Seven women in Ecuador’s incoming cabinet

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Ecuadorian President-elect Rafael Correa appointed this week seven women to his Cabinet, including the country’s first female Defence minister, saying he wanted to promote gender equality.
The new Defence minister, Guadalupe Larriva, will also be the first armed forces chief who has never served in the military.


"Ecuador will really become a democracy when all the institutions of the state are clearly subject to civilian society," Correa told reporters. "That is why it is very important to break the tradition of having a former officer in charge of the Defence Ministry and naming a civilian, and if possible a woman."


In other appointments to his 17-member Cabinet, Correa named women to head Foreign Affairs, Health, Housing, and Social Welfare ministries. He said he would keep outgoing President Alfredo Palacio`s ministers of Tourism and the Environment, the only women in the current Cabinet.


Correa, who takes office January 15, said he would "try to achieve gender equality." He acknowledged it was "something we are not going to reach, but at least we will get close."
Larriva, president of the Socialist Party, said she expected more "curiosity" than animosity from Ecuador`s military brass "over whether a woman can lead in this role".


Retired army Colonel Luis Hernandez, a military analyst, called Larriva`s appointment "positive" and said Ecuador`s armed forces were prepared to take orders from a woman.


Soon after his election in November, Correa named two economists considered left leaning, to his Cabinet, Ricardo Patino as Finance minister and Alberto Acosta as Energy minister.


Gustavo Larrea, Correa’s campaign manager was named Interior minister. Larrea will be tasked with a national referendum on a special assembly to draft a new constitution, a process similar to one underway in Bolivia under leftist President Evo Morales.

From MercoPress.

Ecuador Correa for a Socialist Latin America

Caracas, Dec 21 (Prensa Latina) Ecuadorian President-elect Rafael Correa assured on Thursday that Ecuador will back the construction of a socialist, just and honorable Latin America from his inauguration on January 15.

When visiting the community project Fabricio Ojeda in Venezuela, where he is visiting, Correa said its achievements prove that Latin Americans can develop and build together proud, sovereign and just countries.

He recalled that Venezuela has done so for eight years so Ecuador will follow when his Alianza Pais party assumes power.

Besides integration, Correao placed energy cooperation atop the list of bilateral interests and in fact, the bilateral program includes energy complementation, with crude exchanged for derivatives, refining of Ecuadorian crude by Venezuela and participation of PETROECUADOR in Faja del Orinoco reserves.

As foreign policy priority, Correa hinted at a merger between the leading South American integration projects: the Andean Community (CAN) and Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR).

CAN is made up of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia, while MERCOSUR involves Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela.

Both Correa and President Hugo Chavez agreed on the need to promote regional integration free of mercantilism through policies of complementation and solidarity.

Ecuador: Escalation in the Junín Copper Conflict

Written by Lizzy Weydt
Wednesday, 20 December 2006

The Ecuadorian government announced that a Canadian mining company failed to properly consult local communities and ordered it to stop all mining activities. Ecuador's Ministry of Energy and Mines rejected Ascendant Copper's Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and ordered the company to stop all activities for its Junin Project. Ascendant president Gary E. Davis told CanWest News Service that the Ministry's decision is "asinine."

"It's not true that we didn't consult these communities," said Davis.

But lawyers representing these communities had previously filed lawsuits arguing what the Ministry finally decided to acknowledge—the company did not follow Ecuadorian law by failing to consult local residents. This isn't the first time the company failed to follow legal guidelines regarding its EIS. But Ascendant's activities are now turning violent.

Ascendant employees, heavily armed "paramiltaries" and pro-mining Ecuadorians clashed with anti-mining community members in the first week of December. The recent conflict left one mining opponent with a gunshot wound to the leg, while pro-mining forces detaining journalists and a local politicians and anti-mining community members capturing and detaining over 50 of the "paramilitaries"—many of whom were former military personnel and who were armed with machine guns, pistols and pepper spray. All those detained were subsequently released unharmed.

