Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador (Critical Currents in Latin American Perspective Series)

Pachakutik

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CRITICAL CURRENTS IN LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES Ronald H. Chilcote, Series Editor Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador Marc Becker The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America: The Dominican Case in Comparative Perspective Emelio Betances Mexico’s Economic Dilemma: The Developmental Failure of Neoliberalism James M. Cypher and Raúl Delgado Wise The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the International Community, and Haiti Alex Dupuy Capital, Power, and Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, New Edition Edited by Richard L. Harris and Jorge Nef The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare, Second Edition Michael Löwy Democracy: Government of the People or Government of the Politicians? José Nun Cardoso’s Brazil: A Land for Sale James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer People’s Power: Cuba’s Experience with Representative Government, Updated Edition Peter Roman

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Pachakutik Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador

Marc Becker

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

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Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2011 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Becker, Marc. Pachakutik : indigenous movements and electoral politics in Ecuador / Marc Becker. p. cm. — (Critical currents in Latin American perspectives) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-0753-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-0755-4 (electronic) 1. Indians of South America—Ecuador—Politics and government. 2. Indians of South America—Civil rights—Ecuador. 3. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador. 4. Indians of South America—Ecuador—Social conditions. 5. Indians of South America—Ecuado—Ethnic identity. 6. Civil rights movements—Ecuador. 7. Social movements—Ecuador. 8. Ecuador— Politics and government—1984- 9. Elections—Ecuador. 10. Ecuador—Ethnic relations. I. Title. F3721.3.P74B43 2011 305.8009866—dc22 2010032763

™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Acronyms

vii

Preface

xi

1

The Politicization of Indigenous Identities

1

2

Uprisings

25

3

The Emergence of an Electoral Option

43

4

The Last Coup of the Twentieth Century

67

5

Indians in Power

77

6

A Citizens’ Revolution

103

7

Rewriting the Constitution . . . Again

127

8

2009 Elections

169

9

Social Movements and Electoral Politics

199

Bibliography

213

Index

237

About the Author

247

v

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Acronyms

ALBA AP CEDOC CUT CONFENIAE

CONAICE

CONAIE CODENPE

CPCCS

CONACNIE

Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y El Caribe (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) Alianza País or Acuerdo País (Country Alliance or Country Accord) Central Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Clasistas (Ecuadorian Central of Classist Organizations) Central Unitaria del Trabajadores (Unified Workers Central) Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon) Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Coast) Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) Consejo de Desarrollo de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades del Ecuador (Development Council of the Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador) Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social (Council of Citizenship Participation and Social Control) Consejo Nacional de Coordinación de las Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (National Coordinating Council of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) vii

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Acronyms

CONAMU Consejo Nacional de Mujeres (National Council of Women) CONPLADEIN Consejo Nacional de Planificación de los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador (National Ecuadorian Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian Planning Council) CNE Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) CAN Coordinadora Agraria Nacional (National Agrarian Coordinator) COICA Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (Coordinating Body for the Indigenous People’s Organization of the Amazon) CMS Coordinadora de Movimientos Sociales (Social Movement Coordinator) COICE Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana (Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Ecuadorian Coast) CLOC Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (Latin American Coordinating Body of Rural Organizations) Cuidv Coordinadora por la Unidad de la Izquierda y Defensa de la Vida (Coordinating Body for the Unity of the Left and in Defense of Life) DP Democracia Popular (Popular Democracy) DINEIB Dirección Nacional de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe (National Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education) Ecuarunari (Ecuador Runacunapac Riccharimui or Awakening of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples; later changed to Confederación de Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador, or Confederation of the Peoples of the Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador) FLACSO Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Latin American Social Sciences Institute) FECIP Federación de Centros Indígenas de Pastaza (Federation of Indigenous Centers of Pastaza) FEINE Federación Ecuatoriana de Indígenas Evangélicos (Ecuadorian Federation of Evangelical Indians, later the Consejo de Pueblos y Organizaciones Indígenas Evangélicas del Ecuador, or the Council of Evangelical Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of Ecuador) FEI Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios (Ecuadorian Federation of Indians) FICI Federación Indígena y Campesina de Imbabura (Indigenous and Peasant Federation of Imbabura)

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Acronyms

FENOC FENOC-I

FENOCIN

FOIN FONAKIN FEPOCAN

FTA FTAA FADI FFE FRA FUT ICCI IERAC

INDA ILO IMF ID MAS MICH MPD MUPP MUPP-NP

MST

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ix

Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (National Federation of Peasant-Indigenous Organizations) Federación Nacional de Organizaciones CampesinosIndígenas (National Federation of Peasant-Indigenous Organizations) Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras (National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous, and Negro Organizations) Federación de Organizaciones Indígenas del Napo (Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo) Federación de Organizaciones Kichwas del Napo (Federation of Kichwa Organizations of Napo) Federación Provincial de Organizaciones Campesinas de Napo (Provincial Federation of Peasant Organizations of Napo) Free Trade Agreements Free Trade Area of the Americas Frente Amplio de Izquierda (Broad Front of the Left) Frente Futuro de Ecuador (Future Front of Ecuador) Frente Radical Alfarista (Alfarist Radical Front) Frente Unitario de Trabajadores (United Workers Front) Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (Institute for Indigenous Sciences and Cultures) Instituto Ecuatoriano de Reforma Agraria y Colonización (Ecuadorian Institute of Agrarian Reform and Colonization) Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agrario (National Institute of Agrarian Development) International Labor Organization International Monetary Fund Izquierda Democrática (Democratic Left) Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement to Socialism) Movimiento Indígena de Chimborazo (Chimborazo Indigenous Movement) Movimiento Popular Democrático (Popular Democratic Movement) Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity) Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik-Nuevo País (Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity-New Country) Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Workers Movement)

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x

NGOs OPIP ONIC OAS PCE PT PRIAN PRE PSC PSE PS-FA PSP PRODEPINE

RED SUCRE SAIIC TC TSE UDC UNORCAC

UNE USFQ WSF

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Acronyms

Nongovernmental Organizations Organización de Pueblos Indígenas de Pastaza (Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza) Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (National Indigenous Organization of Colombia) Organization of American States Partido Comunista Ecuatoriano (Ecuadorian Communist Party) Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (National Action Party of Institutional Renewal) Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano (Ecuadorian Roldosist Party) Partido Social Cristiano (Social Christian Party) Partido Socialista Ecuatoriano (Ecuadorian Socialist Party) Partido Socialista-Frente Amplio (Socialist Party-Broad Front) Partido Sociedad Patriótica (Patriotic Society Party) Proyecto de Desarrollo para los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador (Development Project for Indigenous and Black Peoples of Ecuador) Red Ética y Democracia (Ethics and Democracy Network) Sistema Unificado de Compensación de Pagos Recíprocos (Unified Regional Compensation System) South American Indian Information Center Tribunal Constitucional (Constitutional Council) Tribunal Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Tribunal) Unión Demócrata Cristiana (Christian Democratic Union) Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi (Union of Peasant and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi) Unión Nacional de Educadores (National Union of Educators) Universidad San Francisco de Quito (San Francisco of Quito University) World Social Forum

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Preface

In 1995, Indigenous activists in Ecuador launched the Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (MUPP, Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity) as a vehicle to compete for political office. The MUPP, commonly simply called Pachakutik, emerged after years of debate on whether and how Indigenous peoples should engage in electoral politics.1 Were their goals of social justice best achieved as a social movement or as a political party? If they engaged in electoral politics, should Indigenous movements put forward their own candidates or support existing parties that might be sympathetic to their concerns? Pachakutik represented the emergence of a third option in forming a new political movement in which Indigenous peoples and other sectors of Ecuador’s popular movements organized together as equals in a joint project to achieve common goals of a new and better world. It opposed the government’s neoliberal economic policies that privatized public resources and functions, and favored a more inclusive and participatory political system. Indigenous movements had repeatedly launched protests against governments that campaigned on the promise of helping the poor, but once in power turned around and implemented neoliberal policies that reentrenched elite control over society. Three times in recent years popular movements had overthrown governments: Abdalá Bucaram in 1997, Jamil Mahuad in 2000, and Lucio Gutiérrez in 2005. In 2006, the young, charismatic Rafael Correa won the presidency of Ecuador on the strength of promises to leave the “long neoliberal night” behind and to implement reforms that would benefit the poor and create a more just society. He embraced long-standing demands for official recognition of Indigenous nationalities as part of a plurinational state, and incorporated into his discourse new calls xi

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for the sumak kawsay, of living well, not just living better. A rapid series of elections led to a new progressive constitution, a new congress, and Correa’s reelection that seemingly positioned him to hold onto power for ten years. Under Correa, Ecuador quickly moved from one of the most politically volatile to one of the most stable countries in the Americas. Correa’s political positions and rhetoric appeared to be in line with those of popular movements. Nevertheless, he campaigned for office largely without the support of Ecuador’s strong and well-organized social movements. Given their previous history with populist candidates who stole their leftist rhetoric but ruled in favor of the oligarchy once in office, social movements approached Correa’s government with many reservations. Although Correa shared social movements’ criticisms of neoliberal economic politics, he had not risen through their ranks. In particular, Indigenous movements resented Correa for occupying political spaces that they had previously used to advance their concerns. Indigenous relations with Correa’s government raised issues and concerns that had long plagued social movements in Ecuador and beyond. On the streets, Indigenous movements excelled at pulling down governments that ruled against their interests, but repeatedly faced frustrations in their attempts to build concrete positive alternatives. To realize that goal required competing for political power, but success in that realm necessitated negotiations and compromises with other political parties. Indigenous struggles in Ecuador highlight two key and interrelated issues. Could they best advance their struggles as a social movement or as a political party? If they chose to enter the electoral realm, should they run their own internal Indigenous candidates or attempt to build broader alliances with other political parties? These options were not necessarily mutually exclusive, but deciding which way to lean did necessitate certain trade-offs. This book examines competing strategies and philosophies that emerge when social movements and political parties embrace similar visions but follow different paths to realize their objectives. In exploring multiple and conflictive strategies that Indigenous movements have followed over the past twenty years, it documents the recent history and charts the trajectory of one of the Americas’ most powerful and best-organized social movements. The conundrum of the inherent tensions between engaging in social movement organizing or following an electoral path to power is not unique to Ecuador or to Indigenous movements in that country, but it does give one example of how activists have struggled, and continue to struggle, for the best way to achieve social justice. I first arrived in Ecuador in June 1990 shortly after a massive Indigenous uprising that focused attention on the peoples’ struggles. I have subsequently traveled to the country on an almost annual basis. Sometimes the

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xiii

visits are as short as a weekend for an academic conference, and at other times I have lived in the country for up to a year to conduct archival research on the history of Indigenous movements. While in Ecuador, I have witnessed and participated in many of the events related in this book. As a cofounder of NativeWeb (www.nativeweb.org), an Internet-based project to disseminate information from and about Indigenous peoples around the world, I helped many Indigenous organizations in Ecuador establish their first presence on the Internet, although fortunately many of them have now taken over editorship of their own websites. This book draws on several of my previous publications, including: Chapter 8 (“Pachakutik”), in Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 166–93. “Pachakutik and Indigenous Political Party Politics in Ecuador,” in Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy, ed. Richard Stahler-Sholk, Harry E. Vanden, and Glen Kuecker (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 165–80. “Ecuador: Left Turn?” Against the Current 142 (September/October 2009): 19–22. “Ecuador: Indigenous Struggles and the Ambiguities of State Power,” in The Resurgence of Latin American Radicalism: Between Cracks in the Empire and an Izquierda Permitida, ed. Jeff Webber and Barry Carr (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming). “Correa, Indigenous Movements, and the Writing of a New Constitution in Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives (special issue: “Globalizing Resistance: The New Politics of Social Movements in Latin America”), 38, no. 1 (January 2011). “Social Movements and the Government of Rafael Correa: Confrontation or Cooperation?” in Latin America’s Social Movements in the Face of the Region’s Progressive Governments, ed. Gary Prevost, Carlos Oliva Campos, and Harry E. Vanden (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming).

This volume is not a collection of previously published material. Rather, it builds on the published work to build a narrative of recent Indigenous activism in Ecuador as Indigenous peoples engaged electoral and social movement organizing strategies. Conversations with a broad variety of people have richly informed and strengthened the information and interpretations I present in this book. Of a large number of colleagues, I want to thank in particular José Antonio Lucero and Armando Muyulema. My colleagues at the University of Ghana during the fall 2009 semester provided me with the physical and mental space as well as the intellectual stimulation to complete the initial draft of this book, and I want to thank Kofi Baku and Akosua Perbi for their support. Patricio Realpe (www.anpeweb.com) has been generous with his photos to illustrate this volume. Once again, Bob Schwarz compiled the index in an excellent and efficient manner.

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NOTE 1. The use of a capital I in reference to Indigenous peoples is intentional and based on (and in respect for) the stated preference of the board of directors of the South and Meso American Indian Rights Center (SAIIC) as a strong affirmation of their ethnic identities.

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1 The Politicization of Indigenous Identities

In June 1990, a powerful Indigenous levantamiento, or uprising, swept across Ecuador, paralyzing the country for a week. Indigenous peoples from the coast, highlands, and Amazon united in defense of common political goals to an extent never before seen in Ecuador. On the eve of the quincentenary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, the uprising stunned the country and catapulted Indigenous peoples onto the center stage of national consciousness. A powerful movement for social change emerged out of a people whom the dominant classes traditionally viewed as backward and docile. The uprising represented a watershed as Indigenous peoples became significant actors in political affairs. The Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) rose to the forefront of these protests as it outlined a program advocating Indigenous control over their own affairs. Their demands had revolutionary implications that shook Ecuador and threatened its white, elite power base. It also placed Indigenous peoples and their issues at the center of political discourse and paved the way for their entrance onto the public stage on their own terms. Although the 1990 uprising built on a century of militant struggles for Indigenous rights, it also introduced a decade of greatly intensified activism during which Indigenous demands gained a new visibility and urgency.1 Indigenous militants began to refer to this uprising as a pachakutik. In the pan-Andean Quechua language, pacha means “time” or “land,” and kutik means “a return.” Hence, the word signifies change, rebirth, and transformation, both in the sense of a return in time and the coming of a new era. Historian Nils Jacobsen defines pachakutik as “the Andean notion of a turning point of cosmic dimensions and the beginning of a new era through 1

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Chapter 1

Susana Quilumbaqui from the Kayambi people reads CONAIE’s newspaper during a recess at an August 2005 congress (Patricio Realpe/ANPE)

which what was below would be on top and vice versa.”2 Pachakutik was not only a rupture, but also a force “that was capable of restoring order.”3 It was “a profound turning or transformation of the world” intended to “rid the world of injustice and oppression and restore order and equality.”4 Pachakutik, as Andean anthropologist Xavier Albó observes, in a nutshell is the Quechua word for the Andean concept of “revolution.”5 Pachakutik was the name of the ninth—and one of the most important— Inka rulers who in 1438 began an imperial expansion southward out of the Cuzco Valley in what today is Peru. Pachakutik had long been a term and concept that drove millenarian revolts in the southern Andes, including the Tupak Amaru and Tupak Katari uprisings in the 1780s. Before the 1990s, this term had rarely been used in the northern Andes, but now it was introduced into the language of Ecuador’s Indigenous rights movements. Anthropologist Norman Whitten related its use to millennial concepts located “between a remembered past and an imagined future” in which “oppression is remembered, and movements toward collective self-determination are enacted.”6 Activists embraced the concept of pachakutik as a way to recall the past in order to create a better future. CONAIE leader Luis Macas, a Kichwa from the Saraguro community of the southern highland province of Loja,

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gave this name to his eldest son, and militants in the Amazon launched a new political party in 1995 with this name.7 Commonly related to the construction of a cosmology around the concept of pachakutik were calls in the Andes for a return to Tawantinsuyu, the old Inka Empire. Alison Brysk observes that similar to Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community,” Andean intellectuals in Bolivia and Peru used Tawantinsuyu as a rhetorical device to call for pan-Indigenous unity in a movement toward social justice.8 Anthropologist Rosalind Gow argues that by the 1980s the ideology of Tawantinsuyu had moved away from utopian millenarianism to “a system of thought-action,” a reflective praxis “that constituted and gave form to Andean revolutionary organization.” Rather than providing a specific course of action, it was a broad political ideology that gave legitimacy, coherence, strength, unity, and continuity to disparate Indigenous movements. Although the particular agenda of a specific organization may change or even be at odds with others, Tawantinsuyu provided an ideology that maintained a focus on overarching goals. This kept Indigenous movements from becoming “static, reactionary, archaic and ultimately incapable of dealing with political and economic crises in the twentieth century.”9 Previously, militants in Ecuador had rarely made a call for a return to Tawantinsuyu one of their demands. The Inkas were relative latecomers to Ecuador, and activists often saw them as an imperial rather than liberating force. Now the term was increasingly incorporated into the language of Ecuador’s Indigenous rights movements, and activists used the wipala, a rainbow-colored flag commonly associated with the Inkas, as their symbol.10

INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES The South American country of Ecuador contains four geographic zones: the tropical Pacific coastal lowlands, the temperate Sierra highlands, the forested eastern upper Amazon basin often called the Oriente, and the Galápagos archipelago that lies 780 kilometers west of the mainland and is largely uninhabited. The percentage of Ecuador’s fourteen million people who identify themselves as Indigenous is hotly debated and depends largely on the criteria that one might use to define such categories. Figures range from a low of less than 7 percent in a 2001 census to a high of 40 percent that CONAIE commonly presents.11 About 10 percent of the population is Afro-Ecuadorian, concentrated primarily in the northwestern coastal province of Esmeraldas and in the Chota Valley in the northern highland province of Imbabura. Another 10 percent are the white descendants of the European colonists, with the balance of 40 to 70 percent considering themselves to be mestizos, or a mixture of the different cultures, a highly contested and fluid category.

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Chapter 1

The majority of Indigenous peoples live in the highlands and are often grouped under the global category of “Kichwa.” Regional divisions remain strong, and identity continues to be overwhelmingly local. Kichwas are part of the larger ethnolinguistic Quechua group, the largest surviving Indigenous language in the Americas. It stretches across the Andean highlands from Colombia to Chile, roughly the area of Tawantinsuyu before the arrival of the Spanish colonists, and currently includes between eight and twelve million speakers. By comparison, the next largest Indigenous language in the Americas is Guaraní, with between two and three million speakers in Paraguay and Brazil, although many of those speakers do not necessarily identify themselves as Indigenous. Although parts of Mesoamerica (especially Guatemala) have a larger percentage of Indigenous peoples than the Andes, they are divided among many more languages and hence the number of speakers of a particular language is smaller than that of Quechua. An additional group of Kichwa speakers lives in the eastern Amazon region. Even though they share a language similar to that spoken by the highland Kichwas, their forest culture is quite different from that found in the highlands.12 In addition to the Kichwa, seven different Indigenous nationalities—the Achuar, Cofán, Huaorani, Secoya, Shuar, Siona, and Zápara—survive today in the Amazon. In addition, a small group called the Andoa struggled to reconstruct itself as a nationality, and a group related to the Shuar known as the Shiwiar was also sometimes counted as a separate nationality. Next to the Kichwa, the second-largest of these nationalities is the Shuar, which is part of a larger Jivaroan group that crosses the border into neighboring Peru, although the term Jívaro is now considered to be derogatory in Ecuador.13 Six identifiable Indigenous nationalities and peoples survive in the coastal region: the Awá, Chachi, Epera, Manta, Tsáchila, and Wankavilka. Each of these groups is small and struggles to preserve its ethnic identity. Elsewhere on the coast, Indigenous identities had either died out or had been assimilated into the dominant mestizo culture, frequently through the economic influence of export-oriented agribusiness. This large group of lower-class mestizo peasants were often called montuvios (or montubios), with traditional interpretations placing their biological makeup “scientifically” at 60 percent Indigenous, 30 percent African, and 10 percent European.14 Following the lead of Indigenous mobilizations in the rest of the country, some coastal communities reframed their mestizo or montuvio identities through an ethnic lens in what Daniel Bauer terms the “re-indigenization” of community structures as a way to claim access to material resources.15 CONAIE is organized on the basis of these fourteen Indigenous nationalities from the coast, highlands, and Amazon, as well as different Kichwa “pueblos,” or peoples, spread across the spine of the Andes mountains (the

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Chibuleos, Karankis, Kayambis, Kisapinchas, Kitus, Otavalos, Panzaleos, Pastos, Puruhaes, Quisapinchas, Salasacas, Saraguros, Tomabelas, and Warankas). Historic CONAIE leader Luis Macas draws distinctions between these different categories, with “pueblo” referring to a specific population, whereas a “nationality” comprises a group of people who share common customs, cosmology, and way of life.16 Building on this understanding, Catherine Walsh defines a “pueblo” as those with “an ancestral relationship dating to the period of colonization or formation of the state that conserves their own institutions, customs, traditions, and territories.” This history and relationship also imply the presence of collective rights. Nationality, on the other hand, refers to a group of Indigenous “pueblos” who share “the same origin, history, and language.”17 This politicized language became the basis for organizing Indigenous protests. Building on decades of organizing efforts, in 1972 Indigenous activists in alliance with progressive elements of the Catholic Church influenced by liberation theology gathered highland peoples into Ecuarunari, a name extracted from the Kichwa phrase Ecuador Runacunapac Riccharimui, or “Awakening of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples.” In the 1990s leaders changed the name to the Confederación de Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador (Confederation of the Peoples of the Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador), while keeping the same acronym. Organized in this manner, Ecuarunari became one of the strongest and most militant Indigenous federations in Ecuador.18

CONFENIAE The pan-Amazonian Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (CONFENIAE, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon) was one of the first modern Indigenous organizations to embrace a discourse of Indigenous nationalities. CONFENIAE’s statutes declared its intent to “defend and value the cultures of the Indigenous nationalities in the Ecuadorian Amazon.”19 The founding of CONFENIAE took place in the midst of a shift in language. The First Regional Conference of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon in August 1980, where activists formed CONFENIAE, was originally to be called the First Regional Conference of Indigenous Organizations of the Ecuadorian Amazon; the decision to change the name reflected an increased concern with petitioning for territorial and political rights as nationalities. “We have claimed the term nationalities,” Indigenous intellectual Alfredo Viteri observes, “as a category that includes all of the different Indigenous groups.”20 Leaders leveraged this terminology to build a strong and unified federation.

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Chapter 1

As a regional, nongovernmental organization created to battle for the common interests of the peoples of the Amazon basin, CONFENIAE fought against the colonization of Indigenous lands and the invasion of oil corporations. Its principal objective was the achievement of social, political, and economic equality for Indigenous communities, and to gain respect for their cultures. In addition, CONFENIAE promoted programs in culture, education, health, and territorial rights. Its goals included protection of Indigenous territories, advancement of Indigenous unity, representation of native interests in governmental development projects, furtherance of sustainable development projects, promotion of bicultural education, and respect for the practice of Indigenous medicine.21 CONFENIAE built on earlier organizing efforts in the Amazon. Most significantly, the Shuar in the southeastern Amazon organized the Local Association of Jívaro Centers in 1961. With the assistance of Salesian missionaries, activists subsequently gained legal recognition from the government for the Federación de Centros Shuar (Shuar Federation) in 1964. As Ernesto Salazar notes, the Salesian mission “planned and carried out” the establishment of the federation in order to protect the Shuar from colonist encroachment.22 The Shuar Federation’s goals were to advocate for selfdetermination, economic self-sufficiency, defense of the Shuar lands, bilingual education, health care, and civil rights. The federation declared its intent to develop “self-determination for the Shuar in the context of a new concept of a pluralist Ecuadorian state.”23 Salazar argues that the federation developed out of “the need to consolidate the current Shuar economic structure, which has been gradually encompassing wider segments of the native population.” The federation also used new tools in their struggle, including the radio broadcast of bilingual education programming and the launch of Mundo Shuar (Shuar World) as an editorial press; both these tools played important roles in preserving Shuar identity. Through these efforts the Shuar sought to preserve their heritage, project a positive image of their culture to the outside world, defend their lands, and confront encroaching white colonization. Drawing on these achievements, the Shuar subsequently provided important leadership in the consolidation of panEcuadorian Indigenous movements. In addition to the Shuar and influenced by their efforts, other Indigenous peoples in the Amazon formed organizations to agitate for their own rights. In 1969, leaders in the northern Amazon formed the Federación Provincial de Organizaciones Campesinas de Napo (FEPOCAN, Provincial Federation of Peasant Organizations of Napo) under the influence of Josefina missionaries. The Josefinas first opposed an independent Indigenous organization out of fear that it would compete with the mission for authority in the region, and then sought to develop an organizational structure to shield Indigenous communities from more radical leftist influences. Over

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time FEPOCAN distanced itself from the Josefina missionaries as it came to embrace a more radical and explicitly ethnic agenda. In 1973, it changed its name to the Federación de Organizaciones Indígenas del Napo (FOIN, Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo). It advocated for civil and citizenship rights, defended landownership, and fought against economic exploitation. FOIN maintained relations with national organizations in the belief that Indigenous movements needed to present a unified face to the government. By the 1980s, their main goals had evolved to an emphasis on a defense of their territory, languages, and cultural traditions, thereby linking territorial rights with ethnic identities. Furthermore, FOIN moved from employing a language of “Indigenous classes” in the 1970s to “Indigenous federations” in the 1980s and finally “ethnic nationalities” in the 1990s. Reflecting this change, at the beginning of the new millennium once again FOIN changed its name, to the Federación de Organizaciones Kichwas del Napo (FONAKIN, Federation of Kichwa Organizations of Napo). These developments reflected the politicization of identities that would drive Indigenous organizations in an increasingly radical direction.24 In 1978, the Kichwa, Achuar, Shuar, and Zápara peoples in the province of Pastaza in the central Amazon formed the Federación de Centros Indígenas de Pastaza (FECIP, Federation of Indigenous Centers of Pastaza), with bases in the provincial capital of Puyo and in Sarayacu, a community that quickly gained a reputation for its militant protests against petroleum exploration. In 1981, FECIP become the Organización de Pueblos Indígenas de Pastaza (OPIP, Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza). OPIP sought to promote unity and organization of the peoples of Pastaza; obtain land rights to their ancestral territories from the government of Ecuador; and press implementation of environmental policies for the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources in their territories for the benefit of local peoples as well as the rest of humanity. OPIP was particularly active in petitioning the Ecuadorian government for autonomy over native lands, and it worked with urban environmental groups such as Acción Ecológico (Ecological Action) to stop petroleum mining on Pastaza lands. Rather than exploiting the land for short-term benefits, OPIP’s natural resource management plan proposed preserving the environment “for the benefit of the children of our grandchildren.”25 In the 1990s, OPIP became one of Ecuador’s strongest and best-organized Indigenous movements. Shortly after activists from FECIP, FOIN, and the Shuar Federation formed CONFENIAE in the Amazon, they joined with Indigenous leaders from the highlands and coast to form the Consejo Nacional de Coordinación de las Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONACNIE, National Coordinating Council of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador). Meeting in October 1980 at Sucúa in the southern Amazon, organizers had a sense that they

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would gain strength in unity. “If we do not reinforce our unity,” activists observed, “there is a danger that various maneuvers would divide us and we would lose our presence.” For this reason, it was important to build “only one national organization for the various Indigenous nationalities in the country.” Members would have to learn to respect differences and search for shared common interests.26 In order to realize success, leaders found it “indispensable to unite the double dimension of our struggle” through a recognition of “the double character of our problems: as members of a class and as part of different Indigenous nationalities.”27 Activists reiterated this theme in April 1984 during CONACNIE’s second meeting, which emphasized a “consciousness of their class position” while reaffirming an identity as peoples and nationalities.28 While ethnicity proved to be capable of engaging and mobilizing people, it alone has been less successful at maintaining a level of organizational energy and coherence over the long haul. Instead, analysts acknowledge that “the privileging of identity construction has . . . obscured the material conditions and structural challenges that shape social movement dynamics.”29 Indigenous movements could succeed only inasmuch as they were able to blend class and ethnic elements. CONACNIE opposed subordinating ethnic identities to a class struggle, but it also highlighted the fact that it was a mistake to embrace ethnic identities to the exclusion of a class consciousness. This coordinating council met with limited success, in part due to tensions resulting from ideological differences between ethnic-oriented Amazonian organizations and highland groups grounded in class politics. For years these lingering divisions continued to plague efforts to build a strong national movement. CONACNIE leader Manuel Imbaquingo noted that “several years ago Indigenous organizations were strong,” but imperialism’s infiltration of the organization in a variety of ways, including through religious sects, “has caused us to fight one community against another . . . which has weakened us.” Nevertheless, Indigenous leaders continued to meet in efforts to forge unity, build linkages with other sectors of the popular movement, and advance a common organizational agenda.30

CONAIE Gathering at the Nueva Vida (New Life) camp outside Quito in November 1986, five hundred delegates representing nine Indigenous nationalities and twenty-seven organizations formed CONAIE as a replacement for CONACNIE. The new confederation joined CONFENIAE in the Amazon and Ecuarunari in the highlands with a much smaller coastal organization called the Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana (COICE, Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Ecua-

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dorian Coast). CONAIE intended to create one large pan-Indigenous movement dedicated to defending Indigenous concerns and agitating for social, political, and educational reforms. These demands included calls for land, funding for economic development, respect for Indigenous languages, development of a bilingual intercultural education program, recognition of traditional medicine, and reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua.31 Although CONAIE represented a significant milestone in the development of Ecuador’s social movements, it encountered various problems in solidifying itself as a “truly national” Indigenous organization. Holding a broad confederation together was not always easy, as deep cultural and economic differences divided the various Indigenous nationalities. CONAIE had created COICE to claim a pan-Ecuadorian status, but without a strong history of Indigenous organizing on the coast, the regional federation remained largely a paper organization without any real power or voice on either a local or regional level.32 Amazonian peoples tended to be concerned with oil exploration and environmental issues, while highland groups focused on land tenure and neoliberal economic policies. Furthermore, a relatively narrow and select group overwhelmingly dominated CONAIE’s organizational structures. Shuar leader Miguel Tankamash served as CONAIE’s first president, with other Shuar and Kichwa activists monopolizing almost all the other positions on the National Directorate. This became a persistent problem, often leading to the marginalization of smaller Indigenous nationalities. Most notable were the Huaorani in the eastern rainforest who occasionally came into conflict with neighboring Shuar and Kichwa communities. The Huaorani did not have a tradition of speaking with a unified voice, and without a compatible mode of representation their interests were often marginalized in higher-level organizations.33 In addition, CONAIE began to work with bilingual education and other governmental programs; these activities led some critics to argue that a social movement could not successfully advocate for the class interests of marginalized peoples if it became so closely identified with a government.34 Despite all these problems, CONAIE intended to build and present itself as the organizational representative for all of Ecuador’s Indigenous peoples and nationalities, and to provide institutional support to local and regional organizations. CONAIE emerged at a point of growing unity among popular movements, with Indigenous organizations working more closely with labor federations on campaigns of common interest. CONAIE formulated a political ideology that had much in common with leftist movements. It postured an anti-imperialist stance that denounced economic, political, ideological, and technological dependence on outside forces, and advocated moral, political, and material support for other movements.

