The October 2019 Indigenous and Citizens’ Uprising in Ecuador

The Transport Strike

On October 1, 2019, Ecuador was shaken by news that the government would remove long-standing fuel subsidies and introduce other dramatic measures with an impact on workers in the workplace. The cost of a gallon of gasoline would rise from US$1.85 to $2.39 (29 percent) and the gallon of diesel was set to rise from US$1.03 to $2.30 (123 percent). Previous uprisings in Ecuador had been sparked by fuel price rises, which have an immediate multiplier effect across society, but in 2019 there was little sense that an uprising was imminent. Correa had effectively co-opted popular mobilization, and the social movements were weakened. They were further demoralized by the measures taken by Moreno against Correa’s legacy. Nevertheless, with surprising rapidity the whole transport sector was paralyzed on October 4 with one simple demand: repeal Decree 883. This mobilization involved a wide array of transport: heavy-goods transport, urban transport, rental vehicles, taxis, trailers, cranes, and school buses. The fuse was lit for a national confrontation between the powerful and the subaltern, capital and labor, costa and sierra. The transport stoppage was effective across the country; discipline was tight, and the population was generally tolerant of the disruption.

The transport strike, organized by a combination of national and local organizations, was set to last until October 5. The impact was felt immediately: people could not get to work, children could not attend school, and the markets were closed. Significantly, the transportistas began to use road blockages in rural areas to enforce the stoppage. This brought wider layers into the struggle as local communities helped cut down trees to drag across the highways and defend the barricades from the police. In the towns and cities students and others began to congregate, adding to the mood of militant mobilization. Some of the first clashes with the security forces occurred, often in areas deemed “peaceful.” It seemed as if society was willing the transport workers on; they posed a demand that all felt was absolutely crucial for the sake of society at large.

The cautious, not to say conservative, leadership of some transport sectors did not see it this way and did not feel that it was the vanguard of a general protest movement. Thus Jorge Muñoz, president of the drivers’ union in Loja, told us, “We do not call strikes that only hurt our members. We promote a culture of dialogue, to converse with the authorities” (interview, Loja, December 15, 2019). He complained about “all sorts of people protesting in the streets, throwing objects against buses, taxis, and interprovincial coaches. . . . We had to wait for the police to control these disturbances and provide the guarantees that a transport system needs.” He argued that when the strike continued into the following week it was not due to support for the CONAIE but simply as a “precautionary measure” to protect drivers and vehicles from attack. Other interviews confirmed this analysis, and we should not expect mobilizations to be always harmonious or driven by the class struggle. After all, it was the owner/driver transport workers in Chile who in 1972 had begun some of the most militant mobilizations against the socialist government of Salvador Allende.

A different transport sector perspective comes from Rolando Hurtado, president of the Loja provincial taxi drivers’ cooperative, who told us that “in Loja normal work resumed, but at the national level social groups like the indigenous came out [on strike] and the country was paralyzed. The CONAIE asked us for support” (interview, Loja, December 18, 2019). The government found it easy to settle with the transport sector by offering higher fares for public transport. On October 4 the stoppage was called off. Everyone expected the revolt to peter out over the long weekend—it is hard to maintain mobilizations such as this one—but the government, egged on by media full of talk about their “inciting violence” and “causing social disorder,” made the mistake of imprisoning some of the main union leaders. As Hurtado explained, “again a cease to all transport activities was called, given the imprisonment of our national leaders, and we campaigned to have them released.” At the local level a number of people were charged with participation in road blockages. From being bought off, this sector now became a protagonist in the next and definitive stage of the uprising.

At the same time, the indigenous movement had been mobilizing, rapidly bringing forward a demonstration originally planned for a month later. The CONAIE put pressure on the transport sector to continue its stoppage, which it did, whether out of solidarity or out of self-preservation. The transport stoppage in itself had had limited objectives, and the drivers and owners were not prepared for a long-drawn-out dispute as the indigenous movement obviously was. Their vision was a corporatist one and their consciousness clearly sectorial, but they played a detonating role and continued the pressure on the regime once the indigenous mobilization began. Their participation was also positive in terms of strengthening that sector of the labor movement. As Hurtado put it, “We emerged strengthened at the local level. . . . United we can achieve much more. . . . We are also strengthened at the national level” (interview, Loja, December 18, 2019)). But now another player was on the scene, one that was much more likely to gather popular sympathy (transport strikes are rarely popular) and follow through with the struggle to ultimate victory despite the cost.

The Uprising

A chronological reconstruction of the main events of the uprising will clarify the dynamic and the rhythms of the street fighting through which the class struggle was expressed. A whole history of uprisings was condensed in those 10 days in October 2019. On October 2, at a press conference, the National Unitary Collective of Workers, the CONAIE, the Frente Unitario de los Trabajadores (United Workers’ Front—FUT), and other social organizations announced mobilizations throughout the country. Jaime Vargas, president of the CONAIE, called "18 peoples, 14 indigenous nationalities, and social organizations from all over the country to the great national mobilization in favor of a dignified life for Ecuadorians." The strike was on. By the next day, October 3, the country was paralyzed by labor withdrawals, road blockages, and large local demonstrations and takeovers of municipal buildings.

In the capital, Quito, university students were summoned to march to the Carondelet Palace to show their rejection of the government’s economic measures. They met in the vicinity of the Central University of Ecuador, and on the way to the historic center other social sectors such as the teachers’ and other unions and other student movements joined in. On its way the march gained strength, which allowed it, for example, to tear down a fence set up by the police in the historic center. The repression was beginning to escalate; some journalists were severely beaten, and the police used armored cars with amplifiers to disperse the protesters. At 3 p.m., new mobilizations were called in other parts of the city. The police prevented press coverage, covered the cameras, and threatened to take away the journalists’ equipment. A student from the Central University of Ecuador was arrested for recording the police action with her cell phone. While that was happening, President Moreno announced that the measures would not be rescinded and declared a state of exception. This was a clear escalation, as was the announcement that the nation was now “on a war footing”; the protest was, after all, legitimate. After 5 p.m. workers who had finished their workdays joined the protest, and the number of people resisting in the streets increased. Protesters built barricades and set fires in the streets to protect themselves from the tear gas.

On October 4, the demonstration began in the city at 11 a.m., while human rights organizations reported that 81 people had been detained in the Flagrancy Unit on charges of “attack and resistance.” Prevented from entering the historic center, the mobilization continued on the streets. On October 6, social networks showed videos of tanks entering to cordon off the historic center; the defense minister argued that they were not tanks but armored vehicles. At a new press conference the FUT, the CONAIE, the Unión General del Trabajadores de Ecuador (General Union of Workers of Ecuador—UGTE), and the Popular Front called a national strike for October 9. The CONAIE denounced the excessive violence of the state and its refusal to review the decree that removed the subsidy on gasoline and declared an “indefinite mobilization” across the country. It also announced that indigenous peoples and nationalities would mobilize toward Quito for the national strike.

On October 7, attention was concentrated on the southern entrance to Quito, given that the indigenous march was to enter the city from that direction. For this, 10 military trucks were already on the road waiting for those mobilized from the provinces of the country’s central highlands. While this was happening, protesters, mostly young, had already gathered at the entrances to the historic center of the city. Late in the afternoon, the indigenous march reached the center of the city; in the sector known as El Arbolito there were already social organizations, university students, and neighborhood organizations waiting to join it. That night, President Moreno announced on national TV the transfer of the government headquarters to Guayaquil and ratified the measures taken. A new phase of the confrontation was beginning. Around 9 p.m. there was a violent incursion into the building of the comptroller general, according to the CONAIE by agents provocateurs.

