Deadly protests have engulfed Ecuador since October 3, after President Lenin Moreno announced the end of decades-old fuel subsidies along with other tax and labor reforms to reduce Ecuador’s fiscal deficit. The cuts to oil subsidies saw the price of diesel more than double and petrol increase by 30 percent immediately. Other austerity measures—including a 20 percent cut in wages for new public sector jobs and a requirement that public sector workers donate one day’s worth of wages to the government each month—were made in compliance to the $4.2 billion loan Ecuador took with the International Monetary Fund earlier this year.
Ecuador’s transportation unions were the first to organize a national strike, blocking roads and highways which brought the country to a stand-still on Thursday and Friday of last week. Although the strike ended after unions spoke to government officials, by then, the country’s indigenous groups, student groups and others joined protests at first calling for the reversal of subsidies cuts and later Moreno’s resignation. Protestors have occupied government buildings, water-treatment facilities, captured police officers and detained 27 journalists, and taken control of at least three oil fields in the Amazon region—an act the Energy Ministry says could cause the loss of some 165,000 barrels-per-day of crude production. Minister of Production, Commerce and Investment Iván Ontaneda said that the country had lost $1.4 billion in six days of protests. Demonstrators clashed with security forces, and violence has resulted in at least two deaths.
Hours after the first day of demonstrations, Moreno called a national state of emergency. In a national address on Monday evening, Moreno said he would not back down on the fuel price hike, calling protests a “destabilization plan” orchestrated by former president Rafael Correa and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Correa has been a fierce critic of Moreno, who in his address noted Correa had recently traveled to Venezuela to meet with Maduro. On Tuesday, Moreno moved his government out of Quito, the country’s capital, to the port city of Guayaquil.
Indigenous groups have been at the heart of these protests. As political analyst Decio Machado notes, the fuel subsidies directly affect indigenous farmers in the countryside because the end of oil subsidies raises the cost of transporting goods to collection centers. This isn’t the first time indigenous groups have led protests against the country’s leaders. In 2005 lawmakers voted to remove former President Lucio Gutiérrez after tens of thousands of Ecuadorians—largely indigenous—protested against austerity measures under an IMF agreement.
