Ecuador – 28 DAYS: THE POPULAR UPRISING BURIES OPPORTUNISM AND THE PUPPET REGIME!
We hereby share an unofficial translation of the latest statement from the Defense Front of the People’s Struggles of Ecuador.
After 28 days of uprising, the masses persist in the struggle.
In the north of the country, in Imbabura and Carchi, several roadblocks remain in place. In Quito, the masses are combating in the neighborhoods at the entrance and exit of the city, while students are leading permanent and combative mobilizations. In the center, Riobamba, Guamote, and Cañar maintain road blocks; and in the south, Saraguro and Loja, the communities and the people remain steadfast.
Since yesterday, in the Santa Anita neighborhood, north of the capital, there have been powerful demonstrations and the repressive reaction, as it has been every day, has been violent and despicable. Police and military forces stormed into the homes of community members, assaulting their occupants and destroying their belongings, wrecking everything in their path. We must insist: don’t forgive and don’t forget these wretched people!
Despite the fascist onslaught of the regime and the siren songs of Noboa and his ministers announcing the supposed end of the mobilizations, the people remain ready for battle. Not only are they confronting the government and its repressive, criminal, and terrorist apparatus, they are also unmasking the traitors, the weak, and the faint-hearted.
We must acknowledge and highlight the support provided in the form of food and supplies by the peasants of Las Naves and the Adolfo Guerra Association, as well as by the electrical workers of Imbabura, to the masses mobilized in Cotacachi and Otavalo. People’s solidarity is the fundamental sustenance of the struggle.
We must also salute the statements done by several organizations and peoples, such as the Karanki people, among others, to keep the struggle until the law 126 is derogated.
Beyond the immediate results of this long day of struggle by the poor masses, decisive steps have been taken. One of them, perhaps the most significant, is having demonstrated to the vast majority that the struggle cannot continue to be subordinated to empty rhetoric or the reformist programs of the official indigenous movement, especially its opportunistic leadership.
From a proclaimed uprising against the elimination of diesel subsidies, CONAIE’s rhetoric became trapped in “territoriality” and demands unrelated to its initial objectives. This is proof of its political and ideological weakness.
This indigenous and people’s uprising is already victorious: it is burying the opportunism of Vargas, Iza, and all those who, due to their electoral ambition, led their organization to political and moral bankruptcy.
The uprising continues because that is what the indigenous and peasant grassroots have decided; because workers, students, and the people in general remain steadfast. What remains to be consolidated is the political and ideological leadership that will articulate the class alliance characteristic of New Democracy. That leadership is still in its infancy, but it is advancing: step by step, inch by inch, the people are marching with determination and awareness to write new and better pages in the history of struggle.
ONLY THROUGH STRUGGLE CAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS BE CONQUERED!
ORGANIZE, COMBAT, RESIST!
LONG LIVE THE INDIGENOUS-PEOPLE’S UPRISING!
