FDLP-Ecuador: Beyond the Betrayal of Vargas and the Leadership of CONAIE

We hereby share an unofficial translation of a statement from Defense Front of the People’s Struggles in Ecuador (FDLP-EC)

BEYOND THE BETRAYAL OF VARGAS AND THE LEADERSHIP OF CONAIE, THE STRUGGLE REMAINS FIRM AND UNYIELDING

When the Defense Front of the People’s Struggles of Ecuador, as befits the conscious element of the class and the people, decided to commit itself to the people’s indigenous uprising, it did so fully aware of its temporary nature. We knew that this rebellion arose directly from the desperation of the masses who are responding combatively to a regime that is plunging them ever deeper into pain, violence, and misery. In this context, a few weeks before the general strike, the Front had already mobilized in the city of Ibarra, setting the tone for the organization and combativeness required to respond to Noboa’s puppet and fascist government.

As the days went by, the indigenous movement’s participation grew progressively and massively, especially in Imbabura, a province where CONAIE does not have a hegemonic presence. There, most indigenous and peasant organizations maintain their own agendas, which differ from the official narrative of that leadership.

The fact that CONAIE did not have the strength in Imbabura that it did not show in its former strongholds, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, and the Amazonian provinces, favored the formation of tactical and circumstantial alliances. These motivated trade unions, student organizations, and people’s movements, and gave the uprising greater breadth, combativeness, and capacity for mobilization.

Despite this momentum, the infiltration of agents and operators linked to CONAIE’s leadership within the people’s movement gradually undermined the strength of the rebellion. Even so, the strike lasted more than thirty days: a prolonged and heroic struggle. There is no other precedent for such a lengthy and combative struggle.

The FDLP-EC and other people’s organizations had already warned of the danger of CONAIE once again spreading skepticism and ambiguity. And although we hoped we were wrong, the outcome was predictable. The CONAIE leadership once again showed its inability to value the blood shed and the vital sacrifice of the comrades murdered by State repression; it showed its contempt for the comrade who died from tear gas asphyxiation; for those comrades who were mutilated, their eyes gouged out; for the peasants, workers, and residents of the suburbs who struggled in the streets, many of them resigning from their organizations to avoid dismissal; for those detained, persecuted, and prosecuted for the repression. It was only a matter of time before the facts confirmed our suspicions.

Once again, betrayal has been consummated. As in previous episodes of our recent history, leaders who were once the voice of the masses ended up allying themselves with the regime or signing agreements that amounted to betrayal and surrender. Today, history is repeating itself with ambiguous leaders who, in the name of leadership, traffic in the blood of the people and then offer low-intensity solutions that seal political defeat. Marlon Vargas embodies this new betrayal: a “miserable dog,” turning his back on the masses, on his base, he declares the end of the strike and calls for the preparation of an electoral campaign that seeks to subordinate the people’s struggle to the regime’s agenda. Worse still, he supports a spurious consultation promoted by the Noboa government, designed to neutralize the real demands of the people.

Trend of history is unstoppable. The leaders of CONAIE are only seeking prominence and an electoral platform: Carlos Antonio Vargas was a candidate in 2002, Luis Macas in 2006, Leónidas Iza in 2025, and now the same logic is reappearing, diverting the grassroots toward the ballot box, away from independent mobilization and people’s struggle.

All this clearly shows that the indigenous movement has been hijacked and manipulated by the electoral and personal interests of its leadership. The same is true in sectors of the trade union and people’s movements, where the illusion persists that profound reforms can be achieved through the mechanisms of the old state. That illusion leads, time and again, to defeat.

The lesson is clear and painful: every time opportunistic leadership takes control of the people’s struggles, the rebellion is betrayed.

We cannot hide the sun with a finger. In organizational, ideological, and leadership terms, the working class remains weak; its ability to lead people’s struggles is still in its infancy. This weakness facilitates leadership opportunism and the diversion of the most heartfelt demands of the masses. As long as this remains the case, the masses will be ran over by opportunists and traitors of all stripes.

The uprising was not only indigenous: it was a people’s uprising. It did not last thirty days because of concessions or conciliators, but because of the combativeness and dedication of the grassroots, because of the action of consistent sectors of the working class and the people who fueled the flames of rebellion. Today, many indigenous, peasant, and people’s organizations reject and condemn the treacherous leadership of CONAIE. This is a necessary step: we must begin to consign the traitors to the dustbin of history and make way for a new generation of leaders committed to the interests of the vast majority, not to ethnic-cultural discourses turned into bargaining chips to exploit their own comrades, but committed to the revolutionary transformation of the old society.

We must continue, without hesitation, with the people’s struggle: workers, peasants, students, neighborhoods, and indigenous peoples. We must strengthen the organization with the correct ideological leadership. The uprising has been the meeting point, and from here it is up to us to fight tirelessly and unyieldingly, until we politically defeat the fascist regime, achieve justice for the victims, and open the way to the radical transformation of the conditions of exploitation and misery.

For these reasons, the FLPD-EC rejects and combats the betrayal of the coward Marlon Vargas and those who support him in this new affront against the masses and against history. Likewise, we oppose his call to participate in the electoral charade of the People’s Consultation, a mechanism that distorts the essential objectives of the oppressed and exploited masses of the country.

We declare Marlon Vargas and the leadership of CONAIE to be enemies of the people.

We salute the combative action of indigenous people and poor peasants, workers, and students who fought and remain steadfast in the struggle against the government and its corporate, fascist, and sellout plans. We highlight the hard battle fought by the community members and residents of working-class neighborhoods in the north of the capital, as well as the determined mobilizations of collectives in the city of Quito, a living expression of the fact that rebellion is growing regardless of opportunism.

We call on the conscious masses to sustain the struggle indefinitely, as the initial objectives have not been achieved. The IMF’s agenda is about to be implemented, which implies not only the elimination of subsidies for diesel and gas, but also the privatization of the IESS [Translator’s note: Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security] and other measures that seek to place the burden of bureaucratic capitalism’s bankruptcy on the shoulders of the vast majority.

We reject participation in the so-called “working groups” proposed by the regime.

We establish a political line of no forgiveness or forgetting for the executioners of the people, and even less so for traitors.

It is imperative to build a correct political-ideological leadership and line within the broad exploited masses. Without sound guidance, the blood that has been shed and these uprisings risk becoming a “leap into the void”; failure to do so would make us a stain on history.

THE UPRISING CONTINUES BEYOND STATE TERRORISM AND THE BETRAYAL OF THE CONAIE LEADERSHIP!

NO TO THE REFERENDUM, AN INSTRUMENT OF THE DOMINATION AND CORPORATIVIZATION OF THE MASSES!

ORGANIZE, COMBAT, AND RESIST!

IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL!