ECUADOR: Infiltration and INFILTRATION!

Hereby we publish an unofficial translation of a statement we’ve found on FDLP-EC. We add additional notes to give more context to the international readers:

There was an expulsion of five Parliamentary Members from the PACHAKUTIK, who actively supported Daniel Noboa, while the rest of the CONAIE ( Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) and the PACHAKUTIK made an agreement with their competitor, the Correist Party (Revolución Ciudadana) supporting their candidate Luisa Gonzales. The head of the CONAIE, Leonidas Iza, took part in the elections of CONAIE’s electoral party PACHAKUTIK and lost on the first round. For the second round of the elections, where only Daniel Noboa and Luisa Gonzales participated, Iza called out to support Gonzales in order to vote against the government of Noboa. In the following assembly of the CONAIE, these five “infiltrators” got expelled.

In relation to the last happenings, which have proven the increased espionage of the repressive apparatus against the leaders of the people, the indigenous and the unions, as well as against social fighters, it is necessary to highlight that they adhere to a tactic and strategy that is clearly defined by the old State.

Intelligence operations are the spine of military and political strategy. Clausewitzⁱ said: “War is the realm of uncertainty; the first task of intelligence is to reduce it.”. Without trustworthy and useful information, commanders operate in the “fog of war”, exposed to calculation errors and strategic defeats.

On this terrain, the infiltration is one of the most efficient techniques in order to obtain information about the plans, command chains, operative and logistic capacities, like detecting political fissures. More then that, it plants confusion and disinformation within the opponent. Intelligence, as a systematic recollection, analysis and covert action, is indispensable to articulate the political objectives under military conduction. Reduce uncertainty, gain initiative and operate on certainty is its main functions.

For that, persuasion, intimidation and harassment of the intelligence groups of the Police and armed forces against the people’s fighters don’t correspond merely to the new intelligence law. These practices is part of strategic conditions that are engraved in the operative structure of the bourgeois-big landlord State. These are neither isolated nor current decisions, but an inherent necessity to the ruling classes in order to sustain their power.

Frequently the persuasion, harassment, and more than anything, the infiltration, are being interpreted in a reductionist way, concentrating the attention on who is spying of and on who is collaborators. This limited analysis is unable to capture the strategic dimension of the enemies intelligence. Thinking that persons like Punina or Guamánⁱⁱ represent the real “center of gravity” of the reaction in the indigenous movement is an error. Those who are really right-wing, are easy to identify. The real danger lies within those who operate in the shadows, silent and undercover.

So why is the indigenous movement only exposing those individuals? Is it because they have been useful in the electoral processes of the CONAIE? Or is it because they put themselves in line with the internal bureaucratic line? That’s not a minor question, because it reveals how the “infiltration” is managed politically. If there really is a will to unmask the most dangerous agents, why only point on these grotesque political figures and not on Marlon Santi, Quishpe, Vargas, Lourdes Tibán or Yaku Pérezⁱⁱⁱ, who have proven to be way more strategically efficient for the corparative plans of the reaction? Why don’t they prove to the leaders, that they passed from agitation and struggle up to electoral processes, that have the clear purpose to domesticate the people’s resistance?

It’s fundamental to distinguish between tactical and strategic intelligence. The first is recollecting the immediate information: how many are we, where are we, with who are we talking, what are we using. The second -way more dangerous- is heading to anticipate the political action and neutralize the people’s organizational capacities. Their most efficient method consists in putting forth leaders that mislead the struggle towards elections and class reconciliation: bureaucratized leaders domesticate the forms of struggle and pigeonholes them.

On the basis of strategic intelligence, through the police apparatus and bureaucratic structures of the old State, the reaction longs to co-opt or manipulate the leaders in order to convert them into domesticated instruments that assure the demobilization of the masses. By inserting agents into the organizations, identify ambitious cadres, isolate them, turn them, portray them as “indispensables”, turn them towards evils of vanity, and push them to errors.

It has to be said clearly: those who sustain the processes of the corparativization of the masses, deepening the semi-feudality, advance servility and act as “leaders” of the Pachakutik, the CONAIE and other indigenous, peasant and people’s organizations, are those who guarantee the dictatorship of the bourgeois and big landlords. Those are the most dangerous INFILTRATORS!