On the morning of October 8, people from the popular neighborhoods of Quito and from middle-class groups in the city delivered food, blankets, and cleaning supplies to El Arbolito Park for the people who had arrived from other provinces. That same day, public and private universities opened their facilities so that they could serve as a refuge for protesters from different parts of the country; the same spaces served for food collection and for the feeding of people arriving for the mobilization. Given the violent incidents of the previous night, the indigenous movement—which for that day had the House of Ecuadorian Culture to spend the night and take refuge in—decided to take measures against infiltrators who might encourage violence at the demonstration and thus the resurgence of state repression. On the same day the social organizations of peasants and Afro-descendants joined the mobilization in Quito. In addition to the facilities of the House of Culture, the Salesian Polytechnic University opened its doors so that indigenous people could sleep there. It was estimated that 700 people were housed there, assisted by a large number of volunteers, including university students, who joined in shifts for food preparation. In these shelter centers, the solidarity of the people of the city was shown every day. El Arbolito became a food center for protesters and the place where medical brigades provided them care and received medical supplies.

The mobilization of October 8, instead of focusing on the city center, was to follow Avenida 6 de Diciembre to the National Assembly. By the afternoon of that day it had managed to enter the legislature, and there the repression increased, with tear gas wreaking havoc among those who were there. After the event, the president issued Decree 888, which declared a curfew throughout the country from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily. The level of repression increased as the days went by. The police action, with tear gas reported even in the courtyards of the Eugenio Espejo Maternity Hospital, close to the National Assembly, had to be denounced several times. The CONAIE, in one of its statements on the curfew, said that the decree would motivate the excessive use of violence against protesters and denounced "the dimensions of this measure, in the style of a military dictatorship." During the night it asked the Ecuadorian Red Cross to create humanitarian corridors to protect the lives of protesters. The response was brutal repression.

October 9 was marked by the detention of 80 people in a military barracks in the city rather than on the premises of the Flagrancy Unit as appropriate. El Arbolito was full of protesters. Once again a massive mobilization unparalleled in recent years headed to the center of the city. The flags of Ecuador and the representatives of the indigenous movement were flying. Safety cordons were formed to prevent the dispersion of the protesters and to discourage vandalism by possible infiltrators. By the afternoon, the places set aside for refuge for the demonstrators were full of smoke. The police had violated the spaces destined for the care of the injured, throwing tear gas bombs and intimidating those who were there. For that action, the minister of the interior issued a public apology.

On October 10, the indigenous people gathered in the House of Culture, asking the national media to broadcast their meeting live. The platform was full, and there were also seven police officers present who had been subjected to citizen’s arrests when they attacked indigenous areas. The movement called for the definitive repeal of the economic measures and declared the state responsible for the deaths of the previous days. The community of Cotopaxi set up an altar to receive with honor the two indigenous people who had been killed.

On the morning of October 11, the protest was reactivated, and on this day there was more police aggression with tear gas bombs in the peace zones. Given the extreme state violence, the indigenous people and other protesters walked to the National Assembly, which was completely cordoned off by police and military security, with their hands up and shouting, "We want peace." While hundreds of people were preparing to eat there, the police fired tear gas bombs from nearby buildings, in obvious betrayal of the protesters, who had expressed the desire for no more violence. The fourth report of the Ombudsman’s Office showed that of the 1,070 people arrested, more than half of them were under 30, 13 percent adolescents, and 9 percent children under 15; 855 people were injured and 5 killed.

From the morning of October 12 on, the neighborhoods of southern Quito expressed solidarity with the indigenous movement, and from various sectors of the city they moved toward the center of the city. On the same day the president extended the curfew, putting the freedom of who decided to stay on the streets at risk and causing them to retreat to their neighborhoods and their homes. However, the symbolic exercise of the struggle did not stop, and the Quito night was full of the sound of pots and pans being banged (cacerolazo) as from the terraces of the houses people showed their adherence to the national strike.