This led Sister Elsie Monge, executive director of the Ecuadorian Ecumenical Human Rights Comisión (CEDHU), a human rights organization based in Quito, to write a letter denouncing the Canadian mining company's violent tactics.

"We hold the Minister of Energy and Mines and Ascendant Copper Corporation responsible for these new measures which threaten human rights of Intag's communities…[and] ask the local, provincial, national and international media to report on these new abuses, which pose a risk to life, the physical integrity of individuals, and the peaceful tradition of the Ecuadorian people," wrote CEDHU's Sister Monge.

When local mining opponents confronted the "paramilitaries" to disarm them, local leader Polivio Perez, who in July had his life threatened at gunpoint for his anti-mining work, urged calm. "We are here to defend ourselves and our land. We are not here to attack those people," said Perez. "We shall use violence only to defend ourselves if we will be attacked."

Edwin Navarette, an ex-lieutenant of the Ecuadorian army and leader of the company's security force prevented his men (many who are former soldiers in the military) from using violence. They handed over their arms which included bullets, machetes, teargas and 17 revolvers. The anti-mining-people escort them down to Junín where they detained them in the local church.

Davis called the mining opponents involved in the detainment "ecoterrorists", "extremists" and a "terrorist group", labels he has used in the past in a vile attempt to discredit the families who oppose his mine.

Luis Guerra, a human rights observer, who is watching the conflict for the Ecuadorian organisation COSDHI believes that Ascendant won't give up on its potentially lucrative project.

"It's not over yet. Ascendant Copper, who is forcing this conflict with war strategies, will keep attacking – in a legal way," said Guerra. "They will put up lawsuits against the activists and try to convince the population of their aim with gifts and money."

But the company has other problems in addition to a unified majority opposition. The Ecuadorian government announced that it would reform its mining laws. And then there's Ecuador's incoming President Rafael Correa.

The leftist Correa, an opponent of free trade, has said he plans to change the way the government foes business with mining and oil companies.




"Obviously it is a concern when we see someone getting elected who is a friend of left leaning politicians," Jim Mustard, a mining analyst with Haywood Securities in Vancouver told the The Northern Miner.

When Correa takes office Jan. 15 his new Minister of Government will be Gustavo Larrea, a former human rights activist. Larrea's position will include heading the state police.

Correa's selection for mining minister, Alberto Acosta, should cause concern for Ascendant's Davis, as well as the company's investors. Acosta is an economist who is known for his opposition to free trade policies, which essentially seek to deregulate business sectors such as mining. He is also a former consultant for Acción Ecologica, an environmental NGO that has supported the mining opposition in Intag.

Ascendant's Davis stated in a press release that the company "will not ignore the will of the people."

The people of Intag have been waiting for this since the company arrived. They have expressed their will when all seven parish presidents of the region signed a declaration demanding the company leave. They have expressed their will at protests in the town of Garcia Moreno in May and again in July in Quito.

By January, Correa's human rights and environmental-friendly ministers may see to it that Davis finally lives up to his word.

Leftist candidate wins Ecuador election

Duroyan Fertl

Green Left Weekly, 6 December 2006

The Latin American left had its fifth electoral victory of the year on November 26, when Rafael Correa, a supporter of Venezuelan socialist President Hugo Chavez, won Ecuador’s presidential run-off election with the largest margin in almost 30 years.

Correa, a former finance minister and economics lecturer, received 57% of the vote, defeating Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest man, a fierce anti-communist, banana-plantation owner and advocate of neoliberal economics, and despite a slander campaign and outright bribes (including hand-outs of cash, computers and wheelchairs).

The mass mobilisation against Noboa by numerous social movements, and accusations by the New York-based Human Rights Watch and other organisations that the billionaire used child labour and strike-busting gangs on his plantations also helped to turn what looked like a close race into a rout.

Against the right-wing Christian populism of Noboa (who claimed God had sent him to defeat the “communist”, “terrorist” Correa), his 43-year-old leftist rival advocated a platform for radical change — a “citizens’ revolution” that promises to fundamentally change the Ecuadorian political landscape.