The strategy is not solely coming from the State’s spheres, but also from the NGOs, the “international corporation”, the ecologist programs, entrepreneurship, and bourgeois feminism.

Carl Schmitt used to uphold, that a collective tends to “create” or “design” an enemy in order to consolidate its political community. The enemy works as a negative mirror: defining him, you define your own unity. The identity as a people affirms to recognize against whom you constitute yourself as a political subject. For the reaction, this principle reveals itself in the constant creation of a real or fictitious enemy, permitting the ruling classes to unite, validating the “democratic participation”, justifying the repression and legitimizing the bourgeois-big landlord State. And it has to be said clearly: the CONAIE has turned itself into the exact fictitious enemy of the old State, useful for persecuting, imprisoning and “neutralizing” the people’s fighters who reach out further than ecologism and elections or defend the existence of several nations within the country.

In Ecuador, this principle can be seen in the historical creation of “internal enemies”: indigenous leaders, trade unionists, and members of the radical left. Thus, the narrative of ‘subversive’ or “terrorist” danger becomes a pretext for surveillance, infiltration, and repression.

But from a revolutionary perspective, that logic must be reversed. The people are united not by abstract proclamations, but by direct confrontation with their class enemies: the big bourgeoisie, the landowners, their parties, their armed forces, and their impostors posing as “radicals.” Clearly identifying this enemy, isolating it, and fighting it, from a class perspective, is essential to the tasks of the people.

It is also essential to recognize the internal infiltrators: those who call for patience, who insist that “there are no conditions for struggle,” who promote the “combination of forms of struggle,” who call for mobilizations only to end up trapped at the negotiating table endorsing the “democratic” regime of the bourgeoisie and the landowners. Be very wary of those who tout the parliamentary route as the last resort. These are the ones who really paralyze the masses, bureaucratize the organization, and put it at the service of the state.

It is not enough to denounce police harassment in all its forms; it is urgent to act with the same logic that the enemy employs. We must tactically and strategically infiltrate their institutions, their personnel, and their operators; identify them, expose them, and strike at their nerve centers. Revolutionary intelligence must be the radical negation of enemy intelligence: using popular creativity to undermine their power, push them into error, and dismantle their strategy. Because punishing a few miserable individuals, forcing them to “apologize,” or complaining to international organizations will not stop the repression. The class struggle is, first and foremost, a political war—without weapons, but a war nonetheless—that requires tactics and strategies. Intelligence is not the exclusive domain of the state and its gatekeepers, but of those who understand the laws of war and act accordingly.

Comrades: the struggles for the interests of the working class and the people involve risks and always demand sacrifices. Let us not be naive: do we really believe in a smooth path, without obstacles or repression? Do we expect to fight without the enemy responding?

Let’s not turn what has happened in recent days into a soap opera. The life of Leonidas Iza carries no more weight than that of our comrades who have disappeared, been persecuted, or imprisoned. Impossible. The life of the conscious element of the class and the people is above that of traitors and opportunists.

We must guard against infiltrators who work directly for the enemy, but we must also combat those who, with their electioneering, opportunistic, and revisionist rhetoric, cause even more damage than all the intelligence apparatus of the Armed Forces and the Police combined.

AVENGE WORD FOR WORD, BLOW FOR BLOW!

NO TO THE PERSECUTION OF PEASANT, WORKER, AND POPULAR LEADERS!

NO TO MILITARY INFILTRATION OF POPULAR ORGANIZATIONS!

NO TO IDEOLOGICAL INFILTRATION DRIVEN BY OPPORTUNISM AND REVISIONISM WITHIN THE PEOPLE!

ORGANIZE, COMBAT, AND RESIST!

iCarl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz was a prussian General and military theorist.

iiTelmo Punina and Fernando Guamán, are leaders in the CONAIE, who align themselves openly to the government of Noboa. Fernando Guamán participated in the internal elections for the presidency of the CONAIE on its recent Assembly.

iiiIndigenous and CONAIE leaders, that are part of the beuraucratic aparatus of the Bourgeoisie-Big landlord State of Ecuador, some participated in the elections as presidential candidates