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CONAIE expressed its solidarity with those who lived under “colonial and neo-colonial systems as well as people who suffer economic blockades and military invasions from imperialist forces”—this was an overt statement of support for the leftist government in Cuba.35 In one of its first public actions, CONAIE joined labor unions in a 1987 May Day march.36 “From the beginning,” historian Chad Black notes, “CONAIE sought to cultivate and maintain public solidarity with the worker’s movement, aligning itself with the progressive political tradition.”37 Those alliances strengthened the Indigenous federation. At its second congress in November 1988, CONAIE declared itself to be an “organization of oppressed and exploited people,” and defined its struggle as “anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist.” It continued to call for agrarian reform as well as for unity of the popular movement.38 In addition to land issues, CONAIE critiqued industrialization, unemployment, housing, education, health, and racial discrimination. CONAIE rejected the “racist” position of positing an Indigenous-against-mestizo struggle that “in its most extreme position advocated the expulsion of the invaders and a return to Tawantinsuyu.” Rather, CONAIE advocated a “third way” in which the struggle acquired a “double dimension” of organizing on a class basis together with other popular movements to transform society in addition to building independent ethnic organizations in defense of Indigenous cultures.39 Many scholars have become aware of how class and ethnicity, as historian Elizabeth Dore states, “represent different, though often overlapping, forms of oppression.” She points to the heterogeneity of ethnicities, and observes that “as ethnic identities and relations are variously constituted historically and socially, their relationship to class is also highly variable.”40 Contrasting class consciousness with ethnic identities presents a false dichotomy. Rather, class and ethnicity complement each other and assist in the construction of a stronger movement for social change. In a situation where rural dwellers maintained a deep attachment to land and their ethnic identities while being increasingly drawn into a global capitalist system through the mechanisms of wage labor, there was little that prevented the same person from simultaneously assuming an ethnic (Indigenous) and a class (peasant or rural proletarian) identity. Ethnicity is only one aspect of complex and sometimes contradictory forms of identity that constitute the human experience. In terms of organizing strategies, activists have exploited multiple forms of identity concurrently, though with varying degrees of success. Sociologist Leon Zamosc notes that “the Ecuadorian case calls attention to the fact that class conflict continues to be a relevant factor in Latin American politics.” Rather than limiting the struggle to ethnic rights, “the Indian movement has transcended them, involving itself in broader battles over social issues and becoming a player in the contest for political

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power.”41 Indigenous uprisings have confirmed that ethnicity often becomes a rallying cry for what are essentially class demands. Unifying diverse forces became a key strategy for CONAIE in realizing its success. CONAIE’s trend toward broad alliances emerges in the document Proyecto político (Political Project) that the federation presented in 1994 “to various organized social sectors, to peasants, workers, women, students, professionals, intellectuals, religious workers, military personnel, and democratic and humanistic politicians.”42 This document draws on the language of both class and ethnicity, and explicitly states that Indigenous struggles extended beyond narrow ethnic concerns. In addition to land issues, they looked at broad-ranging goals such as industrialization, unemployment and underemployment, housing, education, health, and racial discrimination. In order to achieve their goals, they needed to reach out and build alliances with various sectors of society, including nonIndigenous peasants, workers, Christian Base Communities, women, environmentalists, teachers, professionals, progressive intellectuals, and students. In looking for “a real and definitive alternative to [their] situation of oppression and exploitation,” CONAIE sought to build a broad base for the construction of a new society that was “not only the job of the Indigenous peoples but for all of society.”43 As a result, “CONAIE summons all men and women who struggle against social injustice, economic exploitation, racial discrimination, violations of human rights, the destruction of nature, the contamination of the environment, etc. to back the ‘political project’ which has as a principal objective the construction of a New Model for the State and for a Pluri-national Nation.”44 Whitten points to the support of external actors including Catholic liberation theologians, foreign governments, and political parties in aiding and training participants as “highly salient features” of CONAIE’s actions.45 As CONAIE’s actions illustrate, activists often build linkages with broader student, labor, peasant, and other popular struggles. Leftist scholars have challenged the ideological agenda represented in much of the research on “new social movements,” in particular its apparent desire to dismiss class as a tool of analysis.46 In his study of rural protests in Costa Rica, anthropologist Marc Edelman notes that “old social movements” had not entirely ignored identity politics, and “new” movements have not discarded a class consciousness. Rather, it is important to consider how various forms of identity (including class, ethnicity, and gender) interact with one another in a specific historical context.47 Historian Greg Grandin points out that often “the old, class-based left was, on the ground, more varied and vibrant than its rhetoric often suggested,” and their work in rural communities led Indigenous peoples to be forceful agents for social change.48 Furthermore, in the case of Ecuador, an Indigenous movement that scholars have championed as a classic example of a new social movement found itself engaging in

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street demonstrations, running for electoral office, and even overthrowing governments—these were the most traditional strategies of the “old”-style movements. Many Indigenous movements employed pressure tactics with the goal of wresting concessions from government.49 But CONAIE declared that its goal was not simply to take control of state power. Rather, it desired “the transformation of the nature of the current power of the hegemonic uni-national State which is exclusionary, anti-democratic, and repressive,” and in its place construct “a humanistic, plurinational new society.”50 Far from the limited goals of identity politics, Indigenous demands hit at the heart of how elites had structured the state.

PLURINATIONALISM Historian Galo Ramón sees two distinct trends in the construction of Indigenous identities in Ecuador, with one emphasizing a specific ethnic identity and an alternative trend toward a more global pluriethnic identity. Ramón situates his comments within the historical context of a series of thirty-five revolts during the late colonial period that were ethnic based and very local in nature, directed at the conditions that one specific community faced. These communities never made an attempt to develop a unified movement with poor mestizos or African slaves, or even with other Indigenous communities. Although this orientation toward a specific local ethnic identity continued strongly among Indigenous groups in the eastern Amazon, since the 1980s in the highlands a movement toward pluriethnic and plurinational forms of identity emerged. With these new forms of identity, the specific local ethnic group to which a person belonged was no longer of primary significance. Rather, a new globalized form of Indigenous identity began to emerge.51 Similar to the emergence of pan-Indian identities in the United States, in Ecuador, schooling provided Indigenous peoples with tools of political analysis to critique the socioeconomic situation of their country and created expectations of social advancement. Furthermore, literacy and training in the Spanish language influenced the nature of Indigenous leadership.52 People who traveled to Quito to study or who otherwise had extensive contact with the dominant Spanish culture commonly directed pan-Indigenous organizations. For example, a student from Chimborazo studying in Quito in the 1990s noted that his parents’ generation was not aware of other Indigenous groups in Ecuador. For them, an Indian simply was a Kichwa from the highlands. When he arrived in Quito to study bilingual education, he came in contact with students from other Indigenous communities spread throughout Ecuador. As a result, he began to develop a dualistic identity as an “Indian,” both in the localized sense of being from Chimborazo and in

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a broader sense of being an “Ecuadorian Indian.” Organizational success requires the bridging of these divides. Albó notes that Ecuador’s smaller size and fewer number of Indigenous nationalities facilitated the emergence of a unified ethnic identity.53 Nevertheless, building such a panethnic movement presented certain challenges. “A movement unified through a plurality of differences,” Chad Black notes, “always walks a tenuous line, marginalizing voices within while protesting such marginalization from without.”54 The challenge facing activists was to overcome both forms of marginalization. A counterpoint to the apparent value of forming unified panethnic identities is an argument that Carol Smith raises to explain the persistence of a strong Maya identity in Guatemala. Community groups that sought to maintain a sense of local identity, Smith argues, created fragmented forms of identity that ensured the preservation and survival of Indigenous cultural traditions. She notes that “throughout history, Indian communities have maintained themselves through diversity, which has prevented them from forming a united Indian nation that could proclaim its own national sovereignty.” She continues, “this ‘weakness’ has also been the source of Indian cultural ‘strength,’ since no centralized power in Guatemala has ever found a single cultural source or symbol to destroy through which Indian culture in general would be eradicated.”55 Political scientist José Antonio Lucero similarly discovered “that a fragmented social movement environment in Bolivia proved to be more politically effective than a unified one in Ecuador,” and cautions that unity does not mean success, and fragmentation does not equal failure.56 Embracing fragmented (or local) forms of identity as a tool of resistance challenges traditional notions of state formation, and calls into question whether unification is an appropriate goal for an Indigenous movement. Perhaps the development of a pan-Indian nationalist identity will result in a population that is more easily co-opted and repressed. Activists needed to navigate this minefield of ethnic identities and politics in order for Indigenous movements to flourish. Before the 1980s, leftist groups more readily embraced the rhetoric of Indigenous nationalities than did Indigenous movements. Although plurinationalism was commonly viewed as the most overtly ethnic of Ecuador’s Indigenous movements’ various demands, the language of Indigenous nationalities has deep roots in Marxist discourse. The Bolsheviks originally developed this construction in the 1920s in the Soviet Union and exported it to the Americas through the Communist International.57 Recent history has continued this legacy. At a 1982 congress, the labor federation Central Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Clasistas (CEDOC, Ecuadorian Central of Classist Organizations) voted to send “revolutionary greetings to Ecuador’s Indigenous nationalities” who “for many years have been fighting for their inalienable rights.”58 The following year, Rafael Quintero, who served as

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vice president for the Frente Amplio de Izquierda (FADI, Broad Front of the Left), the electoral arm of Ecuador’s Communist Party, embraced Indigenous-movement demands that were now being expressed “not only as peasants, but also as peoples and nationalities.”59 Similarly, the Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (FENOC, National Federation of Peasant-Indigenous Organizations), the more “peasant” of the various Indigenous federations in Ecuador, called for a defense of “our rights as peoples and nationalities.”60 In 1985, the Partido Socialista Ecuatoriano (PSE, Ecuadorian Socialist Party) proposed a Law of Indigenous Nationalities to the national congress, even though it took years before such a law was promulgated.61 At a 1993 congress, the Partido Comunista Ecuatoriano (PCE, Ecuadorian Communist Party) observed that Ecuador has a plurinational society comprised of a diversity of cultures, languages, and peoples with different historical origins. It called for the “constitutional establishment of the rights of Indigenous nationalities and ethnic groups.”62 Urban leftists were much more likely to speak of Indigenous nationalities than were Indigenous activists. Slowly the construction of Indigenous nationalities spread from leftist political parties to Indigenous leaders as activists took “a term from the lexicon of Marxist and European thought and ‘Indianized’ it.”63 In 1984, Shuar intellectual Ampam Karakras emphasized that Indigenous peoples conceptualized themselves as “Indian nationalities,” as expressed in economic, political, cultural, and linguistic aspects. “We want to use our own names, maintain our own identity and personalities,” Karakras writes.64 As Lucero notes, nationalities “are not naturally existing units but rather the products of politics.” Indigenous movements can embrace a variety of mechanisms for advancing their agenda, including organizing themselves as ethnic communities (pueblos), federations, cooperatives, or comunas. In Ecuador, however, “nationality became the discursive vehicle for CONAIE’s alternative democratic political project.” CONAIE was successful in this project not so much because “nationalities” reflected reality but because they were able to mobilize around this discourse.65 Lucero contends that a discourse of nationalities was successful in Ecuador because it was rooted in civil society rather than around “the clientelistic dynamics of party politics” as developed in Bolivia, and probably to a lesser extent in Peru.66 In 1988, CONAIE presented its conceptualization of Indigenous nationalities to the National Congress’s Indigenous Affairs Commission. In the proposed Law of Indigenous Nationalities, CONAIE declared that the Republic of Ecuador was a plurinational state, and argued that the government must recognize Indigenous territoriality, organization, education, culture, medicine, and judicial systems.67 For CONAIE, plurinationalism meant the recognition of a multicultural society that recognized, respected, and promoted unity, equality, and solidarity among different peoples and nationali-

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ties despite their historic, political, and cultural differences.68 They came to see plurinationalism as a “transversal axis” that should run throughout the entire organization of state structures, including forms of representation and participation that would lead to a “revolution in knowledge.”69 Elites condemned CONAIE’s campaign for plurinationalism and the recognition of Indigenous nationalities as threatening the unity of state structures. These demands had not presented a serious threat to elites as long as they remained on a level of respect for their cultures. When plurinational demands moved from a cultural to a political realm, Pablo Ospina observes, they gained profoundly revolutionary implications but lost their previously broad support.70 Engaging in a discourse of Indigenous nationalities that implied autonomy, self-determination, and territorial rights presented a serious challenge to the dominant culture. Activists countered that it was groups in power who were pursuing their own individual enrichment that threatened the unity of the country, not Indigenous calls for plurinationalism. Despite elite fears, Indigenous demands were not secessionist. Rather than a separate state, they demanded respect for their cultures within existing state structures. CONAIE argued that their proposed plurinational state would not establish separate states for the various ethnic groups, but rather would “reflect the reality of the country and the continent in respect to the different national cultures and to the reestablishment of social, political, and economic equality.” Ecuador’s national problems, CONAIE asserted, were not the result of the presence of distinct ethnic groups, but existed because of socioeconomic inequalities. The solution was to be found in reclaiming their “true historic and cultural roots” and their “identity as people with a history and a future.”71 As anthropologist Suzana Sawyer observes, “Nation is a politically charged and volatile category,” and Indigenous success in subverting this imagery enabled peoples “to challenge exclusionary state rule and dominant notions of the nation.”72 Economist Alberto Acosta notes that “the challenge is to see plurinationalism as an exercise of inclusive democracy,” as something that opens the door to the process of a continually deepening democratic tradition.73 In its 1994 Political Project, CONAIE acknowledged that to argue with integrity for a plurinational state required respecting and cultivating alliances with other non-Indigenous cultural traditions and social movements. Portuguese sociologist and Indigenous rights advocate Boaventura de Sousa Santos contends that those who press for plurinationalism also embrace national solidarity. They have a dual identity as Kichwas and as Ecuadorians, of simultaneously belonging to a nation-state and to an Indigenous nationality. What they do not want is an imposed and unjust form of nationalism. Diversity does not mean disunity.74 Indigenous activists repeatedly emphasized that they did not want “a political project only for the

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Indians.”75 Rather, “plurinationalism is a national demand, not something just by and for Indigenous peoples.”76 Because problems such as poverty did not affect only Indigenous peoples (even though they were often most severely impacted by them), solutions needed to be broader and worked out in alliance with others who faced the same challenges. That was the only way a better and more sustainable world could be realized. Not everyone embraced plurinationalism as the solution to the problems Ecuador faced. Ramón argues that in order to address economic and other problems, Indigenous organizations need to move beyond an identity rooted in Indigenous nationalities to one built on common interests shared with non-Indigenous popular movements. If the goal is to construct a plurinational country, Indigenous groups have to work toward building an intercultural (in its broadest sense) movement. This, Ramón notes, will require a significant break from Ecuadorian tradition that conceives of identity in local rather than global terms.77 Deep historical divisions continued to plague not only Indigenous communities, but the country as a whole. In the popular mind, CONAIE’s proposal for plurinationalism implied continuing these divisions, whereas competing proposals for interculturality signified building relationships to unify people. Walsh argues that these two proposals were not contradictory. Plurinationalism was something that needed to be recognized, whereas interculturality was something to be constructed. Breaking the power of a uni-national state necessitated confronting these exclusionary structures with the reality of plurinationalism by using interculturality as a tool to press that agenda. In short, we need both in order to realize a profound transformation of state structures.78

FENOCIN AND FEINE Although CONAIE attempted to present itself as a single and unified federation that represented all Indigenous peoples in Ecuador, it was only one of multiple tendencies in Ecuador’s Indigenous movements. The first national-level organization, the Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios (FEI, Ecuadorian Federation of Indians), was founded in 1944 but declined after achieving its main demand of agrarian reform in the 1960s. By the 1990s, it was largely just a paper organization, a shadow of its former strength and power. More significant were the Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras (FENOCIN, National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous, and Negro Organizations) and the Consejo de Pueblos y Organizaciones Indígenas Evangélicas del Ecuador (FEINE, Council of Evangelical Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of Ecuador). FENOCIN was founded as FENOC in the 1960s. Its roots lie in the Catholic Church’s attempts to draw support away from the Communist-

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affiliated FEI. In the 1970s, FENOC broke with the church and assumed a more radical, Socialist position. In the 1990s, FENOC first changed its name to the Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinos-Indígenas (FENOC-I, National Federation of Peasant-Indigenous Organizations) before assuming its current name to reflect the incorporation of Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities into its ranks. FENOCIN emphasized an interculturality that embraced Ecuador’s diversity. It strove to unify all poor people into a struggle to improve their quality of life, democratize the country, and build a sustainable and equitable system of development. Organizationally, FENOCIN was a member of the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC, Latin American Coordinating Body of Rural Organizations), and Vía Campesina, a global assembly of peasant organizations.79 FEINE was founded as the Federación Ecuatoriana de Indígenas Evangélicos (Ecuadorian Federation of Evangelical Indians) in 1980, and although it subsequently changed its name it kept the same acronym. FEINE was much smaller than CONAIE, with a 1989 study indicating that the federation represented 15 percent of the Indigenous communities in Ecuador, compared to 61 percent for CONAIE.80 With its base primarily in the central highland province of Chimborazo, FEINE promoted the holistic development of evangelical Indigenous peoples, focusing on both their spiritual and cultural identities.81 Religious workers presented the politically conservative FEINE as an alternative to the leftist CONAIE. Given that the language of Indigenous nationalities emerged out of the Comintern, it should come as no surprise that FEINE opposed CONAIE’s proposal for the creation of a plurinational state. “Ecuador is a pluricultural, multilingual, multiethnic nation, but the state is one,” former president Alfonso Guacho stated. He criticized what he saw as attempts to divide the country. While CONAIE “maintains that we are different groups, with different customs and ways of thinking, FEINE says that we are all Ecuadorians.” CONAIE led vocal protests, but Guacho underscored that “our organization is peaceful, it respects the government.”82 In the 1980s, Ecuarunari’s secretary-general Manuel Imbaquingo contended that FEINE would never work with other peasant-Indigenous organizations “because their political line is religious, whereas ours is classist.”83 All Indigenous organizations, however, seem to drift to the left, and sometimes FEINE also engaged in street protests to advance Indigenous rights. These three federations (CONAIE, FENOCIN, FEINE), and occasionally the FEI, at times collaborated to advance Indigenous interests. At other times, they bitterly competed with one another for allegiance of their Indigenous bases, including for control over bilingual intercultural education programs.84 Somewhat ironically, the values of cultural diversity that Indigenous movements professed to embrace were also embodied, at their most successful points, in the multivocal nature of Indigenous organizations.

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More than one model exists for organizing a social movement, and logically one can expect to observe a “multiplicity of actors, spaces, and voices that constitute contemporary indigenous struggles.”85 It would be a mistake to conceptualize Indigenous activism as the result of a single unified movement, for in reality Ecuador had numerous Indigenous movements representing competing interests, concerns, and cultures. Diversity and multivocality, rather than homogeneity, became a characteristic of strong and dynamic Indigenous rights movements in Ecuador. This development represents a maturation of social movement organizing.

NOTES Portions of these first two chapters are drawn from chapter 8 (“Pachakutik”) of Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 166–93. 1. For a history of Indigenous struggles in Ecuador, see Marc Becker, Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008). 2. Nils Jacobsen, Mirages of Transition: The Peruvian Altiplano, 1780–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 240. Because Quechua was an oral language, this word has several alternate spellings, most notably pachacuti. Also see Thomas J. Perreault, “Development Identities: Indigenous Mobilization, Rural Livelihoods and Resource Access in Ecuadorian Amazonia,” Ecumene 8, no. 4 (October 2001): 409. 3. Juan M. Ossio, “Cosmologies,” International Social Science Journal 49, no. 4 (December 1997): 556. 4. Forrest Hylton and Thomson Sinclair, Revolutionary Horizons: Popular Struggle in Bolivia (London: Verso, 2007), 28; Rosalind Gow, “Yawar Mayu: Revolution in the Southern Andes, 1860–1980” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1981), 15. 5. Xavier Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú (La Paz: PNUD y CIPCA, 2008). 6. Norman E. Whitten Jr., ed., Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003), x. 7. Scott H. Beck and Kenneth J. Mijeski, “Barricades and Ballots: Ecuador’s Indians and the Pachakutik Political Movement,” Ecuadorian Studies/Estudios Ecuatorianos 1 (September 2001). 8. Alison Brysk, From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 104. 9. Gow, “Yawar Mayu,” 270, 271. 10. Beck and Mijeski, “Barricades and Ballots.” 11. For a critical interrogation of how the census bureau arrived at such a low estimate of Ecuador’s Indigenous population, see Karem Roitman, Race, Ethnicity,

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and Power in Ecuador: The Manipulation of Mestizaje (Boulder, CO: FirstForumPress, 2009), 42. 12. Michael Uzendoski, The Napo Runa of Amazonian Ecuador, Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005); Norman E. Whitten and Dorothea S. Whitten, Puyo Runa: Imagery and Power in Modern Amazonia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008). 13. Steven Lee Rubenstein, “Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads,” Cultural Anthropology 22, no. 3 (August 2007): 384. 14. George I. Blanksten, Ecuador: Constitutions and Caudillos, University of California Publications in Political Science, vol. 3, no. 1 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951), 22. A classic work on the montuvios is José de la Cuadra, El montuvio ecuatoriano (ensayo de presentación) (Quito: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas de la Universidad Central del Ecuador, 1937). 15. Daniel Eric Bauer, “Re-articulating Identity: The Shifting Landscape of Indigenous Politics and Power on the Ecuadorian Coast,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 29, no. 2 (March 2010): 171. Also see Martin Bazurco Osorio, Yo soy más indio que tú: Resignificando la etnicidad, Serie Cultura Comunal, Agua y Biodiversidad en la Costa del Ecuador, vol. 2 (Quito: Abya-Yala; ESPOL, 2006). 16. Luis Macas, “Construyendo desde la historia: Resistencia del movimiento indígena en el Ecuador,” in Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 92. 17. Catherine Walsh, “Estado plurinacional e intercultural complementariedad y complicidad hacia el ‘Buen vivir,’” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 177. 18. See Ecuarunari, Historia de la nacionalidad y los pueblos quichuas del Ecuador (Quito: Ecuarunari, FUDEC, ILDIS, CODENPE, 1998), as well as their website, www.ecuarunari.org. 19. “Estatuto de la CONFENIAE,” reprinted in Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), Las nacionalidades indígenas en el Ecuador: Nuestro proceso organizativo, 2nd ed., 1992: 500 años de resistencia india, no. 0 (Quito: Ediciones Tincui—Abya-Yala, 1989), 116. 20. Alfredo Viteri, “Los pueblos de la Amazonía se unen,” Cuadernos de Nueva 7 (June 1983): 46. 21. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (CONFENIAE), “CONFENIAE—An Indian Confederation in Eastern Ecuador,” Cultural Survival Quarterly 8, no. 4 (December 1984): 18; CONFENIAE, “1991–1993: Tres años de actividad de la CONFENIAE,” Voz de la CONFENIAE 1, no. 9 (September–October 1993): 8. Also see Pamela Martin, The Globalization of Contentious Politics: The Amazonian Indigenous Rights Movement, Indigenous Peoples and Politics (New York: Routledge, 2003). 22. Ernesto Salazar, “The Federación Shuar and the Colonization Frontier,” in Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador, ed. Norman E. Whitten Jr. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 593–94. For more information on the history and organizational structure of the Shuar Federation, see Steven Rubenstein, “Colonialism, the Shuar Federation, and the Ecuadorian State,” Environment and Planning D: Society & Space 19, no. 3 (2001): 263–93; Janet Hendricks, “Symbolic Counterhegemony among the Ecuadorian Shuar,” in Nation-States and Indians in

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Latin America, ed. Greg Urban and Joel Sherzer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), 53–71; and CONAIE, Nacionalidades Indígenas, 87–94. 23. Federación de Centros Shuar, Federación de Centros Shuar: Solución original a un problema actual (Sucua, Ecuador: La Federación, 1976), 129. 24. CONAIE, Nacionalidades indígenas, 45–55; Thomas Albert Perreault, “Shifting Ground: Agrarian Change, Political Mobilization and Identity Construction among Quichua of the Alto Napo, Ecuadorian Amazonia” (PhD diss., University of Colorado, 2000), 190–258; Perreault, “Development Identities”; Patrick Charles Wilson, “Indigenous Federations, NGOs, and the State: Development and the Politics of Culture in Ecuador’s Amazon” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2002), 106–38. 25. Les Field, “Ecuador’s Pan-Indian Uprising,” Report on the Americas 25, no. 3 (December 1991): 43. On OPIP, also see CONAIE, Nacionalidades Indígenas, 79–86, and Suzana Sawyer, Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador: American Encounters/Global Interactions (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004). 26. Ecuarunari-CONAIE, “Lineamientos políticos generales del movimiento indígena en el Ecuador,” in ECUARUNARI, FENOC, and ALAI, Nuestra voz, nuestra cultura. Memoria del Taller Andino de Intercambio de Experiencias en Educación y Comunicación de Organizaciones Campesinos Indígenas (Quito, 7–11 octubre 1987) (Quito: ECUARUNARI/FENOC/ALAI, 1989), 42. 27. CONAIE, Nacionalidades indígenas, 261. 28. “II Encuentro de Nacionalidades Indígenas,” Punto de Vista 3, no. 137 (May 2, 1984): 4. 29. J. Montgomery Roper, Thomas Perreault, and Patrick C. Wilson, “Introduction,” Latin American Perspectives 30, no. 1 (128) (January 2003): 10–11. In a dissenting view, Roberto Santana argues that CONAIE weakened Indigenous movements by utilizing class-based strategies to advance an ethnic agenda. See Roberto Santana, “Actores y escenarios étnicos en Ecuador: El levantamiento de 1990,” Caravelle 59 (1992): 161–88. 30. “Pueblos indios seguimos existiendo,” Hoy, April 13, 1984; “Fortalecerán movimiento indígena,” El Comercio, April 18, 1984. 31. CONAIE, Nacionalidades indígenas, 269–72. Also see CONAIE’s website, www.conaie.org. 32. COICE later reorganized itself as the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana (CONAICE, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Coast), incorporating the Awa, Chachi, Epera, and Tsachila nationalities and the Manta and Wankawilca peoples. 33. Joe Kane, “With Spears from All Sides: Letter from the Amazon,” New Yorker 69, no. 31 (September 27, 1993): 54–79. 34. Estuardo Gualle, “FEI,” in Forjando la unidad: El movimiento popular en Ecuador, ed. Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI) (Quito: Communicare, 1985), 43. 35. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), Proyecto político de la CONAIE (Quito: CONAIE, 1994), 14, 27. 36. “Hoy primera marcha unitaria por 1o de mayo,” Hoy, May 1, 1987.

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37. Chad T. Black, The Making of an Indigenous Movement: Culture, Ethnicity, and Post-Marxist Social Praxis in Ecuador, Research Paper Series, no. 32 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, Latin American Institute, 1999), 29. 38. Fander Falconi, “El reto histórico de las nacionalidades,” Hoy, November 17, 1988. 39. CONAIE, Nacionalidades indígenas, 281. 40. Elizabeth Dore, Myths of Modernity: Peonage and Patriarchy in Nicaragua (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 32. 41. Leon Zamosc, “The Indian Movement in Ecuador: from Politics of Influence to Politics of Power,” in The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America, ed. Nancy Grey Postero and Leon Zamosc (Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2004), 132. 42. CONAIE, Proyecto político, 1. For a broader discussion of this document, see Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “CONAIE lanza proyecto político,” Nacionalidades Indias (Quito) 3, no. 7–8 (April 1994): 14–15. 43. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “500 años de resistencia india,” Casa de las Américas 29, no. 174 (May–June 1989): 117. 44. CONAIE, Proyecto político, 16, 1. 45. Norman E. Whitten Jr., “The Ecuadorian Levantamiento Indígena of 1990 and the Epitomizing Symbol of 1992: Reflections on Nationalism, Ethnic-Bloc Formation, and Racialist Ideologies,” in History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492–1992, ed. Jonathan David Hill (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996), 216. 46. Eugene Walker Gogol, The Concept of Other in Latin American Liberation: Fusing Emancipatory Philosophic Thought and Social Revolt (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 293. 47. Marc Edelman, Peasants against Globalization: Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 19–20. 48. Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 192–93. 49. Judith Adler Hellman, “The Riddle of New Social Movements: Who They Are and What They Do,” in Capital, Power, and Inequality in Latin America, ed. Sandor Halebsky and Richard L. Harris (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 165–83. 50. CONAIE, Proyecto político, 7. 51. Galo Ramón V, “Política e interculturalidad indígena,” in La escuela india: ¿Integración o afirmación etnica? (La educación indígena vista por sus propios actores), ed. Victor Hugo Torres (Quito: COMUNIDEC, 1992), 216–18. Sometimes scholars and activists mention “multinational states,” but the term “plurinationalism” is commonly preferred to avoid confusion with and connotations of multinational corporations (MNCs). See Alejandro Moreano, “El movimiento indio y el estado multinacional,” in Los indios y el estado-país; pluriculturalidad y multietnicidad en el Ecuador: Contribuciones al debate, ed. Diego Cornejo Menacho (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1993), 215–56; Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú; Julio César Trujillo, “El Ecuador como Estado Plurinacionalidad,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 64. 52. CONAIE, Nacionalidades indígenas, 278.

