By: Santiago Ortiz
In the morning of October, the newspaper El Comercio de Quito became front-page headlines in their version of events of the day before the country was the insubordination of a police group.
Was actually a police riot that occurred on Thursday 30 September?
To answer this question the first thing to locate who is behind the news. The mainstream press in Latin America, especially in countries with progressive governments, assumes a script aimed at distorting reality, find the respective government's mistakes and stop the processes of change that is occurring in the region. This is due to the new role they have acquired the media as transnational and ideological power within countries and bodies involved in political struggle, which operate at the weakness of the old parties.
The events of that Black Thursday clearly reveal more than a riot shows an organized process: the police actions were synchronized in all provinces, cut roads and took the airports in Quito and Latacunga, the legislative guard prevented the meeting of the National Assembly. later repressed the demonstrators who supported democracy and government, where police attacked ambulances carrying wounded soldiers, groups linked to the Patriotic Society forcibly entered the public television hit many ministers are trying to reach Quito Regiment and during the day secuestró al Presidente, se le agredió en siete ocasiones y se atacó a bala -con francotiradores apostados en las terrazas de edificios colindantes - perforando el auto en donde los complotados creían que iba el Presidente, asesinando a miembros de su escolta.
Los sucesos se dieron en medio de un escenario propicio para demostrar un vacío de poder, pues mientras en las calles se producían saqueos y los medios de comunicación amplificaban la confusión, State the main functions stopped working, the legislature could not meet, the President of the Assembly was out of the country, the Vice President was returning from a trip and stayed in Guayaquil, Quito unable to reach and President was kidnapped.
Significantly newspapers like El Comercio in its edition of October 1 have argued that it is a police revolt by corporate demands and put the ink in blame the president for his failure to have gotten into? the Cave Bear?. For them there is no constitutional crisis, no democracy is in danger or has endangered the life of a President.
But clearly the facts show something more than a misguided union action. Looking at the script of the coup d'état of 21 January 2000, when the Gutierrez brothers led a military coup against Jamil Mahuad, you can better understand the logic of events current. Ten years ago there was discontent in the ranks of the armed forces, support of indigenous people and was carried on an armed movement that culminated with the departure of Mahuad and the coming to power of Vice President Gustavo Noboa.
Certainly the current unrest was another scenario that happened. Then it was headed by a neoliberal government did? Bailout? to encourage banks and dollarized the country, today we have a progressive government. The dimensions of the unrest that occurred then were different, having an arc of popular and indigenous forces that resisted the government's unpopular measures. In addition, the coup ten years ago was in the context of a long process of political crisis and deinstitutionalization.
But the tactics and the script of the current movement are very similar to that moment: today there are corporate claims with symbolic elements such as bonuses, Christmas baskets and decorations, base of the riot police, there were also scattered union action of public servants and statements of two or three indigenous leaders. However, unlike a decade ago, the actions were not intended to overthrow and expel the President, as happened with Mahuad, who was willing to go to Harvard. Today was the assassination attempt and reveals the beating, kidnapping and bullets against the President.
Returning to the union level must recognize that the discomfort of police stations and other government agencies were produced by the Public Service Act and the President's veto. The management of labor issues by government employees has generated reactions from various state agencies to the extent that meetings were convened and several ministries were about to be taken by employees who announced actions against the said Act Certainly this is the result of the failures of government and in particular its arrogant attitude in the discussion of laws, using the veto and other mechanisms, without opening the debate and without negotiation with other actors.
This Act and the Higher Education, the Water Law, the Organic Code of Territorial Autonomy and Decentralization Organization, Cooter, Communications Act, are laws that make transition from the regime established by the Constitution of Montecristi, which were prepared by teams of government and have been oriented to consolidate and streamline the state, affecting some aspects of public servants. This is a modernization process in full swing fact where they are in addition to laws, policies, rules and style of abuse and repression of social organizations, under the approach they are pursuing corporate interests and the government's call to care for the common good: This sowed resentment by either side.
This broth culture is maneuvering an organization that has a political and a military component, similar to the January 21, with a strategy and a political purpose. This is not a spontaneous movement. There is someone who cares for months to open contacts, create networks, promote riots, police training, arming pickets and rallies, convincing some politicians to articulate one? National front? to cover and legitimize their actions.
