Ecuador: Protests threaten - 'FTA signed, Palacio out'

Several weeks of turmoil have escalated as thousands of workers, students and indigenous groups have taken to Ecuador's streets and highways, bringing the country to a standstill, forcing the resignation of the interior minister and demanding an end to negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US.

The latest round of protests were sparked on March 6 when 4000 contract oil workers in Orellana province took industrial action demanding back-pay and secure employment, and opposing environmental damage from the US-based oil company Occidental Petroleum.

Since then, the protests have broadened rapidly to reject the proposed FTA with the US and demand a new constitution and the removal of US troops from the Eloy Alfaro air base at Manta. Protesters have also demanded the expulsion of Occidental from Ecuador and the nationalisation of the country's oil.

In the capital Quito, protesters occupied the metropolitan cathedral and broke through a police cordon to blockade the presidential palace. In rural areas, highways were blockaded across the central highlands and throughout the Amazonian regions.

Ecuador's elite creates 'smokescreen' for FTAA entry

In the last couple of weeks, Ecuador's fragile democracy has threatened once again to come apart at the seams. On October 20, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) ruled that President Alfredo Palacio's call to hold a referendum in December to elect a constituent assembly to amend the country's constitution was illegal.

However, responding to massive public opposition to the ruling, Palacio has insisted on going ahead with both the referendum and constituent assembly, sparking calls from the hostile legislature for his resignation.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, on October 22 Palacio refused to back down, telling a meeting with representatives of popular organisations that the "proposed assembly is irreversible, inevitable, necessary and perfectible".

The convening of a constituent assembly was one of the demands that Palacio, a retired cardiologist and former vice-president, promised to carry out in the wake of the mass protests that led the Congress in April to remove from office President Lucio Gutierrez and replace him with then vice-president Palacio.

Ecuador's President Gutierrez walks a tightrope

On June 10, the 10th round of negotiations for a free trade agreement between the South American nations of Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, and the United States, ended in a stalemate, with neither side willing to budge, in yet another example of Washington's increasing isolation on the continent.
Colombian farmers boycotted the negotiations, thousands of Ecuadorians protested in the streets of the country's largest city, Guayaquil, until police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse them, and on June 8, a bomb was set off outside the hotel in which the negotiations were taking place.

Ecuador's social movements, confident after forcing the overthrow of President Lucio Gutierrez on April 20, are demanding a referendum on the agreement. Protesters chanted: "We don't want to become a North American colony".

Gutierrez was unpopular for his implementation of neoliberal austerity measures, expansion of the US military presence in Ecuador and for attempting to subvert the role of the Supreme Court. 

His replacement, former vice-president Alfredo Palacio, came to power promising to hold a referendum on the trade agreement, increase social spending and to "re-found" the country by setting up a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

However, while he initially spoke out against deepening military ties with the US, Palacio has since affirmed that the US air base at Manta, used as part of Plan Colombia, will stay, and there are fears he will cave in to Washington over trade as well.