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53. Xavier Albó, “Ethnic Identity and Politics in the Central Andes: The Cases of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru,” in Politics in the Andes: Identity, Conflict, Reform, ed. JoMarie Burt and Philip Mauceri (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 32. 54. Black, The Making of an Indigenous Movement, 38–39. 55. Carol A. Smith, “Conclusion: History and Revolution in Guatemala,” in Guatemalan Indians and the State: 1540 to 1988, ed. Carol A. Smith (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 282–83. 56. José Antonio Lucero, Struggles of Voice: The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 4, 119. 57. Marc Becker, “Mariátegui, the Comintern, and the Indigenous Question in Latin America,” Science & Society 70, no. 4 (October 2006): 450–79; Marc Becker, “Indigenous Nationalities in Ecuadorian Marxist Thought,” A Contracorriente 5, no. 2 (Winter 2008): 1–46. 58. Centro de Estudios y Difusión Social (CEDIS) and Centro Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Clasistas (CEDOC), XIV Congreso Nacional CEDOC (Quito: CEDIS/ CEDOC, 1982), 47. 59. Rafael Quintero, “La cuestión de la tierra . . . única posibilidad de sobrevivencia de una cultura,” Cuadernos de Nueva 7 (June 1983): 120. 60. Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (Ecuador), “Organizaciones: FENOC: Programa agrario y plataforma de lucha,” Acción: Boletín informativo agrario (CIESE, Quito) 2a época, 10 (October 1987): 49. 61. Roberto Santana, ¿Ciudadanos en la etnicidad? Los indios en la política o la política de los indios, Colección Biblioteca Abya-Yala 19 (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1995), 46–47, 264. 62. Partido Comunista del Ecuador, Por la reconstitución histórica de la izquierda, hacia una nueva sociedad: Documento central de debate político del XII Congreso Nacional del Partido Comunista del Ecuador (Quito: Partido Comunista del Ecuador, 1993), 14. 63. José Antonio Lucero, “Arts of Unification: Political Representation and Indigenous Movements in Bolivia and Ecuador” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2002), 200. 64. Ampam Karakras, “Las nacionalidades indias y el estado ecuatoriano,” Antropología, Cuadernos de Investigación 3 (November 1984): 106. CONAIE subsequently republished this essay after the June 1990 uprising as the first in a series of twenty pamphlets to advance their movement. See Ampam Karakras, Las nacionalidades indias y el estado Ecuatoriano (Quito: Editorial TINCUI-CONAIE, 1990). 65. José Antonio Lucero, “Locating the ‘Indian Problem’: Community, Nationality, and Contradiction in Ecuadorian Indigenous Politics,” Latin American Perspectives 30, no. 1 (128) (January 2003): 36, 34. 66. Lucero, “Arts of Unification,” 172. 67. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “Anteproyecto de ley de nacionalidades indígenas del Ecuador, 1988,” in Documentos Indios: Declaraciones y pronunciamientos, ed. José Juncosa (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1991), 202–12. For an examination of how the constructs of nacionalidades indias and pueblos indígenas subsequently evolved, see Fernando Guerrero Cazar and Pablo Ospina Peralta, El poder de la comunidad: Ajuste estructural y movimiento indígena en los Andes ecuatorianos, Becas de investigación (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2003), 186. 68. Walsh, “Estado plurinacional e intercultural,” 176.

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69. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez, eds., Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 186. 70. Pablo Ospina P., “Las demandas indígenas en el proceso constituyente,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 6 (November 2007): 103. Also see Santana, ¿Ciudadanos en la etnicidad? 281. 71. CONAIE, “500 años de resistencia india,” 117, 118. 72. Suzana Sawyer, “The 1992 Indian Mobilization in Lowland Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives 24, no. 3 (94) (May 1997): 78. 73. Alberto Acosta, “El estado plurinacional, puerta para una sociedad democrática. A manera de Prólogo,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 17–18. 74. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Las paradojas de nuestro tiempo y la Plurinacionalidad,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 60. Also see Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 187. 75. Macas, “Construyendo desde la historia,” 97. 76. Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 191. 77. Ramón, “Política e interculturalidad indígena,” 216–18. 78. Walsh, “Estado plurinacional e intercultural,” 161–62, 165, 182. Also see Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 192–93. 79. See Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras (FENOCIN), Pensamientos de la FENOCIN (Quito: Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras (FENOCIN), 2003), as well as their website, www.fenocin.org. 80. Rodrigo de la Cruz, “Plurinacionalidad y movimiento indígena,” in Pueblos indios, estado y derecho, ed. Enrique Ayala Mora et al. (Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 1992), 141; CONAIE leaders used these figures to claim that it was the only federation that could stake a true claim to being national in reach. Leónidas Iza, “Ascenso y retos del movimiento indígena en el Ecuador,” in Movimiento indígena en América Latina: Resistencia y proyecto alternativo, ed. Fabiola Escárzaga and Raquel Gutiérrez Aragón (Puebla and Mexico City: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Gobierno del Distrito Federal. Casa Juan Pablos, Centro Cultural, 2005), 113. 81. See Lucero, Struggles of Voice; Andrés Mateo Jarrín Cuvi, “Protestantism, the Indigenous, and Political Participation in Ecuador” (master’s thesis, University of California, San Diego, 2004); and FEINE’s website, www.feine.org.ec. 82. Catherine Walsh, “El desarrollo sociopolítico de la educación intercultural bilingüe en el Ecuador: Un análisis de perspectivas y posiciones,” Pueblos Indígenas y Educación 7, no. 31–32 (July–December 1994): 156–57. 83. Manuel Imbaquingo, “Ecuarunari,” in Forjando la unidad: El movimiento popular en Ecuador, ed. Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI) (Quito: Communicare, 1985), 45. 84. Walsh, “El desarrollo sociopolítico de la educación intercultural bilingüe en el Ecuador,” 134. 85. María Elena García and José Antonio Lucero, “Un País Sin Indígenas?: Rethinking Indigenous Politics in Peru,” in Postero and Zamosc, Struggle for Indigenous Rights, 159.

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Indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso leads a march at the 2004 Americas Social Forum in Quito (Marc Becker)

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2 Uprisings

On June 4, 1990, CONAIE organized a nationwide levantamiento (uprising) that represented the emergence of Indigenous peoples as actors on a national stage. Sometimes called the levantamiento indígena de Inti Raymi, so named because the Indigenous uprising took place just before the traditional June solstice Sun Festival celebrations, the protests led to the blocking of roads with boulders, rocks, and trees that shut down the country for a week. Starting in the central and northern highlands, the uprising spread across the country as a decentralized phenomenon with local activists taking individual initiatives to press their demands. Clashes between police and Indigenous peoples led to the death or detention of several leaders, including Oswaldo Cuvi from Riobamba in the central highland province of Chimborazo. “The history of our country is the history of 500 years of Indigenous resistance,” CONAIE stated at the beginning of the uprising, exploiting rhetorical openings provided by the approaching October 12, 1992, quincentenary of Columbus’s voyage to the Americas. “The Indigenous Uprising demonstrates the continuity of a struggle begun by Rumitahui, Tupac Amaru, and other leaders who fought to recover the lands belonging to our forefathers.”1 Indicating points of unity, members of other Indigenous organizations, including FEI and FENOC, joined the uprising.2 Observers noted that the growth of Indigenous consciousness was likened to the “awakening of a sleeping giant.”3 The uprising represented a true pachakutik. For much of South America the 1980s had been a “lost decade,” with the 1970s economic growth coming to a screeching halt as hyperinflation, spiraling unemployment, and a crushing debt crisis unraveled elite dreams of joining the industrialized first world. For many popular sectors that 25

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never enjoyed the benefit of the “boom,” the 1980s represented a “gained decade” as neighborhood, women’s, peasant, ecological, and—more than any other group—Indigenous organizations experienced growing political strength and legitimacy.4 An ability to engage diverse political, social, and economic issues on local, regional, national, and international levels helped build Indigenous movements to their strongest and most active point. These factors led to CONAIE’s emerging as the dominant social movement force in the 1990s, leading to a series of powerful uprisings that shifted the balance of power in Ecuador.

NEOLIBERALISM Historically, Ecuador has been one of the most politically unstable countries in the Americas. It suffered frequent and often extraconstitutional changes of power during its almost two hundred years of republican history. During the twentieth century, Ecuador enjoyed only three periods during which sequences of presidents were able to complete their terms in office and peacefully pass power on to an opposing politician. All three occurred in the midst of the expansion of export booms: the first with cacao at the beginning of the century, the second with bananas at midcentury, and finally, the longest in the aftermath of a 1970s oil boom. Neoliberal economic policies in the 1990s, including raising transportation and cooking gas prices, and replacing the local currency with the U.S. dollar, reintroduced extreme political instability, with social movements competing with their counterparts in Bolivia for the record of the number of neoliberal presidents removed from office. Conservatives commonly characterized Indigenous activists as “anti-reformists” and blamed their opposition to neoliberalism as contributing to political instability.5 Zamosc, however, blames elite attempts to impose a neoliberal agenda on an impoverished country for making Ecuador “one of the most, if not the most, unstable country in Latin America.”6 Confidence in political parties sank to one of the lowest levels in the Americas with a corresponding rise in electoral volatility, the tendency of voters to switch party allegiance from one election to the next.7 The failures of the traditional ruling class to create a more inclusionary political system, not lower-class challenges to this exclusion, was the main problem facing the country. Reflecting this political instability is the fact that during the decade from 1997 to 2007, ten different chief executives held power. In the 1990s, attempts to implement neoliberal policies that were designed to halt inflation and stop bank failures hit poor and Indigenous peoples particularly hard, and repeatedly brought Indigenous movements to the forefront of political protest in the country. Xavier Albó notes that

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much like agrarian reform legislation strengthened the resolve of traditional communities that it sought to eliminate, neoliberal assaults on marginalized Indigenous populations led these populations to look to their own traditions for survival strategies.8 In 2007, CONAIE called for “recuperation of popular sovereignty in the running of the economy.” This was necessary because Ecuador had “lived for twenty-five years with an economic model that much more than concentrating wealth also promotes dispossession, inequality, and the handing of sovereignty to large foreign monopolies.” The goal of the economic system, CONAIE argued, should be not profit, but human welfare, the sumak kawsay.9 After Evo Morales’s ascendancy to the Bolivian presidency in 2006, Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca introduced sumak kawsay as a Quechua concept of living well, not just living better. Rather than focusing on material accumulation, it sought to build a sustainable economy. This perspective included an explicit critique of traditional development strategies that increased the use of resources rather than seeking to live in harmony with others and with nature. Indigenous activist Blanca Chancoso outlines three key principles of the sumak kawsay as reciprocity, solidarity, and gender complementarity. “The sumak kawsay is not a dream only for Indigenous peoples,” Chancoso argues, “but for all humans.”10 Rather than having a neoliberal emphasis on individual and property rights, the sumak kawsay accentuated the collective interests of Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities as well as the rest of society. Economist Pablo Dávalos terms sumak kawsay as “the only alternative to the neoliberal discourse of development and economic growth.” It builds on “a vision of respect” and provides an “opportunity to return ethics to human activities.”11 Patricio Carpio Benalcázar adds that the sumak kawsay requires “a new relationship between economy and nature.”12 It was a new way of thinking about human relations that was not based on exploitation. Social movements should regain control over state structures to use them for the common good rather than for the profits of elites. “It is a dynamic matter,” Luis Macas emphasizes, “not a passive process.”13 CONAIE president Marlon Santi expands on the sumak kawsay to talk about a sumak allpa (fertile land) and sacha runa yachay (ancestral knowledge) as part of an alternative development model.14 The sumak kawsay has so entered the mainstream of leftist discourse that Canadian journalist Naomi Klein makes reference to it when talking about alternatives to capitalism.15

NEOLIBERAL MULTICULTURALISM Indigenous movements in Ecuador have long taken a central role in leading struggles against neoliberal economic policies. It would be a mistake,

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however, to assume that ethnic-based movements are necessarily opposed to the neoliberal capitalist system. In fact, neoliberalism is highly capable of accepting and integrating ethnic expressions into its agenda. Anthropologist Charles Hale criticizes identity-based politics for focusing on limited issues such as ethnic rights while ignoring much larger and arguably more important issues of economic exploitation.16 A standard interpretation is that multiculturalism reinforces neoliberalism by misdiagnosing problems that marginalized peoples face. “As a state-sponsored ideology,” anthropologist José Almeida notes, multiculturalism “obscures its economic roots and issues of power.”17 It contends that the problem is an issue of racism rather than class divisions, so the solution is to embrace cultural differences rather than address issues of economic exclusion. Social critic Walter Benn Michaels argues that such identity-based politics are essentially reactionary because they distract from more important issues of economic inequality. He contends that neoliberalism, not racism, is the problem. An apparent lesson is that in contrast to the claims of new social movement theory, ethnicity does not provide a strong and coherent basis for social change; instead, traditional class struggles create better openings for political change.18 As anthropologist Héctor Díaz Polanco observes, “‘Politicized’ Indians recognize the limitations that ethnicism imposes on analysis and potential action.”19 If Indigenous movements do not go beyond ethnic demands, they threaten only to enable a neoliberal system. “The ethnicization of the indigenous movement,” Víctor Bretón Solo de Zaldívar observes, “has prioritized culture and identity politics at the expense of the class-based peasant agenda still very much alive in the mid-1990s, thus hindering the formation of alliances between indigenous groups and other sectors of society.”20 Indigenous leader Floresmilo Simbaña is also critical of Ecuador’s Indigenous movements’ ethnicist wing, which reduced plurinationalism to a cultural conflict that ignored the class components of the struggle and instead empowered a neoliberal agenda.21 To be successful, Indigenous activists would have to move well beyond expressions of multiculturality. Lucero contrasts multiculturalism that leads to “the simple acceptance and tolerance toward the existence of various different kinds of cultures” with the more profound notion of interculturality that builds “active crosscultural interactions and alliances.”22 Otherwise, this “neoliberal multiculturalism” reinforces existing inequalities. “Far from opening spaces for generalized empowerment of indigenous peoples,” Hale argues, neoliberal policies “tend to empower some while marginalizing the majority.” He continues, “Far from eliminating racial inequity, as the rhetoric of multiculturalism seems to promise, these reforms reconstitute racial hierarchies in more entrenched forms.” Hale terms this phenomenon that of the indio permitido (“authorized Indian”), a phrase he borrows from Bolivian sociologist

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Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, who used it “to talk about how governments are using cultural rights to divide and domesticate indigenous movements.” The dominant culture grants specific individuals certain rights with the understanding or hope that marginalized peoples will not make additional demands. The result is a growing public Indigenous presence but without an accompanying empowerment of marginalized and excluded peoples. Hale argues that the issue becomes neither a struggle between individual and collective rights, nor between cultural and economic demands; rather, it becomes a struggle of how it creates structural limitations to Indigenous empowerment. “Neoliberal multiculturalism permits indigenous organization,” Hale states, “as long as it does not amass enough power to call basic state prerogatives into question.”23 Neoliberalism, as a result, embraces multiculturalism while limiting its possibilities as a political project. Political scientist Donna Lee Van Cott, however, argues quite convincingly that while multiculturalism may facilitate neoliberalism in areas of weak social mobilization, the opposite is true in countries like Ecuador with strong histories of Indigenous mobilizations. In such cases, movements for Indigenous rights can provide an effective vehicle for building left-wing coalitions that challenge neoliberalism.24 Regardless of the relationship between neoliberalism and multiculturalism, Almeida argues that “neoliberalism certainly does not coincide with nationalist agendas or radical culturalism.” Rather than benefiting poor people, neoliberalism destroys grassroots economies and advances capitalist interests.25 Similarly, in Bolivia, the implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1980s helped trigger strong Indigenous movements in the 1990s.26 Keith G. Banting and Will Kymlicka argue that confronting oppression is not a zero-sum game, and focusing attention on race and culture does not necessarily translate into a diminished concern for class and economic interests. Rather, an enhanced sensitivity to one social injustice can lead to more sensitivity to others.27 In fact, Acosta contends that “racism is not only a social problem. More than anything, it is a political problem that is expressed and derived from economic segregation, exclusion, and marginalization.”28 The concrete application of this notion, however, becomes quite complicated. An example of multicultural approaches to development concerns was the World Bank–funded Proyecto de Desarrollo para los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador (PRODEPINE, Development Project for Indigenous and Black Peoples of Ecuador). The program promoted participatory development projects designed to strengthen cultural identities. Robert Andolina, Nina Laurie, and Sarah Radcliffe have termed its approach one of “social neoliberalism” that provided market-oriented solutions to poverty.29 The Indigenous think tank Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI, Institute for Indigenous Sciences and Cultures) strongly criticized PRODEPINE for embracing the government’s neoliberal policies while dividing,

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fragmenting, weakening, and ultimately neutralizing an alternative Indigenous project.30 CONAIE leader Miguel Guatemal similarly condemned PRODEPINE for fostering a dependency of Indigenous organizations on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and in the process creating an elite class of educated “experts” who displaced historic leaders and further divided leadership from their bases. Activists criticized these leaders for wearing “golden ponchos,” for succumbing to elitism. Furthermore, according to Guatemal, PRODEPINE’s results could not be worse, because in addition to its co-opting intellectuals, poverty rates rose in areas where these programs were implemented.31 In 2005, a CONAIE assembly finally decided to request that the government terminate PRODEPINE because of its divisive role in rural communities. Its development programs had realized unsatisfactory results, including the creation of a strong clientelist culture fostered through the flourishing of NGOs in local communities that undercut the organizing efforts of social movements.32 CONAIE’s decision to reject PRODEPINE points to a failure of market-oriented solutions to structural problems of inequality. Many Indigenous activists argued that a path forward lay not in multiculturalism, but in fundamentally refounding the state based on the principles of plurinationalism. The demands fueled a series of uprisings in the 1990s.

LEVANTAMIENTO INDÍGENA DE INTI RAYMI Frustrated by stagnated talks with the government over bilingual education, agrarian reform, and calls to recognize the plurinational nature of Ecuador, CONAIE decided at its fifth assembly in April 1990 to launch an uprising to force the government to negotiate their demands.33 Leaders had requested audiences with president Rodrigo Borja (1988–1992) of the centrist Izquierda Demócratica (ID, Democratic Left), and moved to direct action only when the government refused to meet with them.34 CONAIE laid out its demands in a sixteen-point document that outlined a program for Indigenous control over their own affairs and summarized an agenda for redefining Indigenous peoples’ role in society. Their platform revolved broadly around cultural issues (such as support for traditional medicine, bilingual education programs, and Indigenous control over archaeological sites), economic concerns (negotiating debts, access to credit, and budgeting money for economic development programs in Indigenous communities), and political demands (ending political control over local communities, expulsion of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and amending the first article of the constitution to declare Ecuador to be a plurinational and multicultural state).35 For CONAIE’s leadership, the call to recognize the plurinational character of Ecuador became the key and most contentious

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demand. “The uprising marked a decisive change in the future of our movement,” CONAIE’s vice president, Luis Macas, declared. “We have achieved a political space, we have entered into the political scene of the country.”36 These demands had revolutionary implications that shook Ecuador and threatened its white, elite power base. The concerns of the Indigenous movements’ rank and file, however, were often much more immediate and pragmatic than the leadership’s rhetorical posturing implied. Even before the uprising started, local activists pressed for militant actions. “The demand for genuine land reform,” anthropologist Lynn Meisch maintains, was “the glue that binds the indigenous movement. Many indígenas do not have a clue, and could [sic] care less, about the rest of CONAIE’s agenda.”37 Long after agrarian reform programs were to have solved the land problem, one study listed 217 unresolved agrarian conflicts during the 1980s.38 At its second congress in 1988, CONAIE declared the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Reforma Agraria y Colonización (IERAC, Ecuadorian Institute of Agrarian Reform and Colonization) to be “public enemy number one of Indigenous peoples” for its failure to resolve land issues and for consistently favoring non-Indigenous concerns.39 Although Ecuador had a growing urban Indigenous population, most Indigenous peoples still lived in rural areas and were grounded in an agrarian lifestyle. That economic mode of production governed their class standing and the nature of demands that they presented to the government. “Not one hacienda in 1992” and “Without land there is no democracy” became common protest slogans. “The demand for rights to land and territoriality are historic,” Macas argues. “It is nothing new.” He proceeds to observe that “in reality this is our principal demand.” Echoing statements from the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui in the 1920s, Macas states “that there will be no solution to the Indigenous problem unless there is a solution to the land problem.”40 Emphasizing the depth of this issue, protesters noted that for Indigenous communities, land “is not only a means of production, it is a fundamental base for their culture and life.”41 On May 19, community members around Lake San Pablo in Otavalo occupied the La Clemencia hacienda.42 On May 28, a week before the formal uprising was to begin, two hundred activists from six highland provinces occupied the historic Santo Domingo Cathedral in the middle of colonial Quito, demanding resolution of seventy-two land disputes.43 Often, as demonstrated by the occupation of this church, leaders found themselves playing catch-up with the grass roots that they had inspired to action. This pressure forced CONAIE to speed up the timing of their planned uprising, as they feared that they would lose their legitimacy as representing Ecuador’s Indigenous movement.44 “Without planning or foresight,” Zamosc notes, “CONAIE found itself the only popular organization that could represent the distressed rural population of the Sierra.”45 Even so, far from

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being spontaneous, as Sawyer notes, most successful protests were highly orchestrated events intended to influence specific policies.46 On June 8, CONAIE’s aggressive protest actions finally pressed the government to the negotiating table. Activists abandoned their roadblocks and the military released its detainees. Nevertheless, CONAIE’s demands for a resolution of land disputes, economic reforms, institution of bilingual education, and the recognition of Ecuador as a plurinational state met with limited success. Three weeks later, CONAIE announced that it would suspend the dialogue “until the government gives a definitive response to the problem of lands.”47 After five months, negotiations between CONAIE and the government once again broke off, and for the next several years the two parties alternated between the negotiating table and rhetorical positioning that occasionally led to more street protests. The 1990 levantamiento took advantage of openings that Borja’s government had created for Indigenous peoples. The previous conservative government of León Febres Cordero (1984–1988) had implemented savage neoliberal economic policies and assumed dictatorial attitudes as it used repressive measures against popular movements. In contrast, Borja’s election raised grassroots expectations. The new president met with Indigenous organizations and attempted to address their concerns. In the years leading up to the 1990 uprising, Borja employed favorable rhetoric in speeches, proclaiming that “Ecuador is a plurinational and multicultural country.” Indigenous nationalities, he noted upon taking office in 1988, had been here “many years before we invented our states.”48 Taking advantage of these apertures and apparent official legitimization of their self-conceptualization as Indigenous nationalities, militants pressed for even more rights. “We peasants and Indigenous nationalities are the most affected by the economic crisis and the government’s social policies,” activists declared on the eve of the uprising. “Borja has not complied with his electoral promises.”49 Borja believed that his administration had done more than any other government to support Indigenous demands, and he felt betrayed when they rebelled against him.50 The uprising underscores arguments that revolts emerge not out of oppression and deprivation, but rather out of a failure to fulfill the expectations of rising aspirations. The June 1990 Indigenous uprising represented a watershed in which Indigenous peoples placed themselves on center stage as a significant actor in national political affairs. Only a couple of years before, Barbara Schroder noted that “although indigenas have gained some representation in national-level labor organization, they are all but invisible in political parties and in the Ecuadorian state.”51 In addition to visibility, the uprising triggered ideological shifts. Outside observers such as sociologist Alicia Ibarra, who previously emphasized the class nature of Indigenous movements, now recognized the potential for identity politics to mobilize the

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masses for social change. “It had an immense capacity to convoke people to action,” Ibarra stated. “It demonstrated a high level of organization and consolidation of the movement. It was a call to recognize that in Ecuador there were still Indians with a voice that cannot be ignored or quieted.”52 Support from non-Indigenous sectors became critical to CONAIE as it continued to press its demands with the government. CONAIE president Cristobal Tapuy appealed for “the unity not only of Indian peoples, because not only we Indians are exploited, but also of workers, peasants, Blacks, and students.”53 CONAIE explicitly cultivated external support for its demands, rallying labor and peasant unions, the church, and students to its causes.54 Indigenous activists developed solidarity agreements with labor unions, particularly the Central Unitaria del Trabajadores (CUT, Unified Workers Central) and the Frente Unitario de Trabajadores (FUT, United Workers Front). The bishop of Riobamba issued a statement supporting the uprising, condemning the oppression and exploitation that Indigenous peoples faced, and celebrating the “human values and rights of the Indigenous nationalities and ethnicities of our country.” In response, local landed elites accused the church of instigating protest movements, even while the bishop emphasized that the uprising had been an entirely Indigenous decision.55 CONAIE noted that in the context of the crisis that Ecuador confronted, “popular and Indigenous organizations see the importance of together strengthening our struggles of resistance.”56 CONAIE saw power in unity, and embraced alliances with non-Indigenous sectors as critical in pressing its demands with the government. A month after the Inti Raymi uprising, CONAIE joined with the South American Indian Information Center (SAIIC) and the Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (ONIC, National Indigenous Organization of Colombia) to organize the First Continental Conference on Five Hundred Years of Indigenous Resistance in Quito. Four hundred representatives from 120 Indigenous nationalities and organizations throughout the Americas gathered from July 17 to 23, 1990, to form a united front against oppression, discrimination, and exploitation. Indigenous peoples demanded complete autonomy and self-government, including respect for customary law and traditional justice systems within their own communities. Participants appealed for “complete structural change” that “would be achieved only after the rejection of the capitalist system; change which recognizes the inherent right to self-determination through Indian People’s own governments and through the control of [their] territories.” Self-determination was fundamental to these demands, for it was only through autonomy that total liberation would be realized. Autonomy and self-determination would entail the right to control land, natural resources, economic development, government, and social and cultural matters, and to maintain the equilibrium of the ecosystem. Self-determination would be realized through participation

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in a struggle “geared toward the construction of a new society, pluralistic, democratic and based on popular power.” Demands for a plurinational state grew out of these calls for self-determination and autonomy.57 When the dust cleared, observers questioned what concrete objectives the 1990 uprising had achieved. Land conflicts remained intense even to the point of death squads executing Indigenous leaders. In March 1991, landowners assassinated Julio Cabascango in the northern province of Imbabura; he was the third local leader to be killed in six months during ongoing agrarian conflicts.58 Two years later, not one of the land conflicts that CONAIE had presented to the government had been resolved.59 Nevertheless, the uprising had resulted in a seismic shift in consciousness. “We are no longer the same,” an Indigenous leader from Cotopaxi observed. “Now we hold our heads high.”60 A year later, Indigenous activists returned to Quito and occupied Congress to demand constitutional reforms, ratification of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169 concerning the rights of Indigenous peoples, and amnesty for one thousand Indigenous activists charged in the previous year’s uprising.61 Indigenous peoples were no longer marginalized from Ecuador’s political landscape.