But for a union movement becomes coup must have other sources of power: the military, a sector of the ruling elites and the approval of the Department of State. Guayaquil Mayor Jaime Nebot earlier ruled against the coup and later the Chamber of Industry and the Embassy of the United States: that is the revolt did not have the support of actors gravitating the political scene and did not meet the standards of a coup state that boasts of such.
The failure to meet certain parameters of a classic hit, does not mean it's not a hit, especially when the logic of revolt due to the strategy of groups seeking adventurous and turbulent river fishing in that print Creole style and plebeian to the event, as G. Long.
addition, conditions for the plot is not easy. Country Alliance is a coalition that has won elections in seven cases and controls various functions of the state, has broad popular support and the President has not dropped below 65% support in polls. Moreover, although Rafael Correa closed the base in Manta and sign the FTA, have improved relations with the State Department. On the other hand unlike the neo-liberal governments, the government has strengthened the role of armed Outliers in public enterprises and infrastructure construction. A soldiers and police have increased their wages and gave them modern equipment to the point that Armed Forces play a key role in the northern border.
therefore not supported by major factors of power and a government that has a broad democratic legitimacy conditions are not were very favorable to those who organized the armed insurgency. The group that orchestrated the revolt has clearly placed the leading role played by Rafael Correa at the summit of the ruling coalition and know that a vacuum at the apex, it would be a fatal blow for that political movement and the government, probably slow down the reform process that somehow or other, has driven Country Alliance. .
As Ecuadorians already have experience with Jaime Roldós at the beginning of democracy, when his death left an orphan to a broad democratic movement. Today an assassination could leave Alianza Pais, the government and the so-called Citizen Revolution beheaded, as the leader plays a key role in driving of this process and the legitimacy of the movement. A leader like Correa, with all the limitations, his naivete and arrogance, it would be easy to replace, even more so when NATO country has done little to articulate an organized social base and a political movement. On the other hand, a dismembered and aimless right does not have options to succeed at the polls at least in the medium term.
And Correa's leadership is the great strength and great weakness of the Revolution called Citizens. Are aware that the conspirators and therefore suggest? Him down? the president. The adventurous nature of the group that led the mutiny had not necessarily a traditional coup, but to strike at the heart of the Citizen Revolution greatly weakened in the political and symbolic. Not a classic hit but the blow would begin with the death of President would open a period of chaos and uncertainty, which could be exploited by future plots, destabilizing maneuvers, conflicts and even armed clashes, which are experts in paramilitary groups. This would open conditions for the arrival of a right-wing, authoritarian government, with murders, State terrorism and systematic repression through.
If we follow the events of the day 30 we can understand the strategy of the groups that led the plot. In the early morning of 30 police began the uprising that had its epicenter in the Quito Regiment No. 1 but was synchronized, as noted above, in police stations across the country. When the government team met at the Presidential Palace to respond, the arrival of President Correa Quito Regiment No 1 changed the situation dramatically. This was naive to talk to the police riot, believing that there had friends, because they had improved wages and made several improvements to logistics. The President in her naiveté still believed that the police command civil authority and care for the population as ordinary Ecuadoreans know that police stations are not exactly a place of protection for citizens.
But the president himself realized that he had received, that it was a police riot, where there were characters who had infiltrated special weapons and giving orders to the troops. They attacked the president, as seen in several television channels, and this had to go to Hospital Police to heal, while the police placed chains with locks on the doors of access to the area and repelled the rest of the presidential entourage, including the Minister of Communication. It was precisely what we sought the armed commando operation: making revolt, concealed between the police and a list of demands, act in the midst of the confusion and threaten the life of the President. This was necessary for a group that ran the operation, since not only acts behind the scenes but also participates in public arenas legal.
The courage of Correa and his arrival at Quito Regiment, were given on a silver platter the scenario that they needed: a police riot, a president who got into the? Mouth Wolf? to provoke them and a bullet that was casual to the heart of President blinding life.
However the attitude of Rafael Correa and his speech had an unexpected result for the command criminal. When he opened his shirt and said? Kill me? was learning the game of the conspirators in the eyes of all who saw amazed the TV screens. It was evident that a group of police, called to maintain order under the command of the Constitution, were at his mercy the life of the President's Office.
Only for those who do not want to see, the police revolt was spontaneous. Most realized that there was no organization and that the confusion was preparing the assassination of the President of Ecuador. Even at international level were heard voices like Evo Morales in Bolivia and Hugo Chávez from Venezuela warning of danger, which mobilized the entire international community. The police of the various detachments who initially supported the measure, fell back, as well as several associations of public servants, the CONAIE also called to defend the Constitution.
