. This, however, did not mean support for the continuation of the junta—fully 79% said they were in favor of maintaining the constitutional order.[26] What these figures do indicate is that as a protest action, the uprising struck a chord among most Ecuadorians.
One of the areas the movement will need to work on if it is to responsibly assume this new mantle of popular leadership is the development of concrete and more realistic proposals for political and economic reform. For example, many of the economic proposals being generated by ongoing grassroots popular consultations fail to take on the difficult task of finding ways to finance the government’s budget, focusing almost exclusively on demand making.[27]
Flirting with solutions that fall outside the constitutional framework is also risky. While the events of January 21 have increased the movement’s popular legitimacy, it has come under attack from the press, the political establishment and international actors for its leadership role in what many refer to as an attempted coup d’état. Further actions like these could seriously jeopardize the movement’s international political clout. Currently CONAIE and CMS are pushing for a national plebiscite which would ask whether the Congress’ mandate should be revoked. Beyond doubts about the constitutionality of the question itself, such a plebiscite raises the possible risk of a Fujimori-like “solution” to Ecuador’s crisis, as the President could use the results of such a referendum to justify the dissolution of Congress and the assumption of dictatorial powers.[28]
On the morning of January 22, after nearly 24 dramatic hours in the National Congress building, the remaining 60 or so members of the People’s Parliament and a couple hundred of their supporters obeyed the police order to abandon the premises. Once outside in the fresh morning air, Luis Alberto Bautista, one of the Parliamentarians, told me he had doubts about the whole process. “Yes, we took power,” he said, “but would the Triumvirate really have worked? Would a coalition government with the military really have been a good idea?”[29]
The time was not yet ripe and the tactics were not the appropriate ones for the indigenous movement to assume the mantle of state power, but a glimpse was had, a memory created, a threshold crossed. “The right of Indians to protest and, yes, even to govern has been established,” says Nina Pacari, long-time movement leader and congressional representative for Pachakutik. “Something very fundamental has emerged for us from this experience: a sense of possibility.”[30]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer N. Collins is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. She currently has a Fulbright grant to carry out field research on political clientelism within the Ecuadorian and Bolivian party systems and the emergence of new indigenous movement-related parties.
NOTES
1. The author is grateful to the Fulbright Commission for funding her research in Ecuador, and to Robert Andolina for his comments and corrections.
2. Out of a total of 99 countries included in Transparency International’s 1999 Corruption Perceptions Index, Ecuador is ranked at 82, with the higher numbers indicating greater degrees of corruption. See .
3. Colonel Fausto Cobo, Author’s notes from Ecuavisa live television broadcast, Quito, January 21, 2000.
4. Antonio Vargas, Author’s notes from Ecuavisa live television broadcast, Quito, January 21, 2000.
5. Poll was conducted by CEDATOS and reported on the February 6, 2000 broadcast of the television show, “La Televisión.”
6. This view has been expressed in several newspaper articles and editorials, including: León Roldós Aguilera, “Quién y Cómo?” El Comercio (Quito), January 26, 2000; “Las Fuerzas Armadas: Una suma de conflictos sin resolver,” El Comercio, January 30, 2000; and Enrique Ayala Mora, “Necesidad de amnistía,” El Comercio, February 15, 2000.
7. There are two other national-level indigenous organizations—the Ecuadorian Federation of Evangelical Indians (FEINE) and the National Federation of Campesino, Indigenous and Black Organizations (FENOCIN)—which historically have had competitive and at times conflictive relations with each other and CONAIE, but neither of them can match the organizational strength of CONAIE.
8. There are no reliable statistics on the absolute size of the indigenous population in Ecuador. Estimates range from 10 to 40% of a population of approximately 12 million. The most recent census, carried out in 1990, did not include a question on ethnic identification. In any event, CONAIE called on its members to boycott the census.
9. CONAIE, Las nacionalidades indígenas en el Ecuador (Quito: Editorial TINCUI/CONAIE and Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1989), p. 37.