CAMINATA In August 1990, the Amazonian Indigenous organization OPIP presented the government with a plan for handing over to Indigenous communities control of 90 percent of the land (including petroleum deposits) in the province of Pastaza. The plan would not only give people autonomy over their own affairs, but it would also end the ecological and cultural devastation of Ecuador’s largest remaining pristine rain forest. The plan included a resource management agenda that would defend local communities from transnational oil, timber, mining, and tourism corporations that sought to exploit the natural resources on the communities’ traditional lands. Borja responded by denouncing what he saw as an attempt to dismember “our national territory” and create “a ‘parallel state’ within Ecuador’s borders, in which national laws would have no power over ‘traditional rights.’” CONAIE vice president Luis Macas denied that they were trying to “erode Ecuadorian sovereignty.” He declared instead a desire “to develop our communities in a collective form.” Autonomy was necessary in order to “stimulate our own model of development using traditional techniques within the ecological equilibrium, using what modern technology can offer.” For Indigenous intellectuals in OPIP, land was a commodity of interest to colonists, but territory was “an ancestral space where culture develops,” and it was that traditional use of land that they sought to protect.62

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Two years of governmental inaction on OPIP’s proposals in addition to an outright hostility to the idea of Indigenous autonomy led to an April 1992 caminata, or march, from Puyo in Amazon to the capital city of Quito in the highlands to present OPIP’s demands directly to the central government. In order to support its campaign, OPIP also decided to run Indigenous candidates for local offices. As would subsequently often be the case, an Indigenous movement engaged simultaneously in social movement and electoral strategies. OPIP president Antonio Vargas traveled to the United States to raise funds to support the group’s efforts, but the money created a certain amount of tension within the organization. Some thought the money should be used to support Indigenous candidates, while others complained that funds raised for a march to Quito were being diverted to political campaigns. Additional charges of embezzlement and accusations that the planned march was designed to support a political campaign further illustrated the complications of simultaneously engaging in social movement tactics and electoral politics.63 On April 11, the marchers left Puyo for the highlands in the midst of a driving tropical rainstorm. Inspired by female elders and drawing on the historical legacy of Jumandi’s 1578 revolt, two thousand Kichwa, Shuar, and Achuar people walked 240 kilometers in thirteen days to demand “the legalization of the territories they inhabit, and that the national constitution be reformed to reflect the plurinational and multicultural reality of Ecuador.” They emphasized their desire to “protect the forest from the irrational exploitation of oil resources and guarantee the development of our culture, language and laws.”64 Unlike with the 1990 levantamiento, in this case the government facilitated rather than hindered their movement. On April 21, the Salasaca, their “mountain brothers,” joined them in the highlands and enthusiastically provided them with material and moral support. Together, they continued on to Quito. By the time the caminata arrived in the capital their numbers had grown to as many as ten thousand. Borja announced that he would be “pleased” to receive the marchers, and did so at the San Francisco Plaza in the colonial center of Quito, just a couple of blocks from the national palace. Quito’s mayor Rodrigo Paz offered the marchers a space to set up their camp in El Ejido Park in the modern part of town. Borja initially agreed to OPIP’s demands for control over their territory, but it quickly became clear that the government was engaging in a delaying strategy of talks rather than in actions. Borja subsequently refused to hand over land titles, citing concerns for “national security” along the contested border with Peru. In response, a delegation of Indigenous leaders met with congressional deputies to demand constitutional reforms.65 After a threat to occupy the Ministry of Social Welfare building, on May 6 the government agreed to a partial list of OPIP’s demands. Although OPIP gained a

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concession of over one million hectares of land, about 65 percent of their request, subsoil rights (including those for petroleum exploration and exploitation) remained with the government. On May 14, the marchers returned in dozens of buses to Puyo, where after a brief victory celebration they returned home. Sawyer calls the caminata “a crucial juncture in the process of indigenous nation building.” The caminata provided an opportunity to weave “indigenous rights together with local understandings of identity and place,” leading to “a unique moment of indigenous agency.”66 The caminata subsequently came to be seen as one of the most successful actions that a social movement had undertaken. A highly visible staged action was the best way for a social movement to make its demands heard. The approaching quincentenary triggered another round of protests and road blockages, although in reality, coming on the heels of years of demonstrations, the planned events proved to be rather anticlimactic. The 1990 levantamiento had already clearly articulated the key issues surrounding the quincentenary debates; the competing ideological perspectives between Indigenous peoples and their allies and those who identified with the class interests of the descendants of the European colonists were clear. Nevertheless, on October 12, 1992, thousands of Indigenous peoples and their supporters held a peaceful march on Quito to celebrate “Five Hundred Years of Indigenous Resistance.” Police repression prevented others from attending the rally. White elites continued to feel threatened by insurgent Indigenous challenges to their hegemonic control over power.67

MOVILIZACIÓN POR LA VIDA In June 1994, peasant and Indigenous groups once again joined forces in “La Movilización Por la Vida” (The Mobilization for Life). Similar to revisions to Article 27 of the Mexican constitution that triggered the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in January of that same year, conservative president Sixto Durán Ballén (1992–1996) proposed a new law that would allow communally held land to be sold or mortgaged, turning it into a commodity that could be taken away from rural communities. This new law would not only bring an end to thirty years of agrarian reform, it would also enact neoliberal policies that included the privatization of water rights, the auctioning of state-owned land, and an intensification of the export of agricultural commodities. Despite a general consensus that agrarian reform legislation in 1964 and 1973 had largely failed, conservative political elites and Indigenous and peasant organizations still fundamentally disagreed over the social function of land, the question of private property, and who should benefit from the

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land. CONAIE criticized failed reforms because they “have not resolved the problem of Indigenous People and Nationalities.” Rather, they were “‘agrotechnical’ capitalist reforms that responded to the economic and political interests of national and foreign exploiters” and failed to take into account the need for a true and comprehensive development plan.68 The net result of the agrarian reform laws had been the pauperization of peasants that caused “large sectors of peasants and Indigenous peoples to abandon the countryside and to sink into subemployment in the cities.”69 Indigenous organizations demanded that the government enact “a real and true agrarian reform that not only gives land but also raises workers’ salaries, lends technical and agricultural assistance, provides sufficient financing to cover production demands, organizes the sale of products, and creates gathering points to market products.”70 These reforms were necessary to ensure the survival and flourishing of rural communities. A pro-peasant umbrella group called the Coordinadora Agraria Nacional (CAN, National Agrarian Coordinator) argued that because of its impact on rural populations, the proposed legislation should be submitted to extensive debate. When Durán Ballén refused to listen to criticisms, activists blocked roads and paralyzed the country for ten days. Finally, the government declared a state of emergency and threatened military action to end the protests. Despite what was one of the largest and most successful protests in Ecuador’s history, Durán Ballén proceeded to promulgate a new law of agrarian development that created the Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agrario (INDA, National Institute of Agrarian Development) to replace IERAC. Nevertheless, the protests had strengthened inter-ethnic Indigenous-peasant coalitions to challenge neoliberal policies. This mobilization revealed that land rights continued to be a central demand for Indigenous organizations and remained a defining characteristic of Indigenous movements.71 This series of three uprisings, the 1990 levantamiento, the 1992 caminata, and the 1994 movilización, gained Ecuador the reputation as home to the strongest Indigenous movements and one of the best-organized social movements in the Americas. Despite their significant gains in raising the public profile of their concerns, however, activists had made very little headway in concretely altering government policies. To achieve that goal, some leaders argued that Indigenous organizations needed to move beyond social movement strategies and enter the messy world of electoral politics.

NOTES 1. South and Meso American Indian Information Center (SAIIC), “Uprising in Ecuador,” SAIIC Newsletter 5, no. 3–4 (December 1990): 19.

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2. “Evaluación del levantamiento indio: Cuidado con el buey manso,” Punto de Vista 9, no. 424 (July 2, 1990): 7. 3. Kevin Healy, “Allies and Opposition Groups to the 1990 Indigenous Political Mobilizations in Ecuador and Bolivia” (paper presented at the XVII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Los Angeles, September 24–27, 1992), 20. 4. Galo Ramón V., ed., Actores de una década ganada: Tribus, comunidades y campesinos en la modernidad (Quito: COMUNIDEC, 1992). 5. Fredy Rivera Vélez and Franklin Ramírez Gallegos, “Ecuador: Democracy and Economy in Crisis,” in The Andes in Focus: Security, Democracy, and Economic Reform, ed. Russell Crandall, Guadalupe Paz, and Riordan Roett (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 121. 6. Leon Zamosc, “The Indian Movement and Political Democracy in Ecuador,” Latin American Politics and Society 49, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 131. 7. Carlos de la Torre and Catherine Conaghan, “The Hybrid Campaign: Tradition and Modernity in Ecuador’s 2006 Presidential Election,” International Journal of Press/Politics 14, no. 3 (July 2009): 339. 8. Xavier Albó, “Andean People in the Twentieth Century,” in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, ed. Frank Salomon and Stuart B. Schwartz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 859. 9. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente: Propuesta de nueva constitución—desde la CONAIE—para la construcción de un estado plurinacional, unitario, soberano, incluyente, equitativo y laico (Documento de principios y lineamientos) (Quito: CONAIE, September 18, 2007), 2. Also see Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez, eds., El Buen Vivir: Una vía para el desarrollo (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009). 10. Blanca Chancoso, “El Sumak Kawsay desde la visión de mujer,” América Latina en Movimiento 34, II época, no. 453 (March 2010): 7. 11. Pablo Dávalos, “El ‘Sumak Kawsay’ (‘Buen vivir’) y las cesuras del desarrollo, Segunda parte,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 111 (June 2008). At the same time, Catherine Walsh shows how sumak kawsay draws its inspiration from already-existing alternative concepts of integral and sustainable human development. See, “Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional Arrangements and (De)colonial Entanglements,” Development 53, no. 1 (March 2010): 19. 12. Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, “El Buen Vivir, más allá del desarrollo: La nueva perspectiva Constitucional en Ecuador,” in Acosta and Martínez, El Buen Vivir, 146. 13. Luis Macas, “Sumak Kawsay: La vida en plenitud,” América Latina en Movimiento 34, II época, no. 452 (February 2010): 14. 14. Marlon Santi, “Sacha runa yachay, sumak allpa, sumak kausay—Una alternativa de gestión propia del desarrollo,” in Retos del desarrollo local (Quito: Abya-Yala/ ILDIS, 2006). 15. Naomi Klein, “Capitalism, Sarah Palin-Style,” Progressive 73, no. 8 (August 2009): 21. 16. Charles R. Hale, “Does Multiculturalism Menace? Governance, Cultural Rights and the Politics of Identity in Guatemala,” Journal of Latin American Studies 34, no. 3 (August 2002): 485–524; also see José Antonio Lucero, Struggles of Voice:

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The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes, Pitt Latin American Series (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 121–52. 17. José Almeida Vinueza, “The Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement and the Gutiérrez Regime: The Traps of Multiculturalism,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 28, no. 1 (May 2005): 93. 18. Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006). 19. Héctor Díaz Polanco, Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: The Quest for SelfDetermination, trans. Lucia Rayas, Latin American Perspectives Series, no. 18 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 75. 20. Víctor Bretón Solo de Zaldívar, “From Agrarian Reform to Ethnodevelopment in the Highlands of Ecuador,” Journal of Agrarian Change 8, no. 4 (October 2008): 583–617. 21. Floresmilo Simbaña, “El movimiento indígena y el actual proceso de transición,” América Latina en Movimiento 31, II época, no. 423 (August 20, 2007): 21–24. 22. Lucero, Struggles of Voice, 200n16. 23. Charles R. Hale, “Rethinking Indigenous Politics in the Era of the ‘Indio Permitido,’” NACLA Report on the Americas 38, no. 2 (September/October 2004): 16. 24. Donna Lee Van Cott, “Multiculturalism versus Neoliberalism in Latin America,” in Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies, ed. Will Kymlicka and Keith G. Banting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 272–96. 25. Almeida, “The Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement and the Gutiérrez Regime,” 106. 26. Willem Assies, “Neoliberalism and the Re-emergence of Ethnopolitics in Bolivia,” in Kymlicka and Banting, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State, 297–319. 27. Keith G. Banting and Will Kymlicka, “Introduction. Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Setting the Context,” in Kymlicka and Banting, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State, 19. 28. Alberto Acosta, “El estado plurinacional, puerta para una sociedad democrática. A manera de Prólogo,” in Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 15. 29. Robert Andolina, Nina Laurie, and Sarah A. Radcliffe, Indigenous Development in the Andes: Culture, Power, and Transnationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 46–47. 30. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Banco Mundial y Prodepine: ¿Hacia un neoliberalismo étnico?” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 3, no. 25 (April 2001). 31. Miguel Guatemal, “La situación del movimiento indígena en Ecuador,” in Movimiento indígena en América Latina: Resistencia y proyecto alternativo, ed. Fabiola Escárzaga and Raquel Gutiérrez Aragón (Puebla and Mexico City: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Gobierno del Distrito Federal. Casa Juan Pablos, Centro Cultural, 2006), 2:201, 210; “Ecuador’s Indigenous Party,” Economist, November 11, 2004. 32. Paulina Palacios Herrera, “Ecuador,” in The Indigenous World 2006, ed. Sille Stidsen (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs [IWGIA],

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2006), 169; Andolina, Laurie, and Radcliffe, Indigenous Development in the Andes, 238. 33. Luis Macas, El levantamiento indígena visto por sus protagonistas (Quito: Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas [ICCI], 1991), 16; José Almeida, “El levantamiento indígena como momento constitutivo nacional,” in Sismo étnico en el Ecuador: Varias perspectivas, ed. José Almeida and others (Quito: CEDIME-Abya-Yala, 1993), 17. 34. “Evaluación del levantamiento indio,” 6. 35. Several different versions of the “sixteen points” exist, and some of them are collected at www.yachana.org/earchivo/conaie/16puntos.php. 36. Macas, Levantamiento indígena, 3. 37. Lynn A. Meisch, “We Will Not Dance on the Tomb of Our Grandparents: 500 Years of Resistance in Ecuador,” Latin American Anthropology Review 4, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 58. 38. Alain Dubly and Alicia Granda, Desalojos y despojos: Los conflictos agrarios en Ecuador, 1983–1990 (Quito: El Conejo, 1991). 39. Roberto Santana, ¿Ciudadanos en la etnicidad? Los indios en la política o la política de los indios, Colección Biblioteca Abya-Yala 19 (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1995), 65. 40. Macas, Levantamiento indígena, 10. See José Carlos Mariátegui, “The Problem of Land,” in Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), 32. 41. “Evaluación del levantamiento indio,” 6. 42. “Recuperan tierras del antepasados,” Punto de Vista 9, no. 419 (May 28, 1990): 5. 43. “Ayuno en templo de Santo Domingo: ‘Ni una hacienda en el 92,’” Punto de Vista 9, no. 421 (June 11, 1990): 4–5; Les Field, “The Land Issue in the Ecuadorian Highlands,” Cultural Survival Quarterly 14, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 17. 44. Jorge León, “Versiones de los protagonistas: Los hechos históricos y el valor de los testimonios disidentes,” in Almeida, Sismo étnico en el Ecuador, 124; Chad Thomas Black, “The Making of an Indigenous Movement: Meaning and Materiality in Ecuador” (master’s thesis, University of New Mexico, 1999), 163. 45. Leon Zamosc, “Agrarian Protest and the Indian Movement in the Ecuadorian Highlands,” Latin American Research Review 29, no. 3 (1994): 62. 46. Suzana Sawyer, “The 1992 Indian Mobilization in Lowland Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives 24, no. 3 (94) (May 1997): 68. 47. “Suspendido diálogo entre la CONAIE y el gobierno,” Punto de Vista 9, no. 424 (July 2, 1990): 4. 48. Black, The Making of an Indigenous Movement, 31; Macas, Levantamiento indígena, 12. 49. Coordinadora Popular, “Manifiesto a la opinión pública,” Punto de Vista 9, no. 417 (May 14, 1990): 9. 50. Black, “The Making of an Indigenous Movement,” 134–35. 51. Barbara Schroder, “Ethnic Identity and Non-capitalist Relations of Production in Chimborazo, Ecuador,” in Perspectives in U.S. Marxist Anthropology, ed. David Hakken and Hanna Lessinger (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 136. 52. Alicia Ibarra Illánez, “Los indios del Ecuador y su demanda frente al Estado,” Boletín de Antropología Americana 26 (December 1992): 79. 53. “Somos raíces y aquí estamos luchando,” El Pueblo July 23–29, 1990, 8.

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54. Macas, Levantamiento indígena, 16. 55. “Iglesia de Riobamba apoya levantamiento indio,” Punto de Vista 9, no. 423 (June 25, 1990): 5. 56. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “El porque de la ingobernabilidad,” Nacionalidades Indias (Quito) 3, no. 7–8 (April 1994): 1. 57. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “Declaration of Quito,” Ecuador, July 1990 (Quito: CONAIE, 1990); Elizabeth Bobsy Draper, “Minga in Ecuador,” Z Magazine (December 1990): 33–38. 58. “Noticiero Indigenista,” América Indígena 51, no. 2–3 (April–September 1991): 377. 59. “Diálogos: Mucho ruido, pocos resultados,” Punto de Vista 11, no. 513 (April 6, 1992): 2. 60. “A un año del levantamiento indígena,” Punto de Vista 10, no. 470 (May 27, 1991): 8. 61. “24 horas en el interior del Congreso,” Punto de Vista 10, no. 471 (June 3, 1991): 8–11. 62. Les Field, “Ecuador’s Pan-Indian Uprising,” Report on the Americas 25, no. 3 (December 1991): 43. Elites similarly criticized Mapuches in Chile for attempting to create a “state within a state” when they made moves toward gaining more control over governmental administration in their own communities. See Rolf Foerster and Sonia Montecino Aguirre, Organizaciones, lideres y contiendas mapuches, 1900–1970 ([Santiago, Chile]: Ediciones CEM, 1988), 222. 63. Norman E. Whitten and Dorothea S. Whitten, Puyo Runa: Imagery and Power in Modern Amazonia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 204. 64. South American Indian Information Center (SAIIC), “March on Quito: Amazon Indians Demand to Be Heard,” SAIIC Newsletter 6, no. 3 (Spring & Summer 1992): 4–7; South American Indian Information Center (SAIIC), “Ecuador Government Refuses to Fulfill Their Promise to Amazon Marchers,” Urgent Action Bulletin, May 13, 1992, South and Meso American Indian Rights Resource Library (SAIIC), Oakland, California; “11 de abril, marcha indígena: Por tierra y dignidad,” Punto de Vista 11, no. 513 (April 6, 1992): 8–10; “Marcha indígena: ¡Adelante!” Punto de Vista 11, no. 515 (April 20, 1992): 8–13; “Misión cumplida,” Punto de Vista 11, no. 516 (April 27, 1992): 8–12; Sawyer, “1992 Indian Mobilization”; Suzana Sawyer, Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador, American Encounters / Global Interactions (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 27–56; Norman E. Whitten Jr., Dorothea Scott Whitten, and Alfonso Chango, “Return of the Yumbo: The Indigenous Caminata from Amazonia to Andean Quito,” American Ethnologist 24, no. 2 (1997): 355–91. 65. “Indios presentaron reformas constitucionales,” Punto de Vista 11, no. 517 (May 4, 1992): 3. 66. Sawyer, “1992 Indian Mobilization,” 77, 65. 67. “Por 500 años: Presencia y movilización indígena y popular,” Punto de Vista 12, no. 540 (October 13, 1992): 12–13; Meisch, “We Will Not Dance on the Tomb of Our Grandparents.” 68. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), Proyecto político de la CONAIE (Quito: CONAIE, 1994), 31.

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69. ECUARUNARI, “El movimiento campesino indígena ‘ECUARUNARI,’” in Población indígena y desarrollo amazonico, ed. Ministerio de Bienestar Social, Oficina Nacional de Asuntos Indígenas (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1984), 44. 70. Pichincha Riccharimui Ecuarunari, 500 años de resistencia indígena y popular, Cuaderno de Educación, no. 1 (Quito: Secretaría de Educación Alfabetización y Cultura Pichincha Riccharimui, May 1990), 7. 71. The new law was Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agrario (INDA), “Reglamento orgánico y funcional del Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agrario (INDA),” in Ley de desarrollo agrario y reglamentos, 2nd ed. (Quito: Editorial Jurídica del Ecuador, 1995), 141–87. The alternative proposal is Coordinadora Agraria Nacional (CAN), Proyecto de ley agraria integral, 2nd ed. (Quito: Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador [CONAIE], 1994). For one leader’s summary of the uprising, see Luis Macas, “La ley agraria y el proceso de movilización por la vida,” in Derechos de los pueblos indígenas: Situación jurídica y políticas de estado, ed. Ramón Torres Galarza (Quito: CONAIE/CEPLAES/Abya-Yala, 1995), 29–37. Also see Sawyer, Crude Chronicles, 149–81; and Kay Treakle, “Ecuador: Structural Adjustment and Indigenous and Environmentalist Resistance,” in The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots Movements, ed. L. David Brown and Jonathan A. Fox (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 219–64.

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3 The Emergence of an Electoral Option

In 1995, Indigenous activists founded the Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (MUPP, Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity, commonly simply called Pachakutik) to campaign for political office. This political movement emerged out of years of debate on the roles of Indigenous peoples in electoral politics, including whether Indigenous organizations should put forward their own candidates and issues, or whether they should support existing parties that “understand and guarantee the fundamental rights of the Indigenous population.”1 Pachakutik represented the emergence of a third option between joining leftist coalitions or creating ethnic parties, in forming a new political movement in which Indigenous peoples and other sectors of Ecuador’s popular movements organized together as equals in a joint project to achieve common goals.2 It opposed the government’s neoliberal economic policies and favored profound changes in society that would create a more inclusive and participatory democracy. Pachakutik proposed a government based on the three traditional Andean values of ama llulla, ama quilla, ama shua (don’t lie, don’t be lazy, don’t steal). Its leaders spoke of four revolutions: ethical, socioeconomical, educational, and ecological. Pachakutik was an explicit reversal of a policy that CONAIE adopted at its third congress in 1990 not to participate in elections because neither the political system nor political parties were functioning in a way that represented people’s interests.3 Popular distrust of the traditional political class grew throughout South America as marginalized peoples became disenchanted with the failures of empty formal democratic structures to improve their living standards.4 In the midst of the 1990 uprising, Ecuador held midterm legislative elections. Most Indigenous communities remained on 43

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Sami Ayriwa Pilco from Puruha de Cacha votes in the 2002 presidential elections (Marc Becker)

the sidelines as the electoral left faced declining political fortunes.5 CONAIE forbade its leaders from holding political office and boycotted the 1992 presidential elections “as a way of rejecting traditional elections, political mismanagement, and demagogic political parties.”6 CONAIE further fostered an autonomous image by banning partisan political propaganda and keeping political parties at arm’s length in order to undercut accusations that outside agitators had organized their events.7 Instead, many activists favored the creation of an alternative Indigenous and Popular Parliament.8 Highland Indigenous leaders argued that they could make more effective changes working through civil society rather than engaging in electoral campaigns. Nevertheless, some grassroots activists wanted to engage in electoral campaigns. They failed to understand why they should not avail themselves of all tools at their disposal to challenge elite systems of domination. It was time for them to make their own politics and to make good politics that would benefit everyone rather than just select individuals. This grassroots pressure forced national leaders to rethink their hesitancy to enter the electoral realm. Amazonian leaders including Rafael Pandam and Valerio Grefa of CONFENIAE had been pressing for the creation of Pachakutik since the 1990 uprising. Regional divisions in Ecuador affected Indigenous movements as much as the rest of society. CONAIE emerged in the highlands as an antielectoral political force in opposition to existing political parties, whereas Pachakutik emerged out of the Amazon, where activists were much more willing to engage in such political games. In August 1995, Amazonian

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activists unilaterally announced the formation of an Indigenous political movement; this was a proclamation that did not sit well with the highland CONAIE leadership because it went against their stated policy. Subsequently, highland activists created a parallel political movement they called Unidad Plurinacional (Plurinational Unity). The two efforts merged to create the Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity.9 Even the creation of Pachakutik highlighted the complicated negotiations that needed to be navigated as Indigenous activists entered the electoral field. Debates regarding engagement with electoral politics have long raged through the left. In the 1970s, activists in Juchitán criticized electoral participation as draining energy from more productive social movement activity as they challenged the dominant position of the Mexican government. Jeffrey Rubin notes that while in theory activists rejected the idea of participating in elections, in practice they did run candidates. The key question was how a local grassroots movement would engage with national politics. In the process, Juchitán activists charted a path that much of the Latin American left would follow in the 1980s and 1990s.10 But many people still believed it was a mistake to enter the electoral realm. Regarding Haiti, Figaro Joseph argues that popular movements failed to produce lasting political, economic, and social change because they “focused too much on electoral processes and not enough on building institutions,” and that the bourgeoisie and elite classes used electoral mechanisms to truncate their activism.11 Whether or not to engage in electoral contests was never a simple question. Margarito Ruiz Hernández and Aracely Burguete Cal y Mayor observe that the relationship between Indigenous peoples and political parties has almost always been problematic, and the conflict is largely inevitable because of how political institutions have a monopoly over political representation. An important factor is whether Indigenous peoples engage the political process as individuals or in a collective manner. Although it is not a common occurrence, several Indigenous individuals have assumed high political office, perhaps most famously when Benito Júarez, a Zapotec from Oaxaca, served as president of Mexico in the 1860s and 1870s. For the most part, those victories were personal achievements for an individual rather than a response to the needs of a broader community. In contrast, the efforts of Indigenous movements at the end of the twentieth century to engage the electoral process tended to be much more of a collective undertaking with the goal of making a new and different type of politics. Commonly these initiatives emerged in the context of a crisis of representation in traditional party political systems that created a vacuum that increasingly powerful social movements occupied to their advantage.12 In Ecuador, constitutional reforms in 1994 for the first time allowed independents to run for office without affiliating with a political party. To qualify, these political “movements” had to submit petitions signed

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by 1.5 percent of Ecuador’s 6.4 million voters. Pachakutik took advantage of that legislation to structure itself as a political movement rather than a political party, organizing itself in a horizontal, democratic, and inclusionary fashion. It explicitly identified itself as part of the new Latin American left that embraced principles of community, solidarity, unity, tolerance, and respect. Pachakutik emerged directly out of social movements, and this fundamentally influenced its ideological and strategic orientations. It worked closely with CONAIE, agitating for the interests of the underclass in the halls of power while civil society kept pressure on the government out on the streets. Pachakutik emerged out of a failure of leftist parties to fulfill this function, and represented a culmination of CONAIE’s drive to insert Indigenous peoples directly into political debates, giving them a voice and allowing them to speak for themselves.13 The main force behind Pachakutik was the Coordinadora de Movimientos Sociales (CMS, Social Movement Coordinator), which grouped CONAIE, left-wing unions of state-owned companies, and about fifty other rural and urban organizations. Although often seen as an “Indigenous” party and the political wing of CONAIE, Pachakutik provided a shared space for all progressive activists who envisioned a better, more humane world. In part, this was due to an intentional political decision to move from specific and narrowly defined Indigenous demands to promoting broader concerns to build a new country that would benefit all Ecuadorians. Given that Indigenous peoples were numerous but still a minority and by no means homogeneous presence, it would be difficult for them to gain high political office without cultivating deeper alliances with and support from non-Indigenous sectors of the population. Intercultural alliances would prove to be vital to Pachakutik’s success.

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION Since the creation of the independent Republic of Ecuador in 1830, Indigenous peoples remained in a subjugated position as neocolonial subjects of an exclusionary regime. To enjoy citizenship rights, the 1830 constitution required a person to be married or older than twenty-two years, to own property worth at least 300 pesos or be engaged in an independent “useful” profession or industry (it explicitly excluded domestic servants and day laborers), and to be able to read and write. Unstated but explicit was the requirement that citizens be white males. In fact, Article 68 of this constitution placed Indigenous peoples, in their “innocent, abject and miserable” situation, under the tutelage of parish priests.14 Although the constitution declared the government to be “popular, representative, alternative, and responsible,” only the 2,825 people (0.3 percent of the

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population) who met the stringent citizenship requirements selected the government that ruled over the rest of the country.15 With some minor variations (in subsequent constitutions, the age requirement varied between eighteen and twenty-one years, the property requirements were eliminated in 1861, the marriage requirement was dropped in 1897, and women were included in 1929, but the literacy requirement was retained until 1979), this has been the determining factor of citizenship until the late twentieth century. Although the constitutions never mentioned race, it was understood (as nineteenth-century traveler James Orton notes) that “all, except pure Indians, can vote.”16 Years later, one observer reported that “the ruling minority is enjoying what has been euphemistically termed ‘democracy in the Greek sense,’ in which effective citizenship is limited to a few men of education and culture, with the others rigidly barred from participation.”17 Even if an Indigenous person somehow managed to meet the constitutional requirements of citizenship, a pervasive system of racial discrimination still presented an insurmountable barrier. Citizenship and voting remained overwhelmingly a minority and exclusionary affair. As Guillermo O’Donnell observes, although “equality before the law” was a liberal value, excluding the masses from citizenship rights effectively voided that reality.18 The entire system functioned to exclude Indigenous peoples from political participation. Socialists were the only ones who challenged exclusionary notions of citizenship. After the formation of the PSE in 1926, leftist candidates prominently featured Indigenous concerns in their campaigns. Most notably, Ricardo Paredes campaigned for the presidency in 1933 as the “candidate of the workers, peasants, Indians, and soldiers” and promised bread, work, land, and liberty for the people.19 Indicating dedication to the rights of marginalized peoples excluded from political discourse, leftists announced that they would fight through their elected representatives for universal suffrage, minimum-wage legislation, return of land and water to rural communities, cancellation of agricultural worker debts on haciendas, and defense of “Indians and Blacks, not only as exploited and oppressed classes, but also as oppressed nationalities.”20 With his Indigenous base of support excluded from voting, Paredes ran a distant fourth in the election, garnering only about five hundred votes. Instead, beginning with the 1929 constitution, the concerns of the “Indigenous race” were to be represented in Congress by an unelected “functional representation.” Although there were battles over who would have the rights to control this representation, on occasion Indigenous activists could manipulate it to their benefit.21 Indigenous communities often gained “a deep distrust toward the existing channels of representation” because they “ended up reinforcing the power of political, ethnic and economic elites.”22 If the political deck was stacked against them, why should they participate in this system?