On the night of October 12 in the vicinity of the House of Culture there was an explosion so loud that it was recorded up to several kilometers away. Although the police did not enter the agora, it cannot be denied that they intimidated the protesters who were preparing to rest there. A CONAIE statement that night declared that, after consulting with the members of its confederation, it had decided to participate in the national dialogue proposed by the government and mediated by representatives of the United Nations and the Ecuadorian Bishops’ Conference. The dialogue took place on October 13. The repeal of the decree that eliminated the gasoline subsidy and the replacement of the measure with ones that did not directly hit the pockets of Ecuadorians were agreed upon.

The Aftermath

The pressure of the insurgent social movement had eventually become too much for the government, and Decree 883 was rescinded. The level of repression was also being stepped up, and there was a sense that the insurgency had reached its peak. The leaders of the CONAIE met with the president and his ministers on October 13, live on national TV, to negotiate the terms on which the decree was to be rescinded and replaced. While on paper this was a huge concession, the replacement mechanisms were not entirely clear. Equally significant was the absence from the negotiations of the labor “reforms” that would impact urban workers most directly. It could be suggested that the indigenous movement had prioritized the issue that most impacted its members in the sierra. On the plus side, however, the CONAIE did set up what it called a “peoples’ parliament” bringing together civil society representatives and progressive intellectuals to feed into its response to the government negotiators and the austerity program. It called on the government to address poverty and inequality rather than simply following the IMF-imposed program for removing the fuel subsidy and the draconian labor reforms.

A balance sheet drawn up immediately after the October uprising would have shown that the balance of class forces in the country had changed dramatically. The indigenous and (to a lesser extent) labor movements were clearly empowered. The government and the neoliberal project were wounded, though not mortally. Pablo Dávalos, an economist who acted as an adviser to the CONAIE, told us that “effectively the October uprising changed the coordinates of the political system in a fundamental way, because the order constructed before the uprising was now finished” (interview, Quito, December 15, 2019). The indigenous movement, while representing a small proportion of the population directly, was able to gather the support of between two-thirds and three-quarters of the country for its single demand of revoking Decree 883. The dominant classes and particularly the Guayaquil ruling class delierately played the “race card” to seek to delegitimize this national political role and reduce the movement to a narrow sectorial and ethnic one.

The CONAIE itself developed its position very much in the heat of the events, and it is testimony to its organizational resilience that it maintained control of a mobilization that was at times chaotic. Veronica Albuja, a political scientist and adviser to the CONAIE, told us that “the indigenous movement has solid, important cadres, a new younger leadership, that could take on power and develop a political agenda for the nation” (interview, Quito, December 10, 2019). The leading role of indigenous women not only in the uprising itself but also in the CONAIE leadership was a notable new feature. The very high level of organization and discipline of the movement goes a long way toward explaining its success, as does its capacity to create the conditions for the involvement of broader strata, particularly in Quito, including the universities where the travelers from the sierra were accommodated, the students who were key supporters, and even the middle-class barrios that rose in protest against the curfew.

Lenín Moreno, despite his leftist origins, was supported by most of the ruling class. When the uprising began, many figures on the right threw their weight behind him. This unified bourgeois front did not augur well for an independent right-wing alternative after the crisis was over. To some extent Jaime Nebot, former mayor of Guayaquil, escaped this fate with his calls for “law and order” and the “defense of Guayaquil” being tempered by calls for compensation for the fuel price hikes. Guillermo Lasso, his right-wing rival for the next elections (and close runner-up to Moreno in 2017), more or less destroyed his chances through his uncritical championing of Moreno’s stance. The president, for his part, sought not to openly antagonize the CONAIE or the indigenous movement, referring to his indigenous “brothers and sisters” in terms reminiscent of Correa. The labor movement, in both its wings—the Central Única de Trabajadores (Workers’ Unified Central—CUT)), created by Correa as a progovernment vehicle, and the oppositionist FUT, which was involved in the mobilization—maintained reasonably good relations with the government throughout.

