PACHAKUTIK, REPRODUCING FEUDALITY
We publish an unofficial translation of the article of the Front to Defend the Struggles of the People in Ecuador published on their webpage.
“The minga [Translator’s note: reproductive work in the communitarian societies] is the way… we are going to provide the cement and the materials and this work will not exceed 10,000 dollars thanks to your efforts, thanks to the minga we are going to carry out this project… with the labor that you will contribute” Lourdes Tibán.
What the employer does not say is that this labor is not paid, it is free. Protected by the need for the prefecture [Translator’s note: Ecuadorian’s land division by the State] to carry out works for the communities, the masses attend, handing over their workforce without salary in return. The State, through the prefecture, takes over the labor force of the commoners, and that, here, or anywhere, is called feudal production relations.
Lourdes Tibán, leader of Pachakutik and a “powerful” woman in the indigenous movement, is known for her constant statements typical of an opportunist who has known how to “sell” her condition as a woman, as an indigenous person, and as “coming from the people” to position herself in the old State.
Eclectic, reformist, opportunist, and not only that, an indigenous leader who has openly made calls to vote for the most backwards sectors of the country, such as Lasso and now Noboa; Furthermore, that she, at her time, has betrayed the electoral voracity of those who think as her. This opportunist has high short-term dreams, she wants to be president. Without a doubt.
Now, as prefecture’s government of Cotopaxi, she has launched a campaign to promote the “minga” as an instrument or institution that calls for the participation of the masses in the work of the prefecture and “lower” the costs of the works. Said participation is “providing the labor”, while the prefecture provides the machines and material, whether to build roads, highways, bridges, etc.
The Tibán’s proposal implicitly carries the evolution of semi-feudality to instances in which it takes advantage of the solidarity concept of the minga, which had a certain validity and effectiveness in communitarian society, never in a class society.
Tibán operates as a corporativizing agent who, with the institutionalism of the old State, manipulates indigenous and peasant organizations, making them believe that it is “everyone’s responsibility” to collaborate with the State.
The masses give the State long, hard days of work; in difficult conditions; sometimes, without the necessary tools, since the indigenous people and peasants have to bring their own, which are not even tools. The minga can cover anything; In exchange?: the work, a soda and a couple of loaves of bread for each indigenous or peasant who contributes with his labor force.
We would like to see Tibán demand that the big landlords and mining companies in the province put in the work to carry out certain works by the State; Sure, they send her to hell.
The minga, currently, functions within the framework of solidarity between peasants and indigenous people. In no way can this solidarity institution be generalized to the roles that the State is supposed to fulfill in relation to the works it must carry out in favor of citizens, particularly the masses.
What Tiban does is feudal, but she doesn’t understand it, surely, he doesn’t know it. Definitely, Pachakutik, today in the hands of another voter, are a denial of the indigenous movement, its life, its organization, but, above all, of its transformative role of society.
Oh, and there will be those who continue to maintain that Ecuador is a capitalist country. There is no worse blind person than someone who doesn’t want to see!
THE NEW DEMOCRACY SWEEPS AWAY THE THREE MOUNTAINS: SEMI-FEUDALITY, SEMI-COLONIALITY AND BUREAUCRATIC CAPITALISM!
ORGANIZE, COMBAT AND RESIST!