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Until the 1944 May Revolution, only about 3 percent of the population voted in elections. Most people did not participate (and, furthermore, were not permitted to participate) in electoral politics, thereby excluding much of the left’s natural constituency. A journalist in the 1940s described Indians who had learned to read and write, and thus were technically permitted to vote, hiding their identity papers at election time because police and landowners would confiscate the documents in order to control the ballot.23 Apparently some urban scholars remained unaware of this reality. Sociologist Angel Modesto Paredes complained that Indigenous peoples were indifferent to politics and did not participate in elections, but he did not acknowledge that they were constitutionally excluded.24 Political scientist George Blanksten noted in the 1950s that roughly “95 per cent of Ecuador’s Indians are illiterate; accordingly, illiteracy legally bars the Indian from any major participation in political life.” This exclusion provided “a significant background against which political instability has developed in Ecuador.”25 A decade later, anthropologist Muriel Crespi pointed out that no hacienda Indian “has ever been known to vote in the elections, let alone run for office,” and their interests are never represented in local governments.26 As David Schodt remarks, most people were left untouched by changes of government in Quito: “Ecuadorian politics was a profoundly elitist politics.”27 Reflecting this exclusionary system, Ecuador ranked last in electoral participation among ten South American countries.28 Even after constitutional revisions permitted illiterate people to vote beginning in 1979, racial discrimination continued to marginalize Indigenous peoples from political participation. Indigenous peoples tended either to vote for leftist or center-left candidates (particularly in areas with a history of organized struggles), or not to vote at all, arguing that “elections do not interest us because we do not identify with any of the candidates.”29 Indigenous peoples “cannot be candidates,” René Maugé, the secretarygeneral of the Communist Party, observed in 1986, “because people are accustomed to them not having any rights.”30 Even under an allegedly free and open electoral system, participation was limited to the wealthy elite. Instead, many Indigenous activists made their political mark in the realm of civil society, organizing mass protests out on the streets. Because of lingering paternalistic and maybe even racist attitudes, Indigenous organizations often had a complicated relationship with the left and other outside forces. For example, one working group at the Second Conference of Indian Nations and Organizations of South America in 1983 criticized the left as a creation “of the dominant caste which hates the Indian” and for dividing “our people into antagonistic social classes,” while another working group pronounced their support for “the revolutionary process of the peoples of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua as the only route to attain their liberation while at the same time advance, consolidate,

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and extend the liberation of Indian peoples of Central America.”31 Underlying these competing views were ongoing debates about whether Indigenous peoples should organize on their own as an ethnic population, or in alliance with other popular sectors with shared concerns. As Indigenous activists became better organized and more assertive, they increasingly ran into conflicts with their traditional allies on the left, who expected them to play the role of a junior partner in a coalition. Leftist parties resisted forwarding the names of Indigenous activists as candidates. Even while Indigenous activists struggled to build alliances with broader popular movements, they had a sense that existing labor unions and political parties feared them as a competitor.32 CONAIE leader Blanca Chancoso was one of those who also complained that political parties ignored Indigenous issues. “They would speak for us,” she noted, “but it was out of the question for an Indian to be in the leadership.”33 Local activists in Chimborazo complained that political parties paid attention to them, including the running of Indigenous candidates, only to gain votes. “We are a step for those who are going up,” they observed. “No party has taken our interests seriously.”34 CONAIE leader Luis Maldonado criticized the left for acting the same as the political right: only showing up during campaigns to make promises that were promptly forgotten once the candidates took office. The parties were opportunistic, only taking measures to improve their electoral strength but refusing to use their positions to defend Indigenous rights. Furthermore, this was not only a problem for Indigenous peoples but also was part of a broader crisis in the left, because “in Ecuador there is a divide between the left and popular organizations.”35 Particularly in the Amazon, labor unions and political parties had fewer organic connections with Indigenous communities, and local leaders resented that unions attempted to place themselves in a vanguard role while relegating Indigenous peoples to seats at the back of the bus. Rather, the leaders wanted to be treated as equals in the struggle.36 It was time for activists to make their own politics, but to make good politics that would benefit everyone rather than just select individuals. Even with the presence of certain tensions with the left, it was clear that Indigenous movements would logically be allied with progressive movements. They could never support conservative forces given their roots in and ongoing close alliances with precisely those forces historically most directed against marginalized peoples. Shuar intellectual Ampan Karakras notes that Indigenous movements “could not support the right, because they are the ones who . . . have exploited the popular sectors, and in particular the Indigenous population.”37 Luis Macas acknowledges that “the struggles of the indigenous movement are always aligned to the larger context,” sharing common demands and objectives.38 Indigenous movements cannot be understood outside of that context. Macas denies that these movements sought to separate themselves from broader social movements, but rather

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they must operate in an atmosphere of equality and mutual respect with others struggling for social justice.39 FENOC leader Alberto Andrango also notes that “we have our own needs as Indigenous peoples . . . but that does not mean that we march alone, isolated.” Contacts with other social movements were important to realize gains in Indigenous rights.40 Although occasionally Indigenous peoples were elected to office with other (usually leftist) parties, since the 1980s Indigenous activists had debated whether to found an “Indian Political Front” or “Ecuadorian Indian Party.” Some people argued that organizing separately as Indigenous peoples would result in their marginalization from the broader popular movement. These criticisms commonly came from the political left. Maugé contended that proposals for an Indian party went against the irreversible historic flow of mestizaje that since the conquest had merged different cultural traditions.41 Rafael Quintero argued for “the necessity for unification of marginalized classes with Indigenous nationalities in a process that at the same time guarantees their ethnic diversity and lays the groundwork for the construction of political alternatives.”42 Leftist activists saw Indigenous peoples as their logical constituency, and resisted any efforts to organize them away from their control. Many Indigenous intellectuals and activists also criticized ethnicist tendencies that separated Indigenous struggles from broader popular movements. Sociologist Mario Conejo condemned the idea of an Indian Party that advocated a racial struggle between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and promoted the reconstruction of Tawantinsuyu. Such idealized constructions of the past would inevitably led to failure, Conejo said. Rather than separating ethnicity from structural issues, he advocated for the need to engage in a class struggle on behalf of historically marginalized, discriminated, and exploited sectors. Conejo pointed to currents emerging out of CONAIE as successfully bridging these divides to “engage in a struggle against oppression and exploitation.” In practice, what this meant was the need for Indigenous movements to build alliances with political parties to advance their concerns. Even though in recent decades Indigenous activists had a sometimes-conflictive relationship with the left, the left would still be their natural ally because the right refused to advance Indigenous concerns, instead reducing them to folkloric images.43 Andrango similarly contended that “we have to unite ourselves as poor people without forgetting that we are Indigenous.” He advocated working with the political left to advance not only Indigenous concerns “but also those of other popular classes.” In the 1979 elections that returned Ecuador to civilian governance, Andrango won a position on the city council in Cotacachi as the leader of the local Indigenous organization Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi (UNORCAC, Union of Peasant and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi) and as a candidate with FADI.44 In 1984, Manuel Naula from

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Chimborazo, campaigning on the center-left ID ticket, was the first selfidentified Indigenous person elected to Congress.45 Similar debates on Indigenous participation in electoral politics had been carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century in Chile, where, unlike in Ecuador, Indigenous peoples had citizenship rights. In Chile, the first Indigenous person was elected to parliament in 1924, but a 1932 attempt to form a Mapuche Party met with little success.46 More recently, in Bolivia the formation of Indigenous parties achieved minimal electoral success, seemingly reinforcing Andrango’s argument that Indigenous peoples need to ally with broader struggles to realize success.47 Ethnic markers, language, and consciousness are more visibly present in Bolivia than in other Andean countries, but large sectors of Bolivia’s Indigenous movements embraced an explicitly Socialist and anti-imperialist agenda. Coca grower and leader Evo Morales, an Aymara from Oruro, gained the presidency of the country in 2006 at the head of the powerful Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS, Movement to Socialism), a traditional left political party, which shook elites’ hold on state structures. Morales’s electoral success led Van Cott to conclude that Indigenous movements “with the highest levels of internal fragmentation and disunity (those in Bolivia and Ecuador) produced the most successful indigenous parties.” Such conflicts presented a challenge but not an insurmountable obstacle for social movements to gain political power through the electoral process.48 A new wave of Indigenous activism in the 1990s caught the urban Marxist left off guard. A decade earlier they had largely dismissed Ecuador’s rural population as an insignificant force in a social revolution. Nevertheless, recognizing the strategic opportunity, leftists soon jumped at the chance to ally with a strong and well-organized social movement. They criticized the ideological project of mestizaje that sought to exclude Indigenous peoples, and instead encouraged the development of a new political orientation that encompassed the ethnocultural diversity of the country. Pachakutik emerged out of the context of growing discontent with the Ecuadorian government’s exclusionary attitudes and neoliberal economic policies that favored the wealthy elite while weighing heavily on marginalized peoples.

ELECTORAL OUTINGS In its first electoral contest in 1996, Pachakutik experienced moderate success on both local and national levels. It elected eight deputies (including six Indigenous peoples) to Congress as well as two Indigenous mayors. In the highlands, the Cuban-trained economist Auki Tituaña won election as mayor in the town of Cotacachi, where Alberto Andrango had previously served on the city council. In Chimborazo, Mariano Curicama had been

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elected mayor of Guamote in 1992 with the ID and now four years later won reelection with Pachakutik. In the Amazon, Valerio Grefa, president of the Ecuador-based Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA, Coordinating Body for the Indigenous People’s Organization of the Amazon), and Héctor Villamil, president of OPIP, won provincial deputy positions in their respective provinces of Napo and Pastaza. Most significantly, longtime CONAIE leader Luis Macas won a congressional post as a national deputy, becoming the first Indigenous person elected to a nationwide office in Ecuador (previous Indigenous deputies had been elected on a provincial level). For its first venture into the electoral realm, Pachakutik had performed surprisingly well; this seemed to point to the ascendancy of an Indigenous voice in Ecuador’s public sphere. The significance of Indigenous players in national politics had become undeniable. Macas’s victory, as journalist Kintto Lucas noted, was due to his success “in combining the indigenous vote . . . with the vote of progressive and left-wing sectors.”49 Other victories, such as that of Tituaña in Cotacachi, were equally the result of successfully cultivating mestizo support. These intercultural alliances proved key to Pachakutik’s success. Tituaña also gained renown for bridging other divides. For example, he was an urban Indian who won support from rural communities. Furthermore, he was allied with CONAIE, which had almost no organizational presence in Cotacachi, but gained support from UNORCAC (Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi, Union of Peasant and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi), the local affiliate of FENOCIN, which gave up on their own candidate, Segundo Andrango, to support Pachakutik’s candidate. Tituaña also had the advantage of being an outsider who capitalized on twelve years of building discontent with the previous mayor, and his fresh discourse and proposals for participatory governance provided a clear contrast with the corrupt clientage of the dominant parties.50 Given their success at a local level, Indigenous activists began to debate presenting a candidate for the presidency of the republic. This would subsequently become a highly contentious issue. Even though Indigenous movements had made significant gains in the aftermath of the 1990 levantamiento, they still faced significant racism that would limit their political appeal in the dominant society. Much of this racism was also internalized, with people in rural Indigenous communities often seemingly trusting white outsiders more than candidates from their own midst. Was Ecuador ready for an Indigenous president? The answer seemed to be quite clear: no. While Indigenous leaders could not be viable candidates on a national level, they still remained a significant political force in the country as the most organized segment of civil society. For the presidency of the republic in the 1996 elections, Pachakutik decided to ally with Freddy Ehlers, a white journalist who had created a group

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called Ciudadanos por un Nuevo País (Citizens for a New Country) that emphasized social and environmental themes and favored the introduction of a new political ethic. The combined political movement became known as Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik-Nuevo País (MUPP-NP, Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity-New Country). Campaign stops glittered with rainbow-colored wipala flags as a multicultural symbol representing the unity of women, men, Afro-Ecuadorians, Indigenous peoples, and mestizos. Ehlers’s campaign was plagued by a series of problems, including attacks from the right for being married to a woman from Peru (a country with which Ecuador had a long-running border feud) and from popular sectors that accused him of bowing to the demands of traditional political parties. Later, activists would accuse Ehlers of racist and sexist sentiments, and denounce his alliance with Indigenous movements as an opportunistic move to enhance his own prestige rather than to advance the agenda of popular movements. Indigenous support for the Pachakutik ticket was by no means unanimous. FENOC-I president Mesías Tatamuez ran for a national deputy post on the Socialist Party ticket, thereby running against Macas. For the presidency, evangelical Indians initially supported René Manangón, an independent who was later disqualified because he did not collect the required number of signatures. Subsequently, evangelical Indians voted more for conservative candidates such as Jaime Nebot from the conservative Partido Social Cristiano (PSC, Social Christian Party) or Rodrigo Paz from the center-right Democracia Popular (DP, Popular Democracy). The electoral process highlighted huge and apparently widening gaps within Ecuador’s Indigenous movements. Not only did political divisions exist between various leaders and within the Pachakutik party, but a gap also emerged between the leadership and the grass roots. If anything, entering the electoral realm seemed to polarize rather than unify Indigenous movements. Ehlers placed a close third in the first round of the elections; this was a significant showing, but not one strong enough to enter the runoff election between the top two vote getters that the law dictated if no candidate won a majority of the vote. With Ehlers’s defeat, the remaining political parties engaged in a caza para el voto indígena (hunt for the Indigenous vote) in the subsequent presidential runoff race.51 This included talk from both remaining presidential candidates, Nebot and right-populist Abdalá Bucaram of the Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano (PRE, Ecuadorian Roldosist Party), two of Ecuador’s richest men, of supporting Macas for the position of president of the Congress, something that proved to be an empty gesture. Although most popular organizations officially refused to support either candidate, believing that both choices were equally bad, several Indigenous leaders including CONAIE vice president Rafael Pandam and COICA president Valerio Grefa signed letters of support for Bucaram’s candidacy. These were

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widely viewed as opportunistic moves on the part of individuals to gain positions of political power in the new government, and perhaps they foreshadowed the inevitable compromises and challenges that electoral politics would bring to a social movement. In the second round, Bucaram won the presidency thanks largely to campaign promises of aiding the poor. Despite CONAIE’s refusal to endorse his candidacy, Bucaram’s populist style gained him broad support in rural Indigenous communities. During the campaign, Bucaram announced his support for the formation of a new cabinet-level Ministry of Indigenous Affairs. CONAIE officially took a stance against creating such a ministry, arguing that the office would do more harm than good, ghettoizing their concerns into a separate ministry rather than recognizing their broad social, economic, and political concerns. Nevertheless, Pandam and Grefa quickly accepted positions as minister and subsecretary in the new ministry. Subsequently, several Indigenous leaders were implicated in corruption scandals. Most notably, Pandam was charged with and convicted for the sale of visas. The tactical alliances leaders had made with the Bucaram government compromised Indigenous organizing efforts and led to splits within the movement. In the context of this deeply fractured situation, CONAIE held a congress to select a new president to replace Macas, who had resigned his post to assume his position in Congress. A highlands faction selected José María Cabascango, who had risen through the ranks from serving as president of the provincial Federación Indígena y Campesina de Imbabura (FICI, Indigenous and Peasant Federation of Imbabura) to leadership positions in the regional Ecuarunari and finally CONAIE. Amazonian leaders, in contrast, selected OPIP leader Antonio Vargas, who had gained renown in the 1992 caminata. The congress ended inconclusively and contentiously, with Shuar activists occupying CONAIE’s headquarters in Quito. Highland leaders finally acquiesced to Vargas’s candidacy, seeing him as the best compromise candidate to smooth over divisions in the deeply fractured movement. As the movement was barely ten years old, entering the electoral realm threatened to destroy a social movement that through a series of uprisings had brought Ecuador to its knees. Despite campaign rhetoric of helping the poor, once in office Bucaram implemented neoliberal policies, including raising transportation and cooking-gas prices, which hurt the poor but benefited the wealthy elite. Within six months Bucaram’s economic policies alienated his base, and a mass uprising on February 5, 1997, evicted him from power. Congress declared him mentally incapable of governing even though they did not have a medical exam to back up their charges. For a period of several days, Ecuador had three people who presented competing claims to the presidency. Bucaram refused to recognize the legal basis for his removal and contended

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that he was still president. Constitutionally, Bucaram’s vice president, Rosalía Arteaga, should have taken office in his absence, but the political establishment refused to let a woman assume Ecuador’s chief executive office in what would have been a historic first for the country. Some commentators thought that Bucaram had intentionally selected her as his running mate, recognizing that the machista culture would not accept a female president and that this would provide a certain amount of insurance against his removal. Finally, and with a more dubious claim to power, Fabián Alarcón of the small Frente Radical Alfarista (FRA, Alfarist Radical Front), the president of the National Congress, claimed that he should take power. Finally, as a way to move beyond this constitutional impasse, Arteaga was allowed to sit in the presidential chair for a couple of hours before power passed to Alarcón, who then served out the remainder of Bucaram’s term.52 Bucaram’s removal brought to an end the longest chronological succession of uninterrupted constitutional rule in Ecuador’s history (1979–1997), returning the country to the status quo ante of frequent and extraconstitutional changes of power with ten chief executives holding office during the next ten years. During this period, four of nine presidents in the Americas who were removed through irregular procedures were in Ecuador.53 Although Pachakutik had made a strong showing in its initial foray into electoral politics, its presence did not seem to be helping to move the country forward.

POPULISM Ecuador’s long history with populist politicians like Bucaram who bypass existing institutions to appeal directly to the people for support for their political projects sheds light on how power is constructed. Mobilization of mass support based on cross-class alliances often comes from above, and is led by personalistic and charismatic leaders who rely on nationalist and antioligarchical ideologies.54 Ernesto Laclau notes that populism is an elusive and vaguely defined concept. Sometimes it alludes to a type of movement, and at other times to an ideology. Furthermore, in referring to “the people” it employs “a concept without a defined theoretical discourse,” and this is what gives the term a lack of conceptual precision. Laclau sees populism not as a political ideology (often assumed to be reformist), but as a political technique or phenomenon that “constitutes the forum of political expression of popular sectors when they are unable to establish an autonomous organisation and class ideology.” In fact, depending on the balance of class forces at a particular moment, a populist movement can be of the left, right, or center. Much like nationalism, in and of itself populism “has no class connotation,” but only derives this “from its specific articulation

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with other ideological elements.”55 D. L. Raby echoes that populism is not “opportunism or demagogy, nor as a specific ideology or programme, but rather as a style of political action, a methodology, a phenomenon which arises at critical conjunctures and which can have completely different political orientations and consequences depending on the specific context and class character of the movement.”56 Paul Cammack adds that “‘populist’ and ‘neopopulist’ discourse alike must be understood in terms of their relationship to specific conjunctural projects for the reorientation of capitalist reproduction.”57 For example, while classic populists “were associated with nationalist and reformist policies of state intervention and popular welfare,” neopopulists including Abdalá Bucaram in Ecuador promoted “neo-liberalism, free trade and fiscal austerity, albeit cultivating popular support with targeted welfare programmes.”58 Populism can manifest itself in the form of very different ideologies. Laclau argues that in conservative hands populism becomes a dangerous impulse that can curtail revolutionary action.59 But he disagrees with the pejorative connotations that are often assigned to populism, and contends instead that populism is a fundamentally positive strategy.60 Furthermore, Laclau argues that “the largest danger for democracy does not come from populism but rather from neoliberalism.”61 Specifically, populism can have revolutionary implications that can advance popular struggles. Some activists and scholars present president Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in particular as an example of a left-populist who exploits populist techniques to introduce significantly progressive policies. A fundamental difference between different populists is whether their techniques advance the interests of the dominant classes or of the dominated classes. Steve Ellner divides those who support populist strategies from the left into two camps: a “hard” line that views populism as an opportunity to create revolutionary change, and a “soft” line that sees populism as leading to nonrevolutionary transformations.62 Raby, however, criticizes populism as “a term which is anathema to the organised Left, and which both the leaders themselves and most of their followers would indignantly reject” because of its connotations of “bourgeois reformism and as a deviation from the path of revolution.”63 Petras, on the other hand, contends (using Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Partido dos Trabalhadores [PT, Workers’ Party] government in Brazil) “that ‘populist’ regimes backed by the bourgeoisie are incapable of solving Latin America’s problems of stagnation, unemployment, landlessness for the peasants and imperialist pillage.”64 While some scholars and activists welcome leftpopulist discourse and action, others remain much more skeptical of its potential benefits. As Laclau contends, the collapse of ruling coalitions, as happened in Ecuador, opens up the greatest opportunities for populism, whether it subsequently swings left toward socialism or right toward fascism. Activists

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can use this moment of revolutionary opportunity to move governments in a progressive direction. An alternative interpretation points to populist governments that implement far-reaching and permanent changes but stop short of socialism, and in fact undermine movements toward socialism. Ellner argues that “the clash between the two lines of thinking is most likely to occur under populist governments” that “have broken with much of the past but have yet to define their future direction.” A lingering problem is that populist movements “create great expectations for far-reaching changes but at the same time lack ideological definition, well-established goals and a class outlook.” The problem of ideological vagueness, as was the case under Chávez in Venezuela, remained a lingering problem.65 Ecuador’s experience with populist leaders indicates that because of the strong power of social movements, conservative candidates cloak themselves in a progressive discourse in order to win elections. Once in office they reveal their true colors and rule on behalf of the oligarchy. First Abdalá Bucaram (1996–1997) and then Jamil Mahuad (1998–2000) and Lucio Gutiérrez (2003–2005) campaigned with the support of grassroots movements before turning on their bases after winning an election. This phenomenon has led to a learned distrust of populist discourse. As Dan La Botz observes, “Latin American traditions of populism on the one hand and strongman leadership on the other have been powerful obstacles to the development of a mass labor movement that is also democratic.”66 Given a long history of broken promises, social movements needed to mobilize to defend their interests in the face of government policies.

CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY After removing Bucaram from office, Indigenous movements traded their support for congressional leader Fabián Alarcón to assume the presidency of the country in exchange for a promise for a constituent assembly.67 Indigenous activists had long and repeatedly called for a constituent assembly that would rewrite Ecuador’s constitution to create a more inclusionary political system. Their demand eventually gained wide popular support. In the lead-up to the assembly, CONAIE worked closely with other social movements to organize a people’s assembly to press for changes they wished to see incorporated into a new constitution. This allowed Indigenous activists to bring a coherent proposal and organized presence to the assembly. One of CONAIE’s primary and persistent demands was to rewrite the first article of the constitution to declare Ecuador to be a plurinational country. Since the 1990 Indigenous uprising, activists had complained that the current constitution had been drafted by the dominant sectors of society to benefit their own interests to the exclusion of the majority of the population.68

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They were adamant in their desire to change the fundamental building blocks of the country. In elections for the constituent assembly, out of seventy seats Pachakutik won seven plus three more in alliances with other parties. This made Pachakutik the third-largest political force in the assembly, and a significant player in a minority center-left bloc that pressed for a series of significant constitutional revisions including recognition of Indigenous rights. After center-right delegates left the assembly in protest, Pachakutik became part of a nucleus of a center-left alliance that finished the constitution. After years of agitation to have Ecuador declared a plurinational, multiethnic state, activists scored a partial victory in 1998 with the revision of the first article of the constitution to recognize its “pluricultural and multiethnic” nature. A subsequent section on collective rights implicitly recognized the activists’ preferred ideological construction with the statement that “Indigenous peoples, who self-define as nationalities of ancestral races, and Negro or Afro-Ecuadorian peoples, form part of a united and indivisible Ecuadorian state.” Although CONAIE/Pachakutik were only partially successful in their efforts to introduce the politically charged term “plurinational” into the constitution, their actions opened up the possibilities for a significant shift in the conceptualization of political institutions. These advances in cultural and collective rights were similar to those that had recently been incorporated into the Colombian (1991), Peruvian (1993), and Bolivian (1994) constitutions and would soon be added into the Venezuelan one (1999). Boaventura de Sousa Santos categorizes these documents as a third type of constitution that institutionalizes interculturality, after earlier categories of organic ancient constitutions and modern constitutions that created the modern state.69 Indigenous organizations had fought hard to be included in a truly participatory constituent assembly; however, as elsewhere in the Americas, the intent to have Ecuador declared a plurinational state remained an elusive goal.70 Andrés Guerrero points to Pachakutik’s involvement in constitutional discussions as a key watershed in the evolution of Indigenous movements, with Pachakutik no longer being “an extra-state organism and beginning to function in the political arena.” The 1998 constitution provided “many benefits for the Indigenous movement, including ending their political invisibility and presenting the need for direct representation in the state.”71 Luis Verdesoto applauds Indigenous movements for successfully negotiating their interests in the assembly.72 Van Cott contends that constitutional advances resulted from an intersection of a crisis of legitimacy and governability with the emergence of mature Indigenous movements that led to pressure for radical political changes. She notes that CONAIE strategically backed down on its long-standing and highly symbolic demand to declare Ecuador a plurinational country in exchange for the “recognition of col-

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lective rights that effectively constituted their vision of pluri-nationalism.” With their concession on terminology they gained symbolic rights necessary for carrying on their struggle.73 Largely thanks to Pachakutik’s influence in the assembly, the new constitution that was promulgated in August 1998 was the most progressive in Ecuador’s history. In the subsequent 1998 legislative elections, Pachakutik increased its electoral strength with the victory of eight deputies for the National Congress. Perhaps more significantly, Pachakutik solidified its support on a local level with many more victories in municipal races. Over the next several years, Pachakutik averaged about 10 percent of the vote. José María Cabascango, as a representative of Pachakutik, also assumed a seat on the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE, Supreme Electoral Tribunal). Pachakutik had become a significant power bloc in national politics. Indigenous leader Nina Pacari received both acclaim and criticism for accepting the position of second vice president of the Congress, the most senior governmental position that any Indigenous person had obtained in Ecuador’s history. While supporters cheered the rise of an Indigenous woman to such a prominent political post, leftists complained that this came at the cost of entering into an alliance with a conservative, neoliberal governing coalition.74 Pacari apparently took this action based on the advice of Víctor Hugo Cárdenas, who in 1993 had been elected as vice president of Bolivia on a pro-neoliberal ticket with Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Cárdenas, who came out of a radical Indigenous organizing tradition, counseled his Ecuadorian counterparts that the best way to gain political power was allying with conservatives. Nevertheless, an advance for a single person, even though that person comes from a (doubly or even triply) historically marginalized group, does not alter the exclusionary structures that originally placed the group in a marginalized position. Indigenous activists subsequently harshly criticized Cárdenas for his support for neoliberal policies. Simply placing an Indigenous person in high positions of power was meaningless if it was not accompanied by deep fundamental socioeconomic and political changes. Ten years after the 1998 constituent assembly, however, few of the promised constitutional advances had been enacted into policy. As Víctor Bretón Solo de Zaldívar notes, while this was “one of the most generous constitutions in Latin America in terms of the rights of indigenous peoples,” the failure to implement these provisions with concrete legislation meant that it “had practically no effect on the everyday life of indigenous groups.”75 Activists blamed this failure on traditional political interests representing the wealthy elite who had maintained a dominant and controlling hand over society. FENOCIN president Pedro de la Cruz later said that even though the 1998 constitution codified important gains in terms of social and collective rights, it reflected a swing to the right in Ecuador, including a tendency in

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Indigenous movements to subordinate social questions to identity questions.76 Deeply fractured social movements also hindered the emergence of a unified force that would lead to progressive political changes. Despite high hopes, the result in reality was a document with neoliberal ramifications that stopped well short of what popular movements had originally envisioned. Social movements came to see the 1998 constitution as a lost opportunity. Activists continued to debate hotly whether electoral involvement inevitably would lead to the co-optation of Indigenous leaders, or whether it represented an important phase in the process of capturing political power. Would Indigenous leaders come to support existing government structures and programs, or would they use important positions in Congress and government ministries to advance Indigenous interests and concerns? This “fragile relationship between movement and party,” Van Cott notes, “reduced the electoral potential of the latter” and inevitably “eroded public support and esteem for both.”77 Out of these divisions, there reemerged a grassroots movement that emphasized deeper involvement at the base and broke from a moribund leadership and continued the struggle against neoliberal economic policies, racial discrimination, and a lack of democracy.78 These mobilizations represented a continued rebirth of Indigenous movements and provided hope for the future.

NOTES 1. Ampan Karakras, “CONACNIE,” in Forjando la unidad: El movimiento popular en Ecuador, ed. Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI) (Quito: Communicare, 1985), 48. 2. Interview with Miguel Lluco in Kintto Lucas, We Will Not Dance on Our Grandparents’ Tombs: Indigenous Uprisings in Ecuador (London: Catholic Institute for International Relations [CIIR], 2000), 118. 3. “Participación en elecciones provoca controversia indígena,” Punto de Vista 11, no. 517 (May 4, 1992): 7–10; Luis Maldonado, “Indígenas y elecciones 1992,” in Sismo étnico en el Ecuador: Varias perspectivas, ed. José Almeida and others (Quito: CEDIME-Abya-Yala, 1993), 305. 4. Carlos María Vilas, “Neoliberal Social Policy: Managing Poverty (Somehow),” NACLA Report on the Americas 29, no. 6 (May/June 1996): 16–25. 5. Pablo Ortiz, “El desencanto democrático,” Punto de Vista 9, no. 421 (June 11, 1990): 14–15. 6. “Indígenas no participarán en las elecciones de 1992,” Hoy, September 9, 1991. 7. Kevin Healy, “Allies and Opposition Groups to the 1990 Indigenous Political Mobilizations in Ecuador and Bolivia” (paper presented at the XVII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Los Angeles, September 24–27, 1992), 1–3.