Correa’s campaign pledges echoed many of the radical policies being implemented in Venezuela and Bolivia, as well as the demands of Ecuador’s powerful indigenous movement for independent national development and social justice. He opposed a free trade agreement with the United States, advocated renegotiating contracts on Ecuador’s vast oil reserves, as well as increased social spending on health, education, the environment and housing.

Correa called for raising the minimum wage and the closure of the US military base at Manta.

Significantly, Correa, who describes himself as a “humanist, leftist Christian”, has echoed Chavez’s call for a “socialism of the 21st Century”, advocating both a regional currency and Latin American integration on the basis of social, rather than purely economic, needs. He is also fiercely critical of US President George Bush, the Iraq war, and of “free trade”, which he describes as a “fraud”.

While Ecuador is the second largest supplier of oil from the region to the US, over 60% of its 13 million inhabitants live below the official poverty line.

The country has long been hamstrung by an enormous foreign debt, amounting to 35% of its GDP, and suffers from a decaying infrastructure. Correa has said that Ecuador may have to default on some or all of its debt in order to provide essential services and repair its infrastructure.

Correa has also proposed renegotiating oil contracts in order to recuperate 85% of profits for social spending, and rejoining Ecuador to OPEC, which it left in 1993. Ecuador’s oil industry is nationally owned, but foreign companies such as the US-owned Occidental Petroleum have been exploiting that wealth while terrorising indigenous communities and causing massive environmental damage.

Correa has also pledged to convene a constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution to give the president the power to fire the Congress, a body that Correa calls a “sewer” and that 97% of Ecuadorian voters consider to be mired in corruption, and to make all elected officals recallable. He has already initiated a referendum to this end, which would put power in the hands of community-based movements that represent Ecuador’s excluded majority, rather than the traditional political parties, run by the small wealthy elite that has dominated Ecuador for decades.

The challenge facing Correa is significant, however, as his Alianza Pais (Alliance Country) movement ran no candidates for the unicameral Congress.

Facing a hostile Congress controlled by his right-wing opponents who could block proposed legislative reforms, and possibly impeach him, Correa is reaching out to potential allies in other parties who favour systemic change.

Correa’s policies place him on a direct collision course with Ecuador’s racist and wealthy elite, a course that he can only maintain with the support of the popular movements, which have overthrown three presidents in the past decade.

The strongest of these, the CONAIE federation, which represents the country’s 40% indigenous population, has lent Correa conditional support. Its reservations stem from the betrayal of the previous president, Lucio Gutierrez, who broke similar promises, and was overthrown in April last year.

Many Ecuadorians remain sceptical about the ability of electoral politics to bring about meaningful reform — despite compulsory voting, 10% of ballot paper were left blank. Since his election, however, Correa has maintained his radical stance. He has promised to halve the presidential salary, and warned that if Congress tries to block proposed reforms he will convoke mass demonstrations to force it to obey the popular mandate

Correa's triumph is victory against oligarchy and neoliberalism

Margarita Aguinaga

"Arise the poor of the world, stand up the slaves without bread, we advance united..." The victory of the oppressed is expressed in the election of Rafael Correa as President of the Republic. The last two months have produced a meeting of social consciousness and left politics, expressed in Correa's triumph against oligarchy and neoliberalism represented by Alvaro Noboa and the ultraconservative forces of the country; while their support for Noboa has unmasked the Social Christians, Roldosistas, PRIAN and what remains of Popular Democracy.

Some years ago, after the fall of President Lucio Gutiérrez in 2003, it was said that there were two possibilities at that time of crisis of political representation in the state, an advance towards the most recalcitrant form of the crisis of neoliberalism, which would imply a strong right bloc and the harshest measures against the people to restore the situation of the model, or a turn to left and the possibility of reversing the neoliberal model in its fundamental aspects.