The question then arises whether there can be a reconstitution of the ruling class block to reenergize the neoliberal project. It is unlikely that the government will establish hegemony for an austerity program, as agreed upon with the IMF, not least because the middle class that supports it has no intention of suffering on its behalf. The credibility of the current government has been severely dented by its having fully met the insurgency’s demand for the repeal of Decree 883. The discursive move toward painting the insurgency as the enemy within has not gained much purchase across society and was contradicted by the televised negotiations between the CONAIE and the government. During the insurgency there was a feeling that the dominant economic classes of Guayaquil would sweep Moreno aside and rule directly, but that did not happen. Now Moreno will stumble on, never quite recovering, until the next elections in 2021 while others seek to reassemble a dominant class project.

A subplot of the political aftermath of the October uprising was the role and prospects of former President Correa. The government-controlled media made a concerted effort to make pro-Correa elements the key movers of the insurgency. There is very little evidence of that or, for that matter, of Venezuelan involvement (despite a series of arrests at the Quito airport) or of the ever-present “Cubans.” However, Correa was of course interested in any events that would diminish his successor and help pave the way for his eventual return to power. In practice there was no sign of nostalgia for the “good old days” of Correismo during the uprising, least of all in the ranks of the CONAIE that Correa had spent a decade trying to divide and weaken. There was thus little chance of his return being a popular demand, although “Correismo sin Correa” is undoubtedly a significant political strand in Ecuador.

Overall we can start our evaluation of the October days from an understanding that the balance of class forces changed irrevocably, along with the balance of forces within the forces of reaction and of progressive politics. But there was also a sense in its aftermath that this was a dress rehearsal for a broader trial of strength. Neither side foresaw how decisively the struggle would be waged and its dramatic outcome, and in a way neither side was ready to go all the way this time around. This feeling was confirmed by subsequent political events. There is no one from the right who can mount a challenge similar to that of Camacho in Bolivia, nor is there social support for such adventurism. From a social movement perspective we would probably agree with Pablo Ospina Peralta (2019: 7) that “for the indigenous and union organizations to fully capitalize on this victory, won with so much human sacrifice and with so much effort, they will need to outline concrete alternative platforms for dealing with the economic crisis” that include the growing impact of linking the currency with the U.S. dollar. A hegemonic approach from the social movements is still lacking, and there is no alternative platform for government in sight. We are in fact in a sort of stalemate as far as hegemonic projects go.

The uprising unfolded very rapidly and events cascaded thereafter, as we have seen. The indigenous movement assumed—and was recognized as holding—the leadership of a broader civic alliance for change. The dramatic and to some extent unexpected total and abrupt derogation of Decree 883 represented a pivotal political moment, but partly because of the political divisions in the CONAIE and the absence of an open debate we did not see a clear proposal emerge that would unify the demands of the indigenous population (no more than 7 percent of the total) with those of the emerging feminist movement, students, retirees, and small and medium-sized enterprise. Furthermore, if we look at hegemony in regional terms we find that the indigenous movement was strong in the sierra but practically nonexistent on the coast, as we have seen with the Guayaquil reaction against the uprising. The challenge to unify and construct a democratic equivalent will determine whether the gains made in October 2019 translate into a sustained move forward toward progressive change.

Taking a longer-term historical view of the October uprising, we can say that it clearly represents a return of the CONAIE to center stage politically. We would need to go back at least to the year 2000 and the fall of the Mahuad regime following a massive regional indigenous mobilization focused on Quito to have any point of comparison. This time around the demand was not for the removal of the president but for the revocation of a single unpopular decree. The historian Pablo Medina told us that because of the divisions created by Correa during his decade in power, society and the political order had “learnt that the indigenous no longer mobilized, no longer took Quito, did not paralyze the country” (interview, Quito, December 19, 2019). This is a different indigenous movement from the one that mobilized in 2000. It includes, for example, youth sectors open to a “Venezuelan” mode of struggle and even armed struggle. In the 2020s we will undoubtedly hear more from these currents that are for now subterranean.