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8. Maldonado, “Indígenas y elecciones 1992,” 305. 9. Augusto Barrera, Acción colectiva y crisis política: El movimiento indígena ecuatoriano en la década de los noventa (Quito: Centro de Investigaciones CIUDAD. OSAL. Abya-Yala, 2001), 207–8. 10. Jeffrey W. Rubin, Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 138. 11. Figaro Joseph, The Power of Movement in Political Transitions: Haiti under the Lavalas, 1989–1991 (Berkeley, CA: Minuteman Press, 2010), 7. 12. Margarito Ruiz Hernández and Aracely Burguete Cal y Mayor, “Indigenous People without Political Parties: The Dilemma of Indigenous Representation in Latin America,” in Challenging Politics: Indigenous Peoples’ Experiences with Political Parties and Elections, ed. Kathrin Wessendorf (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 2001), 22–23. 13. Interview with Miguel Lluco in Lucas, We Will Not Dance on Our Grandparents’ Tombs, 118. For more on Pachakutik, see their website, www.pachakutik.org.ec. 14. “Constitución de 1830,” in Federico E. Trabucco, Constituciones de la República del Ecuador (Quito: Universidad Central, Editorial Universitaria, 1975), 35. 15. Trabucco, Constituciones de la República del Ecuador, 34; Rafael Quintero and Erika Silva, Ecuador: Una nación en ciernes, 3 vols., Colección Estudios, no. 1 (Quito: FLACSO/Abya-Yala, 1991), 1:100. 16. James Orton, The Andes and the Amazon; or, across the Continent of South America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870), 87. Women, of course, were also excluded from the franchise. 17. Joseph S. Roucek, “Ecuador in Geopolitics,” Contemporary Review 205, no. 1177 (February 1964): 77. 18. Guillermo O’Donnell, “On the State, Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries,” World Development 21, no. 8 (1993): 1357. 19. “Ricardo Paredes, Candidato del Partido Comunista,” Imprenta La Económica [1933], private collection of Leonardo J. Muñoz, Quito, Ecuador. Thanks to Sandra Fernández Muñoz for kindly granting me access to this collection. 20. “Manifiesto del Bloque Obrero-Campesino” (Quito, May 2, 1932), Hojas Volantes, 1921–1932, D. Polit Partid., p. 247, Biblioteca Ecuatoriana Aurelio Espinosa Pólit (BEAEP), Cotocollao, Ecuador. 21. Marc Becker, “State Building and Ethnic Discourse in Ecuador’s 1944–1945 Asamblea Constituyente,” in Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, ed. A. Kim Clark and Marc Becker (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), 105–19. 22. César Rodríguez Garavito, Patrick Barrett, and Daniel Chavez, “Utopia Reborn? Introduction to the Study of the New Latin American Left,” in The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn, ed. Patrick S. Barrett, Daniel Chavez, and César A. Rodríguez Garavito (London: Pluto, 2008), 30. 23. John Lear, “The Lady Pack Mule Rebels,” Saturday Evening Post 217, no. 26 (December 23, 1944): 63. 24. Angel Modesto Paredes, “Estudio de la clase media en el Ecuador,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 11, no. 1 (1949): 19. 25. George I. Blanksten, Ecuador: Constitutions and Caudillos, University of California Publications in Political Science, vol. 3, no. 1 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of

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California Press, 1951), 73–74. Even though by the 2001 census illiteracy had shrunk to 9 percent of the population, it still remained as high as 28 percent in Indigenous communities, and even higher, at 36 percent, for Indigenous women. The exclusion of Indigenous peoples from political discourse is by no means unique to Ecuador. For example, when U.S. president Bill Clinton visited Pine Ridge in South Dakota in 1999, he noted that Calvin Coolidge had been the last president to visit the reservation and that Franklin D. Roosevelt had been the last president to set foot on Indian territory anywhere in the United States, and that was as a tourist rather than as part of a state visit. The distance between Indigenous communities and political parties in the United States remains as great as it was in Ecuador in the 1950s. All Things Considered, National Public Radio, July 7, 1999. 26. Muriel Crespi, “The Patrons and Peons of Pesillo: A Traditional Hacienda System in Highland Ecuador” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1968), 91. 27. David Schodt, Ecuador: An Andean Enigma (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 68. According to Schodt, before the 1979 constitutional reforms, “no more than 18 percent of the population had ever voted in a presidential election.” Schodt, Ecuador, 67. 28. Quintero and Silva, Ecuador: Una nación en ciernes, 2:140. 29. José Sánchez-Parga, “¿Por qué no votan los indígenas?” Hoy, September 22, 1991; Manuel Chiriboga and Fredy Rivera, “Elecciones de enero de 1988 y participación indígena,” Ecuador Debate 17 (March 1989): 195. 30. René Maugé, “Las tareas actuales de nuestro movimiento,” in Los comunistas en la historia nacional, ed. Domingo Paredes (Guayaquil: Editorial Claridad, 1987), 248–49. 31. South American Indian Information Center (SAIIC), Working Commission Reports: Second Conference of Indian Nations and Organizations of South America, Tiwanaku, Bolivia, March 6–13, 1983 (Berkeley: South American Indian Information Center, 1984), 18, 46. 32. Ecuarunari-CONAIE, “Lineamientos políticos generales del movimiento indígena en el Ecuador,” in Nuestra voz, nuestra cultura. Memoria del Taller Andino de Intercambio de Experiencias en Educación y Comunicación de Organizaciones Campesinos Indígenas (Quito, 7–11 octubre 1987), ed. ECUARUNARI, FENOC, and ALAI (Quito: ECUARUNARI/FENOC/ALAI, 1989), 41; Hernández and Burguete Cal y Mayor, “Indigenous People without Political Parties,” 31. 33. Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI), “La CONAIE: Un paso a la autodeterminación,” Agencia Latinoamericana de Información II Epoca, 9, no. 88 (February 1987): 9. Also see, for example, Ecuarunari, Historia de la nacionalidad y los pueblos quichuas del Ecuador (Quito: Ecuarunari, FUDEC, ILDIS, CODENPE, 1998), 147, 357. 34. CONAIE, Las nacionalidades indígenas en el Ecuador: Nuestro proceso organizativo, 2nd ed. 1992: 500 años de resistencia india, no. 0 (Quito: Ediciones TincuiAbya-Yala, 1989), 176. FENOC leader Alberto Andrango makes the same points in “Como indígenas tenemos nuestros planteamientos políticos,” Ecuador Debate 12 (December 1986): 247–58.

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35. Luis Maldonado, “CONAIE: Educación, cultura y ciencia,” in ECUARUNARI, FENOC, and ALAI, Nuestra voz, nuestra cultura, 93; Maldonado, “Indígenas y elecciones 1992,” 306. 36. Alfredo Viteri, “Los pueblos de la Amazonía se unen,” Cuadernos de Nueva 7 (June 1983): 47. 37. Karakras, “CONACNIE,” 48. 38. Luis Macas, “Foreword,” in Melina Selverston-Scher, Ethnopolitics in Ecuador: Indigenous Rights and the Strengthening of Democracy (Coral Gables, FL, and Boulder, CO: North-South Center Press at the University of Miami. Distributed by Lynne Rienner, 2001), xiii. 39. ALAI, “La CONAIE,” 10. 40. Andrango, “Como indígenas tenemos nuestros planteamientos políticos,” 252. 41. René Maugé Mosquera, “Por una renovación que surja de las necesidades propias de la realidad nacional y de cada partido,” Revista Ecuatoriana de Pensamiento Marxista 16 (III época) (September 1990): 94. 42. Quintero, “La cuestión de la tierra . . . única posibilidad de sobrevivencia de una cultura,” Cuadernos de Nueva 7 (June 1983): 121. 43. Mario Conejo, “Participación política de los indígenas,” in Análisis de los procesos electorales, ed. Tribunal Supremo Electoral (Quito: Tribunal Supremo Electoral. Corporación Editora Nacional, 1990), 190, 192. 44. Andrango, “Como indígenas tenemos nuestros planteamientos políticos,” 257. Also see Santana, ¿Ciudadanos en la etnicidad? 294–95. Amalia Pallares explores this complicated relationship between Indigenous organizations and the political left in Cotacachi in From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 72–109. 45. “Gobierno del FADI asegurará la tierra al que la trabaja, dijo René Maugé en Cayambe,” El Pueblo, December 9–15, 1983; Vicente Olmedo, “Afirma el primer legislador indígena, ‘No soy un diputado folklórico’: Manuel Naula,” Hoy, December 10, 1984. 46. Rolf Foerster and Sonia Montecino Aguirre, Organizaciones, lideres y contiendas mapuches, 1900–1970 (Santiago, Chile: Ediciones CEM, 1988), 38, 117. 47. Ricardo Calla Ortega, “Hallu hayllisa huti. Identificación étnica y procesos políticos en Bolivia,” in Democracia, etnicidad y violencia política en los países andinos, ed. Alberto Adrianzén and others (Lima: Instututo Frances de Estudios Andinos; Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1993), 57–81. 48. Donna Lee Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 93. 49. Lucas, We Will Not Dance on Our Grandparents’ Tombs, 5. 50. Rickard Lalander, “El matrimonio entre Pachakutik y la UNORCAC en Cotacachi: ¿Una alianza rara?” Ecuador Debate 72 (December 2007): 206, 212. 51. Mario Gonzalez, “A la caza del voto indígena,” at ecuador.nativeweb .org/96elect/caza.html, June 13, 1996. 52. Carlos de la Torre, “Populism and Democracy: Political Discourses and Cultures in Contemporary Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives 24, no. 3 (94) (May 1997): 12–24; Ney Barrionuevo Silva, Constituyente de los pueblos: Salida histórica (Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana “Benjamín Carrión,” 1997); Allen Gerlach,

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Indians, Oil, and Politics: A Recent History of Ecuador, Latin America silhouettes (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2003), 81–113. 53. “‘Constitutional coup’ by Congress Ousts Gutiérrez on Wave of Popular Protests,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-05-16 (April 26, 2005): 3. 54. Paul Cammack, “The Resurgence of Populism in Latin America,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 19, no. 2 (April 2000): 151. 55. Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: NLB, 1977), 153, 160, 165. 56. D. L. Raby, Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today (London: Pluto. Between the Lines, 2006), 17. 57. Cammack, “The Resurgence of Populism in Latin America,” 149. 58. Raby, Democracy and Revolution, 239. 59. Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory, 174. 60. Ernesto Laclau, “La deriva populista y la centroizquierda latinoamericana,” Nueva Sociedad 205 (September–October 2006): 57. 61. Ernesto Laclau, “Consideraciones sobre el populismo latinoamericano,” Cuadernos del CENDES 23, no. 62 (May–August 2006): 120. 62. Steve Ellner, “Revolutionary and Non-revolutionary Paths of Radical Populism: Directions of the Chavista Movement in Venezuela,” Science & Society 69, no. 2 (April 2005): 163. 63. Raby, Democracy and Revolution, 17, 239. 64. James Petras, “Latin American Strategies: Class-Based Direct Action versus Populist Electoral Politics,” Science & Society 69, no. 2 (April 2005): 159. 65. Ellner, “Revolutionary and Non-revolutionary Paths of Radical Populism,” 163. 66. Dan La Botz, “Solidarity: The Only Effective Labor Policy,” NACLA Report on the Americas 42, no. 1 (January/February 2009): 41. 67. Floresmilo Simbaña, “Aportes iniciales para el debate de un proceso de Asamblea Constituyente,” Yachaykuna 7 (November 2007): 39–59. For discussions that place Ecuador’s constitutional debates in a broader geographic and temporal context, see Juan J. Paz y Miño Cepeda, Pablo Dávalos Aguilar, and Carlos de la Torre Muñoz, Asamblea constituyente y economía: Constituciones en Ecuador (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2007); Luis Verdesoto, Procesos constituyentes y reforma institucional: Nociones para comprender y actuar en el caso ecuatoriano (Quito: Abya-Yala. FLACSO Ecuador, 2007); and Alex Zapatta C., “Constituciones políticas en el siglo XX: Entre los intentos de cambios y la modernización del régimen de dominación política,” Espacios: Aportes al pensamiento crítico contemporáneo 14 (February 2008): 91–101. 68. Pablo Ospina P., “Las demandas indígenas en el proceso constituyente,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 6 (November 2007): 102–5. 69. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Las paradojas de nuestro tiempo y la Plurinacionalidad,” in Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 35. 70. República del Ecuador, “Constitución de 1998,” at pdba.georgetown.edu/ Constitutions/Ecuador/ecuador98.html. 71. Ylonka Tillería, “Andrés Guerrero redefine el Estado-Nación: La identidad nacional cuestionada,” Tintají 58 (especial de diciembre de 2004): 11.

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72. Verdesoto, Procesos constituyentes y reforma institucional, 153. For a solid analysis of the 1997–1998 constitutional assembly that led to the writing of this new constitution, see Robert Andolina, “The Sovereign and Its Shadow: Constituent Assembly and Indigenous Movement in Ecuador,” Journal of Latin American Studies 35, no. 4 (November 2003): 721–50. 73. Donna Lee Van Cott, “Constitutional Reform in the Andes: Redefining Indigenous-State Relations,” in Multiculturalism in Latin America: Indigenous Rights, Diversity, and Democracy, ed. Rachel Sieder (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 58, 60. 74. Donna Lee Van Cott, Radical Democracy in the Andes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 105. 75. Victor Bretón Solo de Zaldívar, “From Agrarian Reform to Ethnodevelopment in the Highlands of Ecuador,” Journal of Agrarian Change 8, no. 4 (October 2008): 585. 76. Pedro de la Cruz, “El mundo del trabajo y el cambio social,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 7 (March/April 2008): 32. 77. Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America, 99–100, 130. 78. Floresmilo Simbaña, “Lecciones de marzo y julio,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 1, no. 7 (October 1999).

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A mother and her child with a wipala, CONAIE’s rainbow-colored flag, in a march at the 2004 Americas Social Forum in Quito (Patricio Realpe/ANPE)

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4 The Last Coup of the Twentieth Century

In the 1998 elections, Jamil Mahuad of the center-right DP defeated Álvaro Noboa of the PRE to win the presidency. Debates raged within Pachakutik whether once again to support a Freddy Ehlers candidacy, whether to build a center-left alliance with someone such as Paco Moncayo of the ID, or whether to promote their own candidate, most probably Luis Macas. Finally, Pachakutik decided to support Ehlers, although he registered only a disappointing fourth-place finish, a worse showing than his initial attempt two years earlier. Despite Pachakutik’s endorsement, Ehlers gained little support in rural communities. Many Indigenous members refused to vote, nullified their ballots, or voted for Noboa, who stood in for Bucaram on the PRE ticket. A Harvard-trained technocrat and former mayor of Quito, Mahuad faced soaring inflation, the decaying value of the sucre, and a free-falling economy. Oil prices declined, El Niño storms damaged coastal shrimp and banana export economies, and a series of banks collapsed. Mahuad responded by freezing personal bank accounts and providing funds to shore up the failing banks. Supporting the banking industry rather than funding needed social services, and eliminating subsidies on cooking gas triggered a series of popular protests. Social movements positioned themselves in full-fledged opposition to the government. A March 17, 1999, general strike pressured Mahuad to back off on some of the most aggressive of his neoliberal economic policies. CONAIE led a second strike in July that forced the president to delay plans to raise the price of gas. Mahuad faced the most serious challenge to his power when he announced plans on January 9, 2000, to replace the sucre with the dollar, joining Liberia and Panama as the only countries besides the United States 67

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to use the U.S. currency as their legal tender. Critics, including rural Indigenous peasants and poor urban workers, denounced this sacrifice of national sovereignty that could only undermine their standard of living. Even many international finance experts found the move too drastic. Mahuad’s other unpopular decisions included granting the United States rights to use a military base at Manta rent free for a Forward Operating Location (FOL) in its war against drug trafficking and guerrilla forces in neighboring Colombia. Social movements complained that the 1999 lease agreement that foreign minister Heinz Muller signed had not been properly approved by the legislature, that it was a violation of national sovereignty, and that it needlessly dragged Ecuador into social conflicts in Colombia. Such policy decisions definitively alienated the Mahuad administration from popular movements.

THE SHORTEST COUP The last coup of the twentieth century in the Americas occurred in Ecuador on January 21, 2000, when an alliance of lower-ranking military officials and Indigenous leaders evicted Mahuad from power. Thousands of Indigenous activists descended on Quito, where they met with army officers who shared their concerns and frustrations with the deteriorating economy. On January 21, the national police pulled back from the legislative building, allowing Indigenous protesters to occupy it and set up a Parlamento de los Pueblos (People’s Parliament). In what Theodore Macdonald subsequently called “the shortest coup,” CONAIE president Antonio Vargas, Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez, and former Supreme Court president Carlos Solórzano, symbolizing a union of Indigenous peoples, soldiers, and the law, formed a Junta of National Salvation that briefly took power. In the Congress hall the three leaders joined hands as a sign of unity. Vargas declared that “el pueblo está en poder”—the people are in power. Activists also occupied the Supreme Court of Justice offices and the presidential palace, taking control of all three branches of power. Several hours later, defense minister General Carlos Mendoza pulled rank on Gutiérrez and replaced him in the Junta but then promptly resigned, thereby collapsing the provisional government. Under pressure from the United States, Mendoza handed power over to vice president Gustavo Noboa. After taking power, Noboa proceeded with dollarization, a plan so radical that it did not even enjoy the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “Ecuadoreans discovered one of the hidden costs of ‘dollarisation,’” Andean Group Report noted. “If you adopt the US currency, it makes you even more vulnerable to US pressures.”1 In a repeat of the fall of Bucaram three years earlier, the oligarchy took advantage of the actions of Indigenous

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movements to grab power for themselves. It was almost as if instead of being protagonists, Indigenous peoples demonstrated Barrington Moore’s allegation that the success of peasant revolutions “has been of a strictly negative sort. The peasants have provided the dynamite to bring down the old building. To the subsequent work of reconstruction they have brought nothing.”2 Social movements still faced the challenges of building concrete and positive alternatives to the old system that they despised. Vargas’s brief time in office as part of the triumvirate was the first time an Indigenous person had assumed executive power in Ecuador. Lucero observes that with its participation in attempts to gain state power, CONAIE’s strategies had shifted from organizing broad sectors of civil society to engaging in “palace revolutions and elite pacts” that made it look more like a traditional political actor.3 Leaders were willing to collaborate with the government in power, often with opportunistic and sectarian interests, resulting in advocacy for reformist rather than revolutionary (in the sense of a pachakutik) policies. In contrast, Macdonald argues that Indigenous participation in the coup was “not an anomaly and the outcome was not a tragedy.” Instead, the coup gave Indigenous demands unprecedented visibility and “served as a fulcrum to open more political space.” Although failing in its immediate objectives, the protest laid the groundwork for more structured political critiques of society.4 Because of a history of military repression of popular movements in South America, some observers were surprised at the Indigenous alliance with army officers. Nevertheless, the Ecuadorian military, together with those in other South American countries, embodied significant class divisions. Most notably, the army, the faction of the military that supported the coup, was comprised largely of members of the lower class. The army prided itself on its development work and positive relations with rural communities. It did not have a reputation of being a repressive force, as was the case in the Southern Cone. The navy and air force, on the other hand, drew their members largely from the elite classes, and as a result opposed the coup. Furthermore, pointing to class divisions within the army, it was the lower-ranking officers in the army who supported the coup, and a general who collapsed it. Rank-and-file soldiers had been denied promised salary increases, and as a result had their own socioeconomic motivations to oppose the Mahuad government.5 As CONAIE president, Vargas had also cultivated close relations with the army. For example, the army provided logistical support for their 1999 congress, a role that in previous decades the Catholic Church or Communist Party had filled.6 In addition, reflecting persistent regional divisions in Ecuador, both Vargas and Gutiérrez came from the eastern Amazon and subsequently become strong allies. Multiple factors came together to explain the army’s alliance with Indigenous militants in the coup.

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Indigenous movements understood the importance of unifying with other popular movements, but now were attempting to navigate the uncertain terrain of working with political parties and governments. “We were betrayed by a treacherous clique of generals and admirals,” Vargas stated after the failure of the coup. “But our struggle is not over, and we may have to be even tougher when we mobilize again.”7 Indigenous movements had demonstrated that they were “the only popular sector capable of winning real gains,” Lucas observed.8 “We saw that it wasn’t enough to overthrow a president,” Tituaña later stated. “It was also necessary to build power from the bottom up.”9 In an echo of Tupak Katari’s statement centuries earlier, Indigenous peoples left Quito declaring that they would be back, and they would return in the millions. Even in engaging in a coup, CONAIE had not given up on what was largely a nonviolent lucha de armas de razón (struggle of reason) that utilized peaceful mobilizations, pressure on politicians, and lawsuits rather than an armed struggle to achieve their goals. Vargas emphasized that the removal of Mahuad had been accomplished without a single drop of blood. “Change will arrive without violence,” he stated, “peacefully, directed at the communities.”10 In Ecuador, Indigenous advocate Paulina Palacios observed, “Only the peaceful resistance of the indigenous nations’ and peoples’ organisations has managed to sustain and propose an alternative model from the grassroots level that demonstrates respect for equity, interculturality and plurinationality.”11 Even at the height of the military-Indigenous coup, Indigenous movements focused on economic issues of corruption and poverty rather than on forwarding an explicitly ethnic agenda.12 Similar to Aymara and Quechua struggles in Bolivia, these events reflected “the role that ethnicity plays in the emergence of social movements, its relation to class differentiation and the sense of national identity.”13 Class and racial oppressions were so deeply intertwined that it was necessary to address both issues as part of a united strategy. Pablo Dávalos characterizes the removal of Mahuad as an impressive victory for social movements, but behind that triumph was hidden the serious defeat of not being able to throw out dollarization.14 In addition, he notes that the January 21 action was “part of a long and complex political process of the Ecuadorian Indigenous movement that incorporates a series of qualitative transformations throughout the decade of the 1990s.”15 He points to the coup as a watershed moment when Indigenous activists moved from being a “counter force” that relied on external strategies typical of a social movement to being a political actor in their own right.16 The coup raised long-running debates over the relative merits of engaging in electoral politics or mass actions. While the two were not necessarily mutually exclusive and often could be mutually reinforcing, activists held competing opinions as to where they could most beneficially focus their energy.

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With the failure of the coup, Indigenous movements began to change tactics in search of an approach that would make their agenda felt on a public level. Vargas declared that “what occurred on January 21 was a rehearsal for more actions to come.”17 Indigenous activists first advocated a plebiscite through the People’s Parliament to recall members of Congress and the Supreme Court of Justice, reverse dollarization, end privatization, withdraw U.S. military forces from the Manta base, and grant amnesty for the coup plotters. Leaders then turned to a general strike in June, but when that failed, Indigenous movements once again pressed for a referendum. In the midst of all these strategic shifts, Pachakutik scored its largest victory to date in the May 21, 2000, local and regional elections. It won control of five provincial prefectures (more than any other single party) and nineteen municipal governments.18 Tituaña won reelection in Cotacachi with more than double the percentage of votes he attained in 1996. In neighboring Otavalo, Mario Conejo had narrowly lost the mayoral race four years earlier. Now, in 2000, he won election and became the first Indigenous person to lead the town famous for its ethnic weavings and tourist market. Like Tituaña, Conejo was an urban Indigenous intellectual (he studied sociology at the Catholic University in Quito), and in fact the two mayors had grown up together in the community of Quinchuquí. In office, Conejo followed an intercultural model of governance that introduced a range of institutional, political, economic, social, and cultural changes that gained him strong community support. Although now one of the larger political forces, Pachakutik had a long way to go before it could become a majority or even dominant force in Ecuadorian politics. Inherent contradictions remained between extraconstitutional and electoral avenues for radical change. Pachakutik also faced tensions between constituent calls for immediate and local concrete economic benefits that Ecuador’s clientelistic political system demanded, and attempts to redesign those structures to be more democratic and responsive to lower-class concerns.19 Advocates commonly spoke of moving from protest to proposal, but transitioning from social movement to political party tactics was by no means an easy process. While Indigenous movements exhibited a good deal of fluidity in their strategies, Indigenous leaders also revealed a degree of what could be termed “opportunism.” Vargas intentionally delayed pressing a proposed referendum on government policies pending congressional approval for an amnesty for his involvement in the January 21 coup. It then emerged that Vargas had been involved in the falsification of many of the signatures gathered in support of the referendum. Not only had CONAIE failed to submit the required one million signatures, but there were duplicate signatures, signatures that did not match names, and multiple entries in the same handwriting. Eventually the government declared that 70 percent of the signatures presented to the electoral tribunal were invalid. While

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Vargas claimed that he was a victim of racism and political subversion, the tribunal announced that it was considering prosecuting him for electoral fraud. Indigenous leaders whom the public often held to a higher moral standard than other public figures were now seen as being as corrupt as any politician. Involvement in electoral politics threatened to unravel the very coherence of the Indigenous movements. With the plans for the referendum coming apart, Indigenous movements again shifted their tactics back to the streets. “We’ve given the president time, and he hasn’t responded as he should,” Vargas stated, referring to the decision to give Noboa a reprieve after the overthrow of Mahuad before renewing attacks. “He’s governing for the same people as always,” the CONAIE president observed.20 With Vargas in an increasingly discredited position, however, his call to launch another uprising against the government fell flat. An October 2000 meeting sharply criticized Vargas for removing himself from traditional Indigenous forms of decision making that emphasized collectivity and consensus, instead making unilateral individual decisions.21 In the aftermath of these fiascos, Indigenous movements sought to regroup and rebuild their forces. Meanwhile, Noboa pushed through a series of neoliberal legislative measures nicknamed Trole I, II, and III (apparently termed trolleys because of the number of riders and its fast-track status)22 that privatized state enterprises including telephone, petroleum, and electricity companies and the social security systems. These measures, including the phased replacement of the sucre with the U.S. dollar, were the same policies that had led to Mahuad’s removal from office earlier in the year. Broad sectors of civil society including labor unions and student organizations held a series of “People’s Congresses” to educate and mobilize civil society against the onerous aspects of the government’s neoliberal policies. Signs emerged that the movement was beginning to reconverge.

JANUARY 2001 REDUX In January 2001, on the one-year anniversary of the failed civil-military coup, Indigenous masses were once again out in the streets to protest rises in fuel prices, bus fares, and cooking gas. This time, the three main peasant-Indigenous organizations, CONAIE, FENOCIN, and FEINE, came together in support of the uprising. The protest started in rural areas with militants blockading roads. When the military arrived to break up the protests with tear gas and firearms, the Indigenous organizations called for a march on Quito on January 28. When about ten thousand people arrived in the capital city, the government prevented the protesters from camping in public parks as had been their past tradition. Instead, the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Salesian Polytechnic University) opened its doors

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and allowed Indigenous protesters to stay on the campus. The government responded by cutting off utilities to the university, blocking the delivery of food and water, and arresting Vargas. When the Catholic Church intervened, the government agreed to dialogue with the Indigenous protesters and to meet some of their demands, including a reduction in the price of cooking gas.23 Some observers noted that the most positive outcome of the January 2001 uprising was Indigenous unity. “The communities have always been united,” CONAIE vice president Ricardo Ulcuango claimed. “It’s the leaders who haven’t always been able to agree.”24 FEINE leader Marco Murillo concurred that Indigenous peoples were “totally united” and were not “responsible for the crisis or for implanting chaos in the country.”25 The gains, nevertheless, were not without cost. The police shot four to six demonstrators to death, many more were injured in clashes, and hundreds were arrested. Some observers noted that they had not seen this level of repression since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1970s. The repression, however, only proved to radicalize further an already militant movement. “In our view, power must be built from below,” Indigenous leader and former CONAIE president Luis Macas stated. “Our political approach can bring together all the social sectors that have been marginalized.” These successes led Indigenous movements firmly back into the political realm. A twenty-one-point agreement that activists signed with Noboa’s government on February 7, 2001, brought the ten-day uprising to an end. Within several months, nevertheless, the agreement that was to roll back some of the most onerous neoliberal economic policies such as raising bus fares and the price of fuel and cooking gas began to unravel. Noboa’s policies failed to address fundamental issues of grinding poverty. Official statistics indicated that a family of four needed $289 a month to survive, but that the average family income was only $201. With a growing polarization in wealth, the richest 10 percent of the population received 43 percent of the income. In face of this impasse, CONAIE threatened to launch yet another Indigenous uprising. In the meantime, Pachakutik struggled to consolidate its base of support. Ideological divisions continued to pull social movements in different directions. Leftist ideologue Guillermo Navarro Jiménez, for example, was very critical of the CMS, a main social movement force that had led to the creation of Pachakutik five years earlier. He called it part of the old reformist social democratic trend rather than part of a new and innovative Latin American left.26 Nevertheless, when CONAIE left the CMS in 2001, Pachakutik leader Napoleón Saltos considered it to be a reversal for popular movements. “This undermined the construction of popular power,” Saltos observed. The break weakened the left that, by extension, weakened Indigenous movements.27 Building alliances was key to the success of Indigenous

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movements in Ecuador, but those endeavors were wrought with complications and difficulties. After Pachakutik’s second congress in 2001, national coordinator Miguel Lluco noted that they wanted to “construct an alternative power based on the poor.” Pachakutik wanted to broaden its reach throughout the country, not just in the Amazon and highlands where it started, and down to the local level. Pachakutik never had much support on the coast, and even its presence in rural communities varied widely from one area to another. An ongoing debate swirled around whether Pachakutik was specifically a project of CONAIE, or whether it should include diverse Indigenous movements such as FENOCIN and FEINE and even other social movements. Indigenous movements also struggled to overcome lingering divisions resulting from leaders who had joined Bucaram’s government in 1996 and 1997.28 Neverthless, the 2000 coup represented the closing of a decade of extraordinary political developments during which Indigenous peoples created new forms of leadership, introduced new discourses, placed themselves on the center stage of popular movements, inserted their demands in the public sphere in such a way that they could not be ignored, and transformed the political landscape of the country.

NOTES 1. “US Pressure Brings Military-Indian Coup Against Mahuad to an Abrupt Halt,” Andean Group Report RA-00-01 (January 25, 2000): 1. On the coup, see Theodore Macdonald Jr., “Ecuador’s Indian Movement: Pawn in a Short Game or Agent in State Reconfiguration?” in The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States, ed. David Maybury-Lewis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2002), 168–98; Catherine Walsh, “The Ecuadorian Political Irruption. Uprisings, Coups, Rebellions, and Democracy,” Nepantla: Views from South 2, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 173–204; Lucas, We Will Not Dance on Our Grandparents’ Tombs: Indigenous Uprisings in Ecuador (London: Catholic Institute for International Relations [CIIR], 2000); Erin O’Connor, “Indians and National Salvation: Placing Ecuador’s Indigenous Coup of January 2000 in Historical Perspective,” in Contemporary Indigenous Movements in Latin America, ed. Erick D. Langer and Elena Muñoz (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003), 65–80; Napoleón Saltos Galarza, ed., La rebelión del arcoiris: Testimonios y análisis (Quito: Fundación José Peralta, 2000); Allen Gerlach, Indians, Oil, and Politics: A Recent History of Ecuador, Latin America Silhouettes (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2003), 163–203. 2. Barrington Moore Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon, 1966), 480. 3. José Antonio Lucero, “Crisis and Contention in Ecuador,” Journal of Democracy 12, no. 2 (April 2001): 67. 4. Macdonald, “Ecuador’s Indian Movement,” 170.