10. There have been efforts in the past to link the struggles of Afro-Ecuadorian peoples, who make up about 5% of the total population, with indigenous struggles. Some Afro-Ecuadorian organizations are official members of CONAIE, and campesinos in general have benefited from some of the gains made by the indigenous movement.
11. Carlos Viteri, “Ecuador un país fictício,” Ikonos, No. 2 (May/July 1997), pp. 51-58.
12. Consejo de Gobierno de la CONAIE, “Proyecto Político de la CONAIE” (1994), p. 7.
13. Consejo de Gobierno de la CONAIE, “Proyecto Político de la CONAIE” (1994), p. 5-7.
14. Author’s interview, Miguel Lluco, Quito, January 3, 2000. Voting is obligatory in Ecuador and so it would not have been realistic for CONAIE to have encouraged people simply not to go to the polls.
15. Fernando Garcia, “Presente y perspectiva del movimiento indígena ecuatoriano,” Paper presented at the seminar on Movimientos Sociales, Democracia y Cambio Político en el Area Andina, Quito, Ecuador, November 22-23, 1999.
16. These comments are based on the author’s interviews with three of the six Pachakutik Congressional representatives: Nina Pacari, Quito, February 3, 2000; Miguel Pérez, Quito, February 3, 2000; and Antonio Posso, Quito, February 1, 2000.
17. Kenneth Mijeski and Scott Beck, “Mainstreaming the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador: The Electoral Strategy,” Paper presented at the XXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL, September 24-26, 1998.
18. Ecuador’s new Constitution contains a chapter on collective rights for indigenous people modeled after the ILO Convention 169. This was largely a result of the efforts of Pachakutik delegates to the 1998 Constitutional Assembly.
19. In 1994, one indigenous protester was killed and a building belonging to an indigenous organization was burned down by unknown arsonists.
20. Jennifer Collins, “Not for Sale: Barriers to Privatization in a Non-Crisis Case, Ecuador, 1992-1996,” Presented at the Joint Conference of the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS) and the Canadian Association for Mexican Studies (CAMS), Vancouver, British Columbia, March 19-21, 1998.
21. For instance, despite having only six seats in the legislature, the Pachakutik congressional bloc was able to get one of their representatives, Nina Pacari, elected as the congressional vice-president.
22. For an analysis of the origin and evolution of these local organizations, see Anthony Bebbington, Hernán Carrasco, Lourdes Peralvo, Galo Ramón, Victor Hugo Torres and Jorge Trujillo, “De la protesta a la productividad: Evolución de las federaciones indígenas del Ecuador,” Desarrollo de Base, Vol. 16, No. 2.
23. CONAIE was founded by the highland and Amazonian regional federations, ECUARUNARI and CONFENAIE. Coastal groups joined the organization later under their regional umbrella organization, the Confederation of Indigenous, Black and Campesino Organizations of the Ecuadorian Coast (COINCCE).
24. “Noboa y la CONAIE buscan fecha para una reunión,” El Comercio (Quito), February 9, 2000, p. A3.
25. Though they are members of CONAIE, coastal organizations and leaders have never had a high profile within the organization. The indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian populations on the coast are relatively small, and they are not as well organized as those in the highlands and Amazonian lowlands.
26. Poll conducted by CEDATOS and broadcast on the television show, “La Televisión,” January 23, 2000.
27. This is evident in various unpublished documents coming out of recent meetings of the Popular Parliaments convened by indigenous and social movements in an effort to develop alternative government programs and proposals. This view was also expressed by Pachakutik legislator, Nina Pacari, Author’s interview, Quito, February 3, 2000.
28. The question, as currently proposed by the social movements, includes stipulations that would presumably preclude a presidential takeover. It is, however, highly unlikely that the solution contained in the proposed question—to give temporary authorization to the Popular Parliaments to come up with new electoral laws—would be accepted by the political establishment.
29. Author’s interview, Luis Alberto Bautista, Quito, February 3, 2000.
30. Author’s interview, Nina Pacari, Quito, February 3, 2000.