That change is now certain, it has taken shape and simultaneously a new correlation of forces has been opened and the possibility of a historic moment, favouring the proletariat and the oppressed of Ecuador. The right did not manage to make the fall of Lucio Gutiérrez the arena to usher in neoliberal proposals, as happened in 2000, with Jamil Mahuad and dollarization, after the fall of Abdalá Bucaram in 1997.

Instead, democratic content and the confluence of struggles against the TLC [Tratado de Libre Comercio - the free trade treaty with the United States], fought mainly over the last two years by indigenous and popular organizations, have come together in the left alliance in favour of Rafael Correa. The course of history in favour of the people has been opened initially and this is reason not only to be happy, but to put an impetus into the anti-capitalist processes.

It is evident that the right and imperialism have suffered a defeat, although the form of their counter-offensive can be foreseen, we can be guided by what has happened and continues happening against Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia; they will not remain quiet, the bourgeoisie is going to look to regain control of the government, under the political and military forms that it requires to do this, hoping to erode this government and the left, to turn the people against it. Rafael Correa won the elections representing, amidst weaknesses and errors, a quite radical discourse and set of proposals.

In addition, with a right wing congress dominated by right populism, which, by means of the Patriotic Society Party announcing that it will support the Constituent Assembly, seeks to disguise the fact that this same political force, along with the Social Christians and the PRIAN and PRE, was on the verge of surrendering the country's sovereignty to the United States by signing the TLC; this is no more than a strategy, because its social base could be weakened - the poor people that voted PSP in the first round, radicalised their position in the second round and went to the left.

It is preferable to trust the direct alliance between the people and the left, to make it stronger, this is the base that not only is going to maintain the new government, but will push for the Correa's campaign proposals to be carried out so we can advance towards another situation of struggle, not only in Ecuador but in Latin America and the world.

Although Rafael Correa obtained a significant vote in the first round, in the second round, an articulation of left consciousness in the urban and rural sectors of the country was developed; a new encounter between the social and political forces of left, between all the actors who for more than two decades have fought openly against neoliberal globalisation.

We have many challenges: - to consolidate a government which fulfils the most important promises like not signing the TLC, creating the Constituent Assembly and improving the conditions of life, employment, health, education and housing, of the poorest people of the country; on the other hand, to consolidate the unity of the left that will be tested in the capacity to take ahead a Constituent Assembly, not only altering but pushing back the neoliberal model in its substance, that is, on privatisation and in relation to the foreign debt; to radicalise specific reforms and to harness the struggle for respect, human and collective rights, that benefit indigenous peoples, women, young people and so on, in the perspective of constructing a New Society; to affirm a process of unity and alliance with Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia and other peoples in resistance in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia; to promote new processes of organization and to strengthen the proposals of the popular and collective assemblies of struggle to allow the opening of a broad debate about where we want our country to go; also it is a time of revolutionary ideological reaffirmation that should not be lost.

It is a good time to recover and to advance, for a rethink on the new left. The political action of the political and social organizations, in addition, depends on reflection, because to build socialism we need to consider the contributions of history, to strengthen and update it from our conditions, Marxism, feminism and other revolutionary theories that will help us to reconstruct the revolutionary utopia, starting from the historical struggles of our own people.

Times of greater respect, dignity and creativity are coming, some say the beginning of a revolutionary process, in this sense all must contribute in the perspective of maximising the impact the first left government that has existed in the history of Ecuador (there was also the presidency of Jaime Roldós, but this is the first presidency originating from the left and promoting the socialism of the 21st century).

If it represents a great step for one of the smaller peoples territorially, it has beautiful and combative referents next to Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. It is time to gather the first part of the harvest, of the valiant struggles of the indigenous movement, impelled by the CONAIE, the FENOCIN and other indigenous organizations, by women, workers, young people, and the critical thinkers who are pointing out another way in history and another exit from the crises and defeats that we have experienced, challenging us to continue prioritising political objectives by the construction of popular power and socialism.

Margarita Aguinaga is a feminist activist in Refundación Socialista, Ecuadorian section of the Fourth International

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