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5. Macdonald, “Ecuador’s Indian Movement,” 173. Also see Brian R. Selmeski, “Sons of Indians and Indian Sons: Military Service, Familial Metaphors, and Multicultural Nationalism,” in Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, ed. A. Kim Clark and Marc Becker (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), 155–78. 6. Carlos de la Torre, “Nina Pacari, an Interview,” in The Ecuador Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Carlos de la Torre and Steve Striffler (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 282. 7. Larry Rohter, “Bitter Indians Let Ecuador Know Fight Isn’t Over,” New York Times, January 27, 2000. 8. Lucas, We Will Not Dance on Our Grandparents’ Tombs, 44. 9. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Indigenous Candidates Aim for Congress,” Latinamerica Press 34, no. 21 (October 21, 2002): 6. 10. Gerlach, Indians, Oil, and Politics, 181, 201. 11. Paulina Palacios Herrera, “Ecuador,” in The Indigenous World 2007, ed. Sille Stidsen (Copenhagen,: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs [IWGIA], 2007), 174. 12. Lucas, We Will Not Dance on Our Grandparents’ Tombs, 82. 13. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Oppressed but Not Defeated: Peasant Struggles among the Aymara and the Quechua in Bolivia, 1900–1980 (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1987), vi. 14. Pablo Dávalos, “Ganamos pero perdimos: Balance de lo logrado y problemas pendientes,” in Movimiento indígena en América Latina: Resistencia y proyecto alternativo, ed. Fabiola Escárzaga and Raquel Gutiérrez Aragón (Puebla and Mexico City: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Gobierno del Distrito Federal. Casa Juan Pablos, Centro Cultural, 2006), 2:234. 15. Pablo Dávalos A., “Movimiento indígena ecuatoriano: La construcción de un actor político,” Ciencias Sociales II época, no. 20 (June 2001): 112. 16. Dávalos, “Movimiento indígena ecuatoriano,” 112; Pablo Dávalos, “Ecuador: Las transformaciones políticas del movimiento indígena ecuatoriano,” Observatorio Social de América Latina 1, no. 1 (June 2000): 28. 17. Gerlach, Indians, Oil, and Politics, 201. 18. Rafael Quintero López, Entre el hastío y la participación ciudadana: Partidos y elecciones en el Ecuador (2000–2002) (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2002). 19. Jennifer Collins, “Linking Movement and Electoral Politics: Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement and the Rise of Pachakutik,” in Politics in the Andes: Identity, Conflict, Reform, ed. Jo-Marie Burt and Philip Mauceri (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 56. 20. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Battle in Congress,” Latinamerica Press 32, no. 32 (September 4, 2000): 8. 21. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Death of the Sucre,” Latinamerica Press 32, no. 45 (December 4, 2000): 2. 22. Lucero, “Crisis and Contention in Ecuador,” 68. 23. Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, El grito del arco iris: Memorias de la presencia indígena en la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Quito: Abya-Yala; Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, 2002); Alberto Acosta, Paco Velasco, Leonela Cucurella, and others, “Nada

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solo para los indios” el levantamiento indígena del 2001: Análisis, crónicas y documentos (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2001); Manuel Chiriboga, “El levantamiento indígena ecuatoriano de 2001: Una interpelación,” Íconos 10 (April 2001): 28–33; and Fernando García S., “¿Un levantamiento indígena más? A propósito de los sucesos de febrero de 2001,” Íconos 10 (April 2001): 34–38. 24. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Victory for the Indigenous Movement,” Latinamerica Press 33, no. 5 (February 19, 2001): 4–5. 25. “Wavering Response to ‘Uprising,’” Latin American Weekly Report WR-01-06 (February 6, 2001): 67. 26. Guillermo Navarro Jiménez, “Coordinadora de Movimientos Sociales: ¿Nueva Izquierda o vieja Social Democracia?” Marxismo Militante 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2002): 85–127. For more on the CMS, see Fernando Guerrero Cazar and Pablo Ospina Peralta, El poder de la comunidad: Ajuste estructural y movimiento indígena en los Andes ecuatorianos, Becas de investigación (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2003), 194, 226–246. 27. Ylonka Tillería, “La izquierda ecuatoriano hacia el nuevo año: Todos hablan de unidad, pero nada. . . ,” Tintají 58 (Especial de diciembre de 2004): 5. Also see Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “La coordinadora de movimientos sociales y el movimiento indígena ecuatoriano,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 3, no. 26 (May 2001). 28. Miguel Lluco, “Pachakutik se alista para las elecciones del 2002,” Rikcharishun (Ecuarunari) 29, no. 5 (December 2001): 4.

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5 Indians in Power

Despite persistent protests, Gustavo Noboa managed to serve out the remainder of Jamil Mahuad’s presidential term until January 15, 2003. As the electoral campaign heated up during 2002, militants within Pachakutik once again debated whether to forward an Indigenous leader as a candidate for the presidency of the republic. At first they decided to do so, and engaged in a community-based primary that finally selected Auki Tituaña, the popular mayor of Cotacachi, as their candidate. Tituaña had gained visibility and prestige when he helped negotiate an end to the January 2001 uprising. University educated and a capable administrator, Tituaña had learned to navigate both the Indigenous and white worlds, and had gained some support from the urban middle class. Nevertheless, divisions between the Indigenous movements as expressed by the various organizations (CONAIE, FENOCIN, FEINE) also played out in the political arena. Ecuador’s diverse Indigenous populations, spread across fourteen different nationalities and hundreds of communities, were by no means unified and they would not be engaging politics with a single voice. Furthermore, a minority faction within CONAIE continued to agitate for a Vargas run for the presidency. Seeking to block an insurgent Vargas candidacy and facing a potential rift within CONAIE and broader Indigenous communities, Pachakutik declared that the time was not right to run an Indigenous presidential nominee. They asked its members to withdraw their candidacies. Tituaña complied; Vargas did not.1 Vargas—the now former and discredited president of CONAIE— announced that if Pachakutik did not support his candidacy he would run for office with his own political movement. He then allied with the Frente Futuro de Ecuador (FFE, Future Front of Ecuador, later renamed Amauta 77

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Protesters whom president Lucio Gutiérrez derided as forajidos or outlaws run through the streets of Quito (Patricio Realpe/ANPE)

Jatari, Kichwa for “teacher rise up”) as an electoral vehicle. “This is the first time that Ecuador has had an indigenous presidential candidate,” Vargas declared. “It is an historic event.”2 Critics, however, viewed his candidacy as an opportunistic and egotistical move, motivated by personal ambitions rather than a commitment to a struggle for social justice. CONAIE condemned Vargas for running, even calling his actions treasonous. On the other hand, FEINE, the federation of evangelical Indians who supported Amauta Jatari in opposition to the more Catholic and leftist CONAIE/ Pachakutik alliance, cast its support behind Vargas.3 Ricardo Ulcuango, former CONAIE vice president and Pachakutik candidate for the National Congress, urged FEINE to distance “itself from the manipulation to which it has been subjected.”4 In a repeat of the failed 2000 referendum, Vargas once again faced charges of submitting falsified signatures on petitions to register as a candidate with the electoral council. Ultimately, the council allowed Vargas to remain on the ballot (some said to divide the Indigenous vote), but he came in last with less than 1 percent of the vote. Perhaps significant because he was the first Indigenous person to run for the country’s highest office, his actions ultimately further divided what was once seen as the strongest Indigenous movement in the Americas.5 Meanwhile, Lucio Gutiérrez, who briefly served with Vargas in the triumvirate that overthrew Mahuad, declared that he would be a candidate

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with his own newly created coalition of center-left groups, the Sociedad Patriótica 21 de Enero (January 21 Patriotic Society, later dropping the symbolic date to become the Partido Sociedad Patriótica [PSP, Patriotic Society Party]). At first Pachakutik shied away from an alliance with Gutiérrez because of a learned distrust of military officials, but because of the colonel’s backing of social movements during the failed coup attempt, he could also count on grassroots Indigenous support. When Pachakutik decided not to run its own Indigenous candidate for president, it finally decided to throw its support behind Gutiérrez. On October 25, 2002, Pachakutik signed an agreement with PSP to collaborate on a common platform of fighting against corruption, poverty, violence, and the politicization of the judicial system, and in favor of citizen security and productivity.6 CONAIE president Leonidas Iza justified the decision to ally with Gutiérrez on pragmatic grounds: “Going into these elections without a presidential candidate could have fragmented the indigenous movement’s captive vote, because traditional political parties take advantage of the campaign to go into indigenous communities,” he said. “So we decided to support Gutiérrez and concentrate the other candidacies on a single slate.”7 CONAIE’s move was not an isolated event, but as Ruiz Hernández and Burguete Cal y Mayor note, it was part of a broader trend for Indigenous organizations to seek out pragmatic alliances rather than build on shared ideological values as was the case with previous alliances with the left.8 Even though the question remained whether such pragmatic alliances could be successful, FENOCIN also cast its support to Gutiérrez. Indigenous backing proved to be crucial to his eventual success, since without their endorsements he barely polled in the single digits. Pachakutik had consolidated its position as an influential alliance of social movements and urban intellectuals. The future problems and failure of the Gutiérrez government were already apparent in his act of forming his own political movement rather than allying with other existing political parties. Not only did this move point to a lack of alliances, but it also revealed his separation from a broader political culture. Military officials who had participated in the January 21 rebellion filled many of the positions in his campaign, as well as in his subsequent government. In a culture where the military and the church were two strong institutions that stood largely on their own, it could be foretold that any alliances with Indigenous peoples would be on rocky ground—especially since Gutiérrez could not win without Indigenous support. Indigenous peoples continued to take a lead in grassroots political battles, including opposition to Ecuador’s participation in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In October 2002 in the midst of the campaign, Ecuador’s civil society organized the Continental Encounter of Reflection and Exchange in response to the Seventh Ministerial Summit of the FTAA

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that met in Quito. Under the slogan Another America Is Possible, these social movements shared experiences, critiqued neoliberal policies, proposed alternatives to the FTAA, and took to the streets in protest against the policies that the FTAA enacted in closed meetings. While civil society was in the streets protesting neoliberal policies, Gutiérrez traveled to New York and Washington to promise international capitalists that he would cooperate with international lending agencies and work to ensure Ecuador’s rapid integration into the FTAA. “In the name of the poor people in my country,” Gutiérrez stated, “I have come to ask that you support us and invest in our country.” Pachakutik was not clear what the point of his trip was, so they delegated Nina Pacari to accompany him. She noted that working with Gutiérrez and his PSP was mutually beneficial for both sides, and was “a step, not a point of arrival.”9 But critics remained concerned about the direction in which he was taking his movement. Gutiérrez ran a populist campaign and attempted to distance himself from previous statements that he admired the leadership style of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Initially Gutiérrez campaigned in olive-green military fatigues, but he subsequently discarded them for more traditional suits and ties, claiming that the costume was only a gimmick to gain voter recognition, and that if elected he would pursue a democratic style of government. Like Gutiérrez, Chávez was a leftist coup plotter who in 1992 had led a failed attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Riding a wave of popular support, Chávez was subsequently elected president. His anti-imperialist rhetoric antagonized the U.S. government and led to a failed attempt to remove him from power on April 11, 2002. Gutiérrez’s meetings in Washington did much to alleviate fears that he was a “golpista, chavecista y comunista,” a Communist coup-plotting follower of Chávez. Open questions included what his alliances with Indigenous movements would be like, whether he would retain the U.S. military base in Manta, whether he would withdraw from agreements with the IMF, and whether he would include bankers in his government. After a closed meeting, Quito’s Archbishop Antonio González declared that Gutiérrez “does not seem so radical” and that the Catholic Church was willing to work with him. In October, Gutiérrez came in first in the elections with a surprising 20 percent of the vote, significantly better than the 13 or 14 percent that preelection opinion polls had indicated. Voter volatility in Ecuador meant that to believe in opinion poll numbers was, as Lucas notes, to believe in Santa Claus.10 Socialist León Roldós placed a strong third with 15 percent of the vote in a crowded field of 11 candidates. Opinion polls had initially placed ex-president Rodrigo Borja of the ID in the lead, but he only placed fourth. Gutiérrez’s victory was a significant blow to the traditional parties PRE and PSC, which failed to make significant showings. Another former president,

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Oswaldo Hurtado, fared even worse, coming in tenth with barely 1 percent of the vote. Even more notable was the 35 percent abstention rate despite obligatory voting, indicating the level of disenchantment with the political process. Because Gutiérrez had failed to gain at least 50 percent of the vote, he faced a runoff against second-place candidate Álvaro Noboa. After running as a PRE candidate and losing to Mahuad in the 1998 election, Noboa had founded his own party, which in a megalomaniacal fashion he called the Partido Renovador Institucional Álvaro Noboa (PRIAN, Álvaro Noboa Party of Institutional Renewal), later renamed the Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (PRIAN, National Action Party of Institutional Renewal). A close personal friend of the Kennedy clan’s, Noboa was Ecuador’s richest person, having inherited his fortune in the banana industry. He strongly supported free trade policies and proposed to turn Ecuador into “a huge tax-free zone” that would encourage the arrival of “foreign banks, industry and international trade.” During the campaign he faced repeated charges, including one detailed in a front-page article in the New York Times, that he exploited child labor on his plantations that produced Bonita brand Cavendish bananas for export to the United States.11 Early polls provided Noboa with a strong lead in the campaign, but his lack of charisma and perceived intellectual and economic deficiencies significantly diminished his support. He ended with only 17 percent of the vote, worse than what opinion polls had predicted but a sufficient showing to push him into a runoff contest with Gutiérrez. In November, largely with support from rural areas and Indigenous peoples, Gutiérrez won the presidency. While former president León Febres Cordero and persistent hard-right leader of the PSC refused to support the conservative candidacy of Noboa and even harshly criticized him, leftist parties and social movements increasingly closed ranks behind Gutiérrez. Perhaps more significant than the presidential contest, Pachakutik continued to gain strength in local races, particularly in highland and Amazonian rural communities with a dominant Indigenous presence. CONAIE leaders Salvador Quishpe and Ricardo Ulcuango led the party to victory in congressional races in the provinces of Zamora Chinchipe and Pichincha. Representing the left wing of the Indigenous movement, their victories constituted a definitive shift in political discourse. With 54 percent of the vote in his deputy race, Quishpe captured a higher percentage than any other congressional candidate in the country. Ulcuango was the first provincial deputy elected from Cayambe, a predominantly Indigenous canton with a long history of militant leftist Indigenous organizing efforts. “Our presence in the National Assembly,” Ulcuango stated, “is a new challenge in this long road of 500 years of searching for a more equitable plurinational

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Ecuador.”12 In total, Pachakutik won ten representatives in Congress (five of them Indigenous) and seventy-five seats on municipal governments, representing a high point in its political strength.13 Despite Gutiérrez’s victory in the presidential race and Pachakutik’s strong showing in local races, the traditional parties still controlled the single-chamber national legislature. Of one hundred deputies, PSC dominated the legislature with twenty-six seats, with the PRE coming in second with fifteen seats and the ID with fourteen. Luis Macas’s loss in an Andean Parliament race reflected the fractured regional and ethnic tensions in Ecuadorian society and seemed to drive home the point that the country was not yet ready to vote for Indigenous candidates in top-level political offices. The Andean Parliament was formed in 1979 to work for regional integration across country borders, and for the first time, voters in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia elected five deputies from each country to travel to its base in Bogotá. Early returns placed Macas in second place in this race. Late returns from the coast, where a majority of Ecuadorians but very few Indigenous peoples lived, increased the vote for the PSC and pushed Macas to sixth place, out of the running for the parliament. Locally, Indigenous candidates increasingly could win offices, but to gain national power they needed to move beyond their narrow bases of support. In a compelling study of the 2002 elections, Scott Beck and Kenneth Mijeski conclude that while a large percentage of Indigenous peoples voted for Gutiérrez, he did not gain a majority of their votes in the first round. Furthermore, the Indigenous vote was not enough to provide Gutiérrez with his margin of victory. More surprisingly, it appears that on the coast, non-Indigenous voters supported Gutiérrez at a higher rate than Indigenous voters, seemingly indicating that Indigenous communities voted their regional rather than ethnic interests. Beck and Mijeski argue “that electoral success via the creation of a voting bloc is more difficult than occasional targeted mobilizations of tens of thousands of Indian participants.” While CONAIE in particular excelled at rallying their grass roots in massive, cohesive uprisings, the volatile, fragmented, chaotic, and corrupt political system provided challenges that Indigenous movements had difficulties overcoming. Significant competition from political parties’ established clientelistic networks meant that CONAIE could not act with a hegemonic voice in the electoral realm as it previously had as a social movement.14 Neoliberalism, as William Robinson notes, is predicated on individualism and atomization, channeling political participation into ritualistic electoral exercises that poll citizens as individuals rather than communities.15 Shifting the focus from communal to individual actions was not necessarily in the best interests of advancing an Indigenous rights agenda. The 2002 elections represented a high point of Pachakutik’s electoral strength and a beginning of a decline of CONAIE’s strength as a social movement. While

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on the surface this might appear to be a curious paradox, it points to the extraordinary challenges for the expression of collective rights and the creation of a participatory democracy.

THE COLONEL AS PRESIDENT Amid high expectations, Gutiérrez took office on January 15, 2003, less than three years after his failed coup attempt. Activists cheered his victory as “the second triumph of January 21,” noting that he received a “protest and insurgent vote of those who want to become political subjects and owners of their own destiny.” Supporters expressed hope that his government would be “a space for expression of all classes and forces.”16 Whitten describes a gala inaugural “Ceremony of Hope” in the Atahualpa Olympic Stadium in Quito as the realization of millenarian expectations.17 Leftists widely greeted Gutiérrez’s victory as part of a leftward tilt in South American governments that represented “a setback to the efforts of the US administration to dominate economic and political developments in the region.”18 Privately, however, some Indigenous intellectuals conceded their doubts about a Gutiérrez presidency. As a career military officer, he had no political experience and they feared that he could become an authoritarian leader like Alberto Fujimori in neighboring Peru. Bolivian Indigenous leader Evo Morales publicly criticized Gutiérrez for meeting with the World Bank and the IMF in Washington instead of leading popular protests against neoliberalism in the streets of Quito. Leaders cautioned against giving Gutiérrez a blank check.19 Being allied with the governing party presented new challenges to Indigenous movements. Gutiérrez’s desire not to alienate business and other elite concerns led him to retain many of the neoliberal economic policies that he had rejected as a coup plotter, including maintaining dollarization, IMF policies, and integration into the FTAA. He named neoliberal ideologues to key posts, including economist Mauricio Pozo to the Ministry of Finance. Gutiérrez also declared that he would respect the treaty that granted the U.S. access to the Manta base, even though many activists considered the treaty to be unconstitutional and the presence of U.S. troops to be a violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty. Gutiérrez’s policies led to rapid alienation from his base of support, with activists declaring that “what we have is a government, not power.”20 While at first Gutiérrez appeared to embrace Indigenous proposals, as José Almeida notes, he “remained trapped between two contradictory positions: neoliberalism and pluriculturalism.”21 As Gutiérrez lost support from the grass roots, he moved even farther to the right. His flip-flopping on key issues led former Quito mayor Rodrigo Paz to note that “his desire to satisfy everyone is dangerous.” Paz continued, “He has to remember our

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friend Machiavelli.”22 Even before Gutiérrez took office, some Indigenous militants predicted that his government would not last six months. In the scramble for positions in Gutiérrez’s administration, political opportunists and hangers-on appeared to gain an increasingly large presence. As Gutiérrez began to form his government with little consultation with his Indigenous allies or broader social movements, it became apparent that he viewed the masses in the same light as any other populist had during Ecuador’s long twentieth century: as a manipulatable force to solidify a politician’s hold on power and not as an equal partner with whom to consult on policy matters or to share power. Gutiérrez would govern much like José María Velasco Ibarra and Abdalá Bucaram before him: they all spouted leftist rhetoric in order to appeal to the poor masses for their votes, but once in office immediately began to rule in favor of the oligarchy.23 It is little wonder that Indigenous peoples learned to approach electoral politics with a good deal of reservation and skepticism. With so much institutionalized power stacked against them, they seemed to have more influence on policies outside of power and on the streets as part of a well-organized and mobilized civil society rather than in government. But organized protests would not result in the implementation of alternative proposals. For that, they needed to enter the messy realm of electoral politics. Electoral politics and grassroots social movements increasingly seemed to represent diverging paths that pulled activists in two separate directions.24 In the end and after some last-minute negotiating, Pachakutik walked away with four cabinet posts and several secretariats as a reward for their support of Gutiérrez’s candidacy. Most significantly, Indigenous leaders took on positions: Luis Macas was named agricultural minister, Nina Pacari took over foreign affairs, and Lourdes Tibán assumed the post of undersecretary at the Ministry of Social Welfare. In addition, Gutiérrez appointed Pachakutik’s mestizo leaders to posts: Rosa María Torres as the head of education, Doris Solís at tourism, and Virgilio Hernández as subsecretary in the Ministry of Government. A serious shortcoming was not gaining a leadership position in the finance ministry because, as economist Pablo Dávalos notes, “the economy is key for a country,” and Gutiérrez kept those policy decisions in his hands.25 Unfortunately, that ministerial post went to Mauricio Pozo, who became the most ardent advocate of neoliberal policies in the Gutiérrez government. Pachakutik coordinator Miguel Lluco claims that their agreement with Gutiérrez was that 70 percent of the posts would go to PSP and 30 percent to Pachakutik, but their participation fell far short of the co-government that they wanted and expected. As a result, the government was not as progressive as they had hoped and wanted.26 Lluco points to this problem as an inherent shortcoming of Pachakutik’s not running its own nominee, and being left with a “borrowed candidate and no guarantees of faithful compliance with agreed upon accords.” Pachakutik won the

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election, but it needed to strengthen its ability to govern, and it needed a better-trained cadre to realize that goal.27 Pacari, who was adamantly opposed to the FTAA and the United States’ use of the Manta military base, was the first Indigenous person in the Americas to be appointed as a foreign minister. In accepting the post, Pacari declared that “not only the Ponces and Cordoveces have the right to occupy these posts”; she was referring to the traditional elites who typically controlled the diplomatic corps. She promised, instead, a democratization of the governing structures in the country. In an editorial in the Quito daily newspaper Hoy, Felipe Burbano de Lara warned that new names and new “ethnic” faces were not enough to solve the problems that Ecuador faced if Gutiérrez continued with the same policies as previous governments. “New names does not change anything,” Burbano de Lara wrote. “We have new faces, but not new politics.” The threat of Ecuador’s populist and clientelistic culture was that “democratization” would only shift these patterns of abuse and corruption to new groups of people. Placing Indigenous people in high office was not enough to solve these problems.28 The Indigenous ministers faced a good deal of racism, including derogatory cartoons in the daily newspapers.29 Opponents criticized Pacari for her lack of English-language skills, which some considered essential for a foreign minister. Others saw her as a “key chain,” something “useful for the government to carry around to demonstrate political correctness and diversity.”30 Being named to such high positions also quickly proved to be a double-edged sword as some of the Indigenous movements’ most powerful leaders were forced to walk a fine line between supporting Gutiérrez’s controversial economic policies and remaining accountable to their grassroots constituency. “Because the presence of social and Indigenous movements is what characterizes the Gutiérrez government,” Dávalos asked, “will Indigenous peoples be willing to compromise their main project of constructing a plurinational state in order to defend a political and economic agenda that is not theirs, and a government of which they apparently are a part but does not permit them to have control or a say in the running of the economy?”31 Since CONAIE presented itself as using its political positioning to defend the rural poor, supporting Gutiérrez rapidly became a tenuous and unsustainable posture. It seemed that involvement in electoral politics would shred the Indigenous movement from within. Within a week of taking office, Gutiérrez faced protests (appropriately scheduled for January 21, the anniversary of the Indigenous-military coup that he had led three years earlier) against his decisions to raise the price of gasoline and electricity and to cut salaries as an overture to the IMF. His moves to ally more closely with the United States further alienated his supporters. Blanca Chancoso noted a growing unease in Indigenous communities with Gutiérrez’s policies. “At first we identified with the government,

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but as time has passed we have seen that we are not the government,” she noted. “If we were the government, we could make decisions or have influence on what the president does, but we feel that not even the indigenous ministers are part of the decisions of this administration.”32 Activists grew frustrated at their exclusion from government. Indigenous leaders threatened to pull their support if Gutiérrez did not adhere to his campaign promises. CONAIE was perhaps the most eager to maintain relations, consenting to support IMF agreements provided they included provisions for social programs. Ecuarunari, the regional federation of highland Kichwa peoples and one of the most radical Indigenous organizations, was the first to break with the government. At an April 2003 congress, Ecuarunari accused Gutiérrez of reneging on his campaign promises. They promised mobilizations against his neoliberal policies and submission to the United States and IMF. In particular, Ecuarunari called for the resignation of the probusiness economy minister Mauricio Pozo. Ecuarunari’s president Humberto Cholango denounced Gutiérrez’s rightwing drift, but also declared that “Pachakutik won the elections and has a right to stay in the government.”33 Nevertheless, Ecuarunari insisted that it would demand that Pachakutik break its alliance with the government if Gutiérrez did not listen to Ecuarunari’s concerns. Economist Rafael Correa condemned “the economic policy of the current regime as absolutely nothing new; to the contrary, it is the most orthodox expression of the dominant thinking in Latin America over the past two decades.”34 Gutiérrez faced growing vocal challenges from a broad range of social movement activists. FENOCIN soon followed in breaking with Gutiérrez, warning of protests if the government did not meet its campaign promises. Gutiérrez attempted to crush this dissent, warning Pachakutik not to criticize the government openly. Pachakutik deputies in Congress condemned the former colonel’s military authoritarianism and refusal to consider alternative perspectives or to include them in decision-making processes. At the same time, some militants were disappointed in the failure of Pachakutik ministers to achieve serious reforms, while other party loyalists blamed Gutiérrez for blocking projects. “The disadvantages outweigh the benefits we have obtained from power,” Cotopaxi Indigenous leader José Paca stated.35 More and more activists agreed with sociologist Alejandro Moreano that it did not make sense for Pachakutik to remain in the government, and that “the only correct political position is to overthrow Gutiérrez.”36 Similar to growing disillusionment with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reformist government in Brazil, “the left’s expectations and illusions were soon shattered” in Ecuador as well.37 In June, CONAIE held a summit of “nationalities, peoples, and alternative authorities” in Quito in order to present an ultimatum to Gutiérrez. Analyzing the Indigenous alliance with his government, they declared that Gutiérrez represented “a continuation of previous regimes, and is

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not part of the political project of [Indigenous] peoples and nationalities.”38 CONAIE presented a wide array of economic, political, and social demands. It called for a plebiscite on the FTAA, the removal of U.S. forces from the Manta military base, and a new constituent assembly to declare Ecuador a plurinational state and to assure congressional representation for Indigenous communities. The assumption was that Gutiérrez would not agree to these demands, and that his refusal would trigger a break with his government. To the surprise of many, Gutiérrez agreed to several key demands, including limiting the privatization of strategic state enterprises and not raising the price of cooking gas.39 Nevertheless, these concessions only proved to delay temporarily the inevitable rupture with his government. Gutiérrez feared CONAIE as a competitor for power, and Indigenous leaders condemned his maneuvers to weaken the organization.40 “Never were we so weak as a movement,” CONAIE president Leonidas Iza observed, “as when we were in the government.”41 In retrospect, many activists thought joining the Gutiérrez government was a serious mistake. On July 21, Gutiérrez forced Pachakutik education minister Rosa María Torres from her post. He apparently believed that the top Pachakutik leaders were too enamored with power to leave the government. Slowly other leftist parties and social movements announced their departures from the ruling coalition. Finally, on August 6, 2003, half a year after taking power, CONAIE and Pachakutik removed their support, declaring that Gutiérrez had “betrayed the mandate given to him by the Ecuadoran people in the last elections.”42 Whereas CONAIE’s highland regional organization Ecuarunari had left the government earlier in the year, its Amazonian wing CONFENIAE remained with the government—much like it had with Bucaram in 1997. Furthermore, according to CONAIE leader Miguel Guatemal, CONFENIAE had come under the control of corrupt leaders such as Antonio Vargas and José Avilés, who drew on the support of petroleum corporations and the United States.43 These contradictions almost led to the complete destruction of CONFENIAE as well as CONAIE’s costal affiliate CONAICE. Illustrating how Ecuador’s regional divisions were replicated throughout Indigenous movements and communities, while Gutiérrez’s support dropped in the rest of Ecuador, he continued to enjoy strong approval ratings in his native Amazonian province of Napo. Pachakutik’s break with Gutiérrez left its members, including ministers Pacari and Macas, with the choice of either leaving Pachakutik and remaining in their posts, or staying with Pachakutik and leaving the government. In the end, both resigned their posts along with almost all lesser Pachakutik functionaries. “He never listened to us,” Pacari said.44 “Gutiérrez is a traitor,” future Pachakutik coordinator Gilberto Talahua stated in what became a common charge. “I didn’t trust him after the second round of elections when he changed his policies so frequently.” Talahua continued, “He has