The nature of the event had changed, character and trade union movement? Riot? had been transmuted into the maelstrom of events in a possible assassination and the beginning of a process of destabilization that will surely be crowned in a coup. Meanwhile the actors who support democracy are mobilized to free the President and in the midst of this dramatic situation the government team, the command of the armed forces and the international community acted quickly to avert the worst.
The situation was delicate. A wrong step endangered the lives of many people. And so the President's rescue operation, which started from noon, had to prepare for hours to find the best conditions for a fence and a military assault will result in safe and sound release Rafael Correa.
Advantageously the presidential guard and elite police group is stationed on the campus of the Citadel police managed to establish a hedge in the room on the third floor of the Hospital where he was the President, in order to defend it before the angry policemen who were stationed in the neighboring building, the regiment Quito. Several ministers had arrived at the scene and some of them accompanied the President.
morning the police Stripping generated climate unrest in several cities to criminals who seized the opportunity to rob banks and stores, in the afternoon the police of most provinces had retreated to their barracks and were trying to restore order under a state of emergency had decreed by the government. But the plotters were still operating, threatening the family of the President, reaching the media with messages offensive and calling for the resignation of the President. Agitators groups promoted by the plotters had tried to cut off Internet communication antennas cut to prevent communication to the public network, and finally forced entry to their facilities.
The hours passed and before nightfall the Forces-led operation Armed and GOE work. Throughout the country, thanks to a journalist Ecuavisa, saw images of the confrontation between elements of the armed forces and the GOE, on the one hand and police Quito Regiment. After half an hour of shooting, the President managed to be rescued by a miracle, killing at least ten people and wounding nearly a hundred.
The joint forces and the manner in which the events occurred failed to consummate a coup or assassination of President arrived, true, but it was evident that the facts Thursday 30 had a logic played a conspiracy in which political and military command and snipers, to perform an operation to undermine the president's life. Had significant level of organization that led to a simultaneous action of the police throughout the country in an armed struggle against democracy, which had coverage of certain political figures and media, who were responsible for distorting the facts and responsibilities turn, giving the government the blame for what happened;
Do the events of September 30 set a coup? The facts do not show a traditional coup, but a combination of a labor movement, organized an armed uprising, a criminal operation to kidnap and assassinate the President. In achieving this outcome, this would be the prelude to a 180 degree change in the political arena: the State was not the president, the Government and Country Alliance lost its leader, all of which created conditions for the destabilization the country, in fact a coup d'etat and the right opportunity. But this was not the end. The events, which often have an unpredictable course, allowed to come back to life the President to the Government Palace.
But this event also brings a new situation in the country: first open a clash of armed forces to civilian authority and the rule of law . Second in the shadows move a military policy group continues to operate in the country. Third, which is a sign that we have not advanced much in recent years: it confirms Armed Forces as a power factor that settles the conflict. Also another outcome is the attitude of the elite sectors of Quito, unaware increasingly democratic regime, spread a smoke screen and justify the plot, as a way to wear down the government of public revolution. Just as there are people like Nebot declaring the coup, there are individuals and groups of elites who would converge in a new coalition of those who have been affected by measures taken by the government.
in this area are sectors of the police. It is known that there is a core that has been acting independently, as revealed in the events of Angostura with the Special Investigations Unit (UIES), which has not been removed. This is compounded by the discomfort of a large group of officers in positions of command in the police, involved in human rights violations by the reopening of judgments based on the Report of the Truth Commission led by Sister Elsie Monge. Finally there are the corrupt networks that exist in the police force and which can be linked to extralegal act.
Moreover bankers are resentful because they took away the privileges they had in economic policy decisions. Many of these bankers have a rapprochement with Lucio Gutierrez from the election, gave resources to the campaign and will surely continue to fund. Are some media with his double face: which advocate? freedom? and misrepresenting the truth, creating an image of a country living in chaos and insecurity, which exacerbates poverty and unemployment, blaming it on the government of Rafael Correa. As in other countries in Ecuador and to the bankruptcy of the 'party, the media assume a political role, organizing and agitating to society.
These are the main actors of this new strategy. It is possible that this time were unsuccessful, but it is clear that the danger continues and that this event can be repeated if there is no command to remove the leads.
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