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become a president of the business class.”45 The contradictions in Gutiérrez’s government had finally led to the inevitable choice for Pachakutik of either holding on to power and causing significant damage to the reputation of Indigenous movements, or moving into the opposition. Dávalos declared that Pachakutik had become a caricature of what it was when it had been founded seven years earlier. It had become ridden with sectarian divisions and a bureaucracy unaccountable to social movements.46 Despite Pachakutik’s disastrous experience in power, Pacari was able to salvage positive aspects from the experience. “We were able to shatter the stereotype of the incapacity of the indigenous peoples,” she said. “We achieved an important objective; the indigenous people recovered their self-esteem.”47 Participating in government did provide Indigenous leaders with valuable administrative experience and a higher visibility than they had previously enjoyed. Left without his Indigenous allies and with his PSP party holding few seats in Congress, Gutiérrez quickly turned to the right and made alliances with the Social Christians, the same traditional right-wing party he had criticized during his campaign. Such an alliance was fraught with difficulties. As the largest party in Congress, the PSC had the right to the presidency of the Congress, but party leader and former right-wing president León Febres Cordero declined the position, claiming he did not want to implicate his party in the inevitable failures of a Gutiérrez government. The retired colonel also became more heavily reliant on the military to maintain him in power, seemingly mindful that the army could provide a bulwark against leftist subversion. As Felipe Burbano de Lara notes, although a military government is a distant possibility in Ecuador, “permanence in power ultimately depends on the will of the military,” and this “in turn contributes to the institutional precariousness of Ecuadorian democracy.”48 In addition to relying on the military, Gutiérrez cultivated positive relationships with the United States in its wars against drug trafficking and terrorism; this gave him a sense of security despite rapidly plunging approval ratings. In the Amazon, his policies now favored increased oil concessions to transnational corporations. The transformation was complete; many people now saw his government as corrupt and illegitimate, and it was only a matter of time before Indigenous protesters would once again be back out in the street. At its third congress in September 2003, Pachakutik elected a new and militant leadership. Under the previous guidance of Miguel Lluco, the political movement had become weakened and ready to compromise with mainstream forces. In what had all the appearances of corruption, Lluco resigned as head of Pachakutik in order to assume a position administering the finances of the electric company EMELEC—something for which he had no training. After its success in the 2002 elections, Pachakutik began to act more like a traditional political party, including making strategic alliances with opposing parties to strengthen its political position rather

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than promoting social justice. Furthermore, personal rivalries and regional divisions tore at the movement’s coherence and strength. Pachakutik’s new general coordinator, Gilberto Talahua, pledged to “regain power with the support of the masses.” To achieve this, he sought to rebuild alliances with FENOCIN and FEINE.49 Instead, CONAIE and its political wing began to take a strong ethnicist (or what some called an indigenist) turn that focused inward toward its Indigenous roots rather than reaching out to broader alliances. Key Indigenous leaders blamed their mestizo colleagues for the disastrous decision to ally with Gutiérrez, and began to force them out of the movement. Sociologist Francisco Hidalgo points out that this tendency ignored the mistakes that Indigenous leaders such as Lluco and Pacari had made.50 Excluding mestizos in favor of Indigenous candidates meant that Pachakutik lost electoral strength in urban areas. Eliminating leftist allies, Guatemal later reflected, only served “to isolate CONAIE from social movements and revolutionary processes both inside and outside the country.” Nor did it help that leftist parties engaged in dogmatic and inconsequential discourses that further broadened the divide between Indigenous and other popular movements.51 Gutiérrez’s problems extended far beyond conflicts with his former Indigenous allies. He faced ruptures with other social movements and leftist political parties, and persistent charges of nepotism, arms trafficking, and links with drug dealers plagued his mandate. In October 2003, police arrested businessman César Fernández Cevallos for drug trafficking. Several weeks later it emerged that Fernández had donated an unreported $30,000 to Gutiérrez’s electoral campaign and had close ties with vice president Alfredo Palacio. With these new accusations, even the conservative PSC began to distance itself from Gutiérrez as support for his government fell to about 15 percent. Nevertheless, Gutiérrez maintained his neoliberal economic policies that had gained him backing from the IMF and the U.S. government, but were having a brutal impact on the poorest people in Ecuador.52 A public endorsement from Otto Reich, U.S. president George W. Bush’s special envoy to Latin America, was hardly something that would put social movements at ease. Atilio Boron points to three factors in an attempt to explain why governments come to power on a wave of popular support, but then quickly surrender to a neoliberal agenda. First is the growing power of markets that have overwhelmed the ability of governments to confront them. Second is the persistence of neoliberalism, especially as expressed through the IMF, World Bank, and other international monetary institutions. Finally, previous administrations had implemented antidemocratic measures that undermined the sovereign power of governments to act.53 Social movements faced difficulties in overcoming all these challenges as they struggled to make governments rule on their behalf.

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Despite a combination of implementing neoliberal economic reforms, corruption, nepotism, and militarization of the government that all led to a dramatic fall in popularity, Gutiérrez still managed to hold on to power. Contradictions between his campaign promises and the policies he implemented once in power led social movements to become even more skeptical of the possibilities of realizing true changes through electoral means. CONAIE denounced Gutiérrez as a traitor for not fulfilling his campaign promises, and announced that protests would begin on January 14, 2004, the eve of the one-year anniversary of his assumption of power, and extend to January 21, the fourth anniversary of the military-Indigenous coup that initially had thrust Gutiérrez onto the political stage. However, the planned marches fizzled, and the problematic divisions between the different wings of the Indigenous movement (especially with FENOCIN and FEINE) became reentrenched. Four years after Gutiérrez’s alliance with Indigenous communities led to the fall of Mahuad’s government, and with his approval level about as low as Mahuad’s when the latter was removed from office, it was internal divisions among the different Indigenous movements and not their unity that appeared to assure the former colonel’s continued hold on power.

GOVERNMENT REPRESSION On February 1, 2004, shortly after the failed protests against Gutiérrez, two gunmen followed CONAIE president Leonidas Iza from the airport as he returned from a meeting in Cuba against the FTAA. When he arrived at CONAIE’s headquarters in Quito, the two assassins shouted, “We will kill you” and opened fire. Iza escaped injury, but three family members were hurt in the assault. It appeared that the attack was politically motivated. Indigenous leaders immediately placed blame on Gutiérrez as intellectual author, and announced another uprising calling for the president’s resignation. Pachakutik deputy Ricardo Ulcuango, president of the Commission of Indigenous Affairs in Congress, declared that “the government has the obligation to defend the lives of all Ecuadorians, and especially those of Indigenous leaders who have been receiving threats for quite some time.” Two days before the attack on Iza, Patricio Campana, who was investigating corruption in the state oil company, was killed. In December, Ecuarunari president Humberto Cholango was briefly imprisoned for his pointed attacks on Gutiérrez’s policies. Ulcuango and Pachakutik’s coordinator, Talahua, also received threats because of their political activities. Social movements were now clearly being targeted by their former ally.54 In response to the attack, CONAIE announced a “state of national mobilization” that began with a demonstration in Iza’s home province of Cotopaxi on February 10, and a week later spread to the rest of the country

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with the blocking of highways. On February 16 in the southern province of Azuay, the police and military launched tear gas against the crowd and shot four demonstrators and detained nineteen protesters, including two Indigenous leaders. A sixty-three-year-old woman, María Doraliza Lalvay, subsequently died from bullet wounds to the stomach. Another man was reportedly killed in Cotopaxi. Talahua called Gutiérrez a danger to democracy, and said that these attacks were further evidence of his repressive nature. “We are living under a military dictatorship,” local priest Francisco Jara noted. Ulcuango stated that in targeting those who were critical of his government, Gutiérrez was “contributing to a wave of violence.” As the situation became increasingly polarized, Indigenous leaders declared that the mobilization would continue until the president resigned.55 The next day, however, CONAIE’s leaders announced that they had achieved their objective of displaying the strength of the Indigenous movement and gaining the government’s attention. They still demanded Gutiérrez’s resignation because they considered him to be a traitor for ruling in the interests of international capital. Activists threatened to return to the streets if he did not concede to their demands. The IMF, Iza declared, was “the true destabilizing force” in Ecuador. Social organizations issued a list of demands that included an investigation into repressive activities against leaders, credit for small farmers, rejection of the U.S. militarization of the conflict in neighboring Colombia, withdrawal from free trade agreements (FTAs), suspension of payments on the foreign debt, and more funding for education and social services. Feeling the political pressure on the streets, Gutiérrez finally agreed to meet with Indigenous leaders. He conceded to some key economic demands, including increasing funding for agriculture and turning over to a municipality an electrical company that was on a list of utilities to be privatized. This protest, however, represented a definitive and irreconcilable break between Indigenous movements and the Gutiérrez government. In opposition, out of electoral politics, and on the streets, CONAIE appeared to have returned, at least momentarily, to the position of visibility and strength that it had originally earned in the 1990 levantamiento. After the split with Pachakutik, former CONAIE leader and co-conspirer in the failed January 2000 coup Antonio Vargas joined the Gutiérrez government as minister of social welfare. At the swearing-in ceremony, Vargas pointed to his supporters as the grass roots and called Iza and Cholango “false leaders.” CONAIE and Ecuarunari responded with denunciations that Gutiérrez was creating “ghost organizations” without any true representation.56 Gutiérrez excelled at exploiting divergent interests of Indigenous communities, particularly exacerbating tensions between the highlands and the Amazon where both he and Vargas were from, and between FEINE and CONAIE, in order to weaken civil society and retain his hold on power.57

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CONAIE militants responded by denouncing Vargas as an opportunist and traitor who adhered to a dictatorial and neoliberal line that divided Indigenous organizations.58 Political scientist Francisco Sánchez notes that Gutiérrez had managed “to capture the most pragmatic and corrupt sector of the Indigenous movement.”59 Nevertheless, finally in May 2004 the lowland regional Indigenous federation CONFENIAE announced that it was now also moving into the opposition. Even with the popularity rating of Gutiérrez’s increasingly corrupt government at about 5 percent, Indigenous movements were so crippled that another planned uprising in June 2004 was a complete failure. The collapsing movement underscored serious divisions between previous close allies CONAIE and Pachakutik, and between CONAIE and its Amazonian and coastal affiliates CONFENIAE and CONAICE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Coast).60 Pointing to the diverging interests of political parties and social movements, Pachakutik preoccupied itself with institutional issues such as the composition of the Supreme Court of Justice, whereas CONAIE retained its emphasis on what it considered to be core issues of FTAs and Plan Colombia. In addition, a growing divide emerged between pan-Ecuadorian organizations and local communities more concerned with immediate bread-andbutter issues. Longtime leader Luis Macas commented that Indigenous movements needed to reclaim their political project, even if it meant dropping out of the electoral process.61 James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer also pointed to a fundamental division between those like Ecuarunari leader Humberto Cholango, “who takes a class approach toward politics, and those like Vargas who are susceptible to the lure of opportunism baited by the government.”62 Tainted by involvement in electoral politics, social movements struggled to regain the initiative and legitimacy that they had previously enjoyed. In looking for allies to prop up his failing government, Gutiérrez made overtures to disgraced former president Abdalá Bucaram, who was living in exile in Panama. Meanwhile, opponents in Congress with Pachakutik in the lead began to attempt to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to impeach Gutiérrez for endangering the security of the state and for the misuse of public funds. Nevertheless, the president seemed to have developed an uncanny knack for riding out storms and holding on to power. He weathered his first impeachment attempt in November 2004, though the investigations did censure Vargas for diverting funds from his Social Welfare Ministry to Gutiérrez’s PSP campaign. Increasingly the conservative PSC took the lead in attacking Gutiérrez; this put both CONAIE and Pachakutik in a difficult bind of appearing to ally with a party of the oligarchy against a common enemy. From a grassroots perspective, these types of backroom dealings were part of what seemed to discredit the entire political class, with discontent extended not only to the presidency but also to a hopelessly

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fragmented and conflictive Congress that was no more popular or effective in passing legislation than the executive branch. Sánchez argues that not only had political parties failed to contribute adequately to the necessary conditions for a consolidation of democracy, but more importantly, they contributed to a politically unstable situation. In fact, surveys revealed that political parties and the National Congress were two of the most discredited institutions in the country.63 Joining such an esteemed body brought a certain amount of disrepute to Pachakutik from its Indigenous base. Echoing massive street protests that led to the fall of Fernando de la Rúa’s government in Argentina in 2001, one of the most popular street slogans in Quito became ¡Que se vayan todos! “Out with them all!”64 In the midst of all this, Pachakutik managed to hold its own in local electoral contests. In October 2004 municipal elections, Pachakutik won control over eighteen mayoralties—though some observers argued it could have won more had it not been tainted by its disastrous short-term alliance with Gutiérrez.65 In Cotacachi, Tituaña won reelection as mayor, although his level of support fell from a high four years earlier even though his engagement with participatory forms of government yielded positive results.66 In contrast, in Otavalo, Conejo handily won reelection with an increase in the percentage of vote from 2000 even though Gutiérrez’s evangelical allies who had joined Conejo four years earlier now ran a competing candidate with Amauta Jatari. Elsewhere, Pachakutik lost three municipalities to the small evangelical Indigenous party Amauta Yuyay, which Gutiérrez aggressively supported against his former allies. Despite all these problems, Pachakutik gained 9 percent of the vote, and in Ecuador’s fractured political landscape this meant that it remained the third-strongest political force in the country.67 With Pachakutik out of government, CONAIE struggled to return the Indigenous movement to its previous position of strength. In December 2004, CONAIE elected longtime leader Luis Macas to head the organization once again. Militants called on the organization to retake the initiatives that it had held in the 1990s.68 In taking office on January 14, 2005, Macas quoted the words of Tupak Katari that they had returned, they were millions, and no one could stop them.69 Internal dissent fostered by entering the electoral realm, however, continued to thwart the power of the movement to forward positive alternatives.

REBELLION OF THE FORAJIDOS On April 20, 2005, a popular uprising finally brought down the Gutiérrez government. Gutiérrez derided his opponents as forajidos (outlaws), which they subsequently took up as a term of pride and honor. As had happened before with popular movements, the masses moved farther and faster than

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the leaders. Seemingly without central coordination, thousands of people took to the streets of Quito. Attempting to place themselves in positions of power, social movement leaders also assumed the label forajidos. Some protesters resented what amounted to the hijack of what had been a spontaneous uprising; they preferred to dispose of the entire old political system and everyone associated with it. Unlike in previous uprisings, Indigenous movements played a minor role in the mobilization, with those allied with Vargas and FEINE coming to Gutiérrez’s support. Instead, the overwhelming presence of Quito’s urban mestizo middle classes characterized this uprising. Internal fragmentation and declining confidence in leadership increasingly preoccupied with electoral politics translated into a discredited force that failed to mobilize the Indigenous masses. “If Quito threw out Gutiérrez,” FENOCIN’s president Pedro de la Cruz lamented, pointing to strong lingering regional divisions, “the countryside voted for him.”70 People in poor and particularly evangelical Indigenous communities who were drawn to Gutiérrez’s clientelistic policies remained staunchly loyal to the former colonel, and considered his removal to be the result of an oligarchical coup. CONAIE largely remained on the sidelines in the midst of these upheavals. Once-strong Indigenous movements appeared to have become marginalized and insignificant to the political forces sweeping the country.71 Gutiérrez’s failed search for alliances to maintain him in power is what led to his downfall. On March 31, 2005, the judiciary that Gutiérrez had stacked removed the charges against Bucaram, allowing him to return to Ecuador.72 Bucaram’s return proved to be the final straw for Gutiérrez’s opponents and led to massive street demonstrations in Quito. Even though Gutiérrez was physically in his office, Congress dismissed the president for having “abandoned his post.” The disregard for legal niceties had echoes of Bucaram’s removal seven years earlier for “mental incapacity” despite the lack of a medical exam to support the charges. When U.S. ambassador Kristey Kenney arrived at the presidential palace to inform Gutiérrez that her country no longer supported his government, he agreed to go into exile in Brazil. While in office, Gutiérrez had conveniently fostered warm relations with Brazil, including granting the state oil company Petrobrás permission to explore for oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon.73 Out of power, Gutiérrez urged without success to have the Organization of American States (OAS) apply its Democratic Charter to sanction the extraconstitutional change of power. With Gutiérrez removed from office, his vice president, Alfredo Palacio, took power. Palacio enjoyed a brief honeymoon simply because as a medical doctor he was not associated with established political parties. Seemingly pointing to the increasing ungovernability of the country, Palacio’s popularity also soon began to plummet. Forajidos complained that his

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policies were too moderate, that he governed as those before him had. Palacio had served as minister of health in the 1990s in conservative Sixto Durán Ballén’s government, was a member of Ecuador’s oligarchy, and retained neoliberal policies that benefited his class. Furthermore, Palacio shifted Ecuador’s geopolitical alliance away from Brazil and Petrobrás and back toward the United States and the Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, better known as Occidental or Oxy Petroleum, a transnational corporation that had been the target of frequent protests in Ecuador.74 Some opinion polls reflected a perception that corruption had increased under his mandate. Tintají, a bimonthly publication associated with popular movements, printed in large letters on its cover, “Nothing changed in April.”75 At points it appeared increasingly questionable whether Palacio could successfully serve out the less than two years remaining in Gutiérrez’s term. Seemingly thinking that the masses would rise up in support of him, Gutiérrez returned from his Brazilian exile in October 2005 and was promptly arrested. Strategically, the move played to his advantage as he now cast himself as a victim of political persecution. From prison, he declared his intention to run for office in the presidential elections the following October. In March 2006, the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed the charges against him and he was released from prison, but the TSE barred him from running due to financial irregularities in his 2002 campaign. Another barrier to his candidacy was the constitutional ban on immediate reelection, though Gutiérrez argued that Palacio had succeeded him and thereby provided the appropriate gap between terms. In any case, it did not appear that the former colonel would regain the political traction that had won him the presidency three years earlier. With Pachakutik out of power, CONAIE struggled to compensate by regaining the initiative on the streets. Even though the left wing of the Indigenous movement had not participated in Gutiérrez’s ouster, his removal created spaces to rebuild a grassroots movement. Returning to one of its key issues of opposition to neoloberalism, CONAIE led March 2006 strikes that quickly spread throughout about half the country. In spite of a governmentdeclared state of emergency, for two weeks Indigenous activists led protests against the signing of free trade pacts with the United States. Despite 250 arrests and 50 people injured, Cholango declared that this “is the sacrifice that we have to make at this moment.”76 Leading the opposition as a social movement rather than as an electoral movement, CONAIE successfully undermined the government’s attempts to sign a trade agreement with the United States, and forced the government to terminate its contract with Occidental Petroleum. While Pachakutik stumbled in the electoral realm, under Macas’s leadership CONAIE demonstrated that it could still marshal its bases in street protests.77 Alejandro Moreano argued that this was only proper, that a social movement should prioritize its struggles against

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Occidental and FTAs over its electoral positioning.78 At an April 2006 congress, Ecuarunari followed Moreano’s advice as it reiterated its demands to nationalize strategic resources including petroleum, electricity, telecommunications, and mining; to stop the privatization of natural resources including water; to suspend FTAs; and to renegotiate the government’s agreement with Occidental Petroleum.79 Referring to the popular movements that toppled Bucaram, Mahuad, and Gutiérrez, Pablo Dávalos notes that “three times we have won and three times we lost.”80 Through these gains and reversals, it became clear that Indigenous movements were strong enough to bring governments down but not united enough to rule on their own—or even possibly in alliance with others. Shifting from a grassroots social movement to a countrywide electoral apparatus proved to be difficult and fraught with complications. Although Indigenous activists had realized the potential advantages of organizing as a social movement, the promises of political party politics remained beyond their grasp. Repeatedly, CONAIE urged the necessity of a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution to organize a new democratic system that would address the country’s current realities, including its plurinational character. The traditional clientelistic political parties, however, strongly opposed any reforms that would threaten their continuing chokehold on power. Furthermore, internal dissent among Indigenous activists continued to thwart the power of social movements to forward positive alternatives. In the aftermath of a failed electoral campaign, it remained to be seen whether Indigenous movements could regain on the streets what they had lost in the voting booth. Even with these setbacks, Indigenous movements still appeared to be best positioned to stop the savageness of neoliberalism, defend national sovereignty, and implement a true democracy.

NOTES Portions of this chapter are drawn from “Pachakutik and Indigenous Political Party Politics in Ecuador,” in Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy, ed. Richard Stahler-Sholk, Harry E. Vanden, and Glen Kuecker (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 165–80. 1. Miguel Lluco, “La capitulación de un presidente y la ruptura de una alianza,” in Entre la utopía y el desencanto: Pachakutik en el gobierno de Gutiérrez, ed. Augusto Barrera (Quito: Editorial Planeta del Ecuador, 2004), 19. 2. “Two Indigenous Candidates in the Race,” Latin American Weekly Report WR02-11 (March 12, 2002): 129. 3. Susana Andrade, “Gobiernos locales indígenas en el Ecuador,” Revista Andina 37, no. 2 (2003): 115–35.

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4. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Indigenous Candidates Aim for Congress,” Latinamerica Press 34, no. 21 (October 21, 2002): 6–7. 5. Amauta Jatari did not fare any better in local races, and in 2003 was removed from the electoral registration for its failure to run candidates in at least ten provinces. See Donna Lee Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 128, 136; Andrés Mateo Jarrín Cuvi, “Protestantism, the Indigenous, and Political Participation in Ecuador” (master’s thesis, University of California, San Diego, 2004), 101. 6. Lluco, “La capitulación de un presidente y la ruptura de una alianza,” 10. 7. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Indigenous Candidates Aim for Congress,” Latinamerica Press 34, no. 21 (October 21, 2002): 6–7. 8. Ruiz Hernández and Burguete Cal y Mayor, “Indigenous People without Political Parties: The Dilemma of Indigenous Representation in Latin America,” in Challenging Politics: Indigenous Peoples’ Experiences with Political Parties and Elections, ed. Kathrin Wessendorf (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 2001), 60. 9. Nina Pacari, “¿Qué hizo Gutiérrez en Estados Unidos?” Tintají 13 (primera quincena de noviembre de 2002): 4; Marc Becker, “Ecuador: Opposition to Wider Trade Pact Grows,” NACLA: Report on the Americas 36, no. 3 (November/December 2002): 1. 10. Kintto Lucas, Rafael Correa: Un extraño en Carondelet (Quito: Planeta, 2007), 95. 11. Juan Forero, “In Ecuador’s Banana Fields, Child Labor Is Key to Profits,” New York Times, July 13, 2002. 12. Ricardo Ulcuango, “Otro Congreso es posible,” Tintají 16 (primera quincena de enero de 2003): 2. 13. “Pachakutik con más respaldo popular,” Rikcharishun 19, no. 2 (December 2002): 3. 14. Scott H. Beck and Kenneth J. Mijeski, “The Indigenous Vote in Ecuador’s 2002 Presidential Election,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 1, no. 2 (September 2006): 166, 167. 15. William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 16. Alejandro Moreano, “El segundo triunfo del 21 de enero,” Tintají 12 (segunda quincena de octubre de 2002): 8. 17. Norman E. Whitten Jr., “Epilogue, 2003,” in Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics, ed. Norman E. Whitten Jr. (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003), 355. 18. James F. Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador (London: Pluto, 2005), 136. 19. “Alianza Pachakutik Sociedad Patriótica,” Rikcharishun 19, no. 2 (December 2002): 4. 20. César Cabrera, “Tenemos un gobierno, no el poder,” Tintají 17 (segunda quincena de enero de 2003): 3. 21. José Almeida Vinueza, “The Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement and the Gutiérrez Regime: The Traps of Multiculturalism,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 28, no. 1 (May 2005): 104. 22. “Rodrigo Paz,” Metrohoy (Quito), November 13, 2002.

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23. Carlos de la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Experience, Research in International Studies, no. 32 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 2000). 24. For an overview of the evolution of the relationship between Gutiérrez and Indigenous movements, see Kintto Lucas, El movimiento indigena y las acrobacias del coronel (Quito: La Pulga, 2003). 25. Pablo Dávalos, “Ganamos pero perdimos: Balance de lo logrado y problemas pendientes,” in Movimiento indígena en América Latina: Resistencia y proyecto alternativo, ed. Fabiola Escárzaga and Raquel Gutiérrez Aragón (Puebla and Mexico City: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Gobierno del Distrito Federal. Casa Juan Pablos, Centro Cultural, 2006), 2:234. 26. Miguel Lluco, “Acerca del Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik— Nuevo País,” in Escárzaga and Aragón, Movimiento indígena en América Latina, 130. 27. Lluco, “La capitulación de un presidente y la ruptura de una alianza,” 40. 28. Felipe Burbano de Lara, “Nuevos apellidos y . . . ?” Hoy, March 18, 2003. 29. Ela Zambrano, “Nuestra meta es la dignidad humana,” Tintají 18 (primera quincena de febrero de 2003): 4–5. 30. Karem Roitman, Race, Ethnicity, and Power in Ecuador: The Manipulation of Mestizaje (Boulder, CO: FirstForumPress, 2009), 168. 31. Pablo Dávalos, “Ecuador: Entre el neoliberalismo y la participación social,” América Latina en Movimiento 364 (February 11, 2003): 4. 32. “Gutiérrez Strives to Hold Coalition Together,” Andean Group Report RA-0302 (March 4, 2003): 4. 33. Ela Zambrano, “Las acrobacias de Lucio Gutiérrez,” Tintají 24 (segunda quincena de junio de 2003): 8. 34. Rafael Correa, “La política económica del gobierno de Lucio Gutiérrez,” Íconos 16 (May 2003): 6. 35. “Ecuadorean Coalition Looks Fragile as Pachakutik Row Escalates,” Andean Group Report RA-03-06 (July 29, 2003): 1. 36. Alejandro Moreano, “La política de ‘navegar al garete,’” Tintají 25 (primera quincena de julio de 2003): 2. 37. Petras and Veltmeyer, Social Movements and State Power, 136–37. 38. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), Mandato de la I Cumbre de las nacionalidades, pueblos y autoridades alternativas (Quito: CONAIE, 2003), 3. 39. “Linkup with the Right to Confront Borja,” Latin American Weekly Report WR03-25 (July 1, 2003): 296. 40. Leon Zamosc, “The Indian Movement in Ecuador: From Politics of Influence to Politics of Power,” in The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America, ed. Nancy Grey Postero and Leon Zamosc (Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2004), 149. 41. Fabiola Escárzaga and Raquel Gutiérrez Aragón, “Introducción,” in Escárzaga and Aragón, Movimiento indígena en América Latina, 23. 42. Inter Press Service and Latin American Data Base, “Allies No More,” Latinamerica Press 35, no. 16 (August 13, 2003): 2. 43. Miguel Guatemal, “La situación del movimiento indígena en Ecuador,” in Escárzaga and Aragón, Movimiento indígena en América Latina, 2:202, 2:204.

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44. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Turn to the Right,” Latinamerica Press 35, no. 17 (August 27, 2003): 1. 45. “Are Indigenous Uprisings the Latest Domino Theory?” Andean Group Report RA-03-09 (November 4, 2003): 7–9. 46. Pablo Dávalos, “Pachakutik: Crónica de una traición anunciada,” Tintají 29 (primera quincena de septiembre de 2003): 5. For extensive reflections by Pachakutik’s participants in Gutiérrez’s government and on the subsequent rupture in the alliance, see Augusto Barrera, ed., Entre la utopía y el desencanto: Pachakutik en el gobierno de Gutiérrez (Quito: Editorial Planeta del Ecuador, 2004). Also see Miguel Carvajal, “Pachakutik: La efimera experiencia de gobierno y las incógnitas sobre su futuro,” Íconos 18 (January 2004): 6–9; and Virgilio Hernández, “Gutiérrez: El signo de la frustración,” Íconos 18 (January 2004): 10–17. 47. Carlos de la Torre, “Nina Pacari, an Interview,” in The Ecuador Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Carlos de la Torre and Steve Striffler (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 279. 48. Felipe Burbano de Lara, “Deinstitutionalized Democracy,” in de la Torre and Striffler, The Ecuador Reader, 272. 49. R. R., “Pachakutik: Consensos y poder,” Tintají 31 (primera quincena de octubre de 2003): 2; Ylonka Tillería, “Retomaremos alianzas históricas,” Tintají 32 (segunda quincena de octubre de 2003): 4. 50. Francisco Hidalgo, “Tiempo de cambio y desafíos para el movimiento indígena ecuatoriano,” Wifala 1, no. 1 (2004): 53. 51. Guatemal, “La situación del movimiento indígena en Ecuador,” 2:202. Also see Donna Lee Van Cott, “Indigenous Movements Lose Momentum,” Current History 108, no. 715 (February 2009): 86. 52. NotiSur, “Ecuador: ‘Narcoscandal’ Threatens President,” NACLA Report on the Americas 37, no. 4 (January/February 2004): 1–2, 44; Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Gutiérrez Entrenched in Power,” Latinamerica Press 36, no. 1 (January 14, 2004): 4–5. 53. Atilio A. Boron, “Promises and Challenges: The Latin American Left at the Start of the Twenty-First Century,” in The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn, ed. Patrick S. Barrett, Daniel Chavez, and César A. Rodríguez Garavito (London: Pluto, 2008), 246–47. 54. Marc Becker, “Ecuador: Indigenous Movement under Attack,” NACLA, February 2004. 55. Kintto Lucas, “¿El retorno de los ponchos?” Tintají 39 (segunda quincena de febrero de 2004): 8. 56. José Antonio Lucero, Struggles of Voice: The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes, Pitt Latin American Series (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 154. 57. Luis Angel Saavedra, “A Survivor in Power,” Latinamerica Press 36, no. 24 (December 1, 2004): 1–2; José Antonio Lucero, “Representing ‘Real Indians’: The Challenges of Indigenous Authenticity and Strategic Constructivism in Ecuador and Bolivia,” Latin American Research Review 41, no. 2 (2006): 31–32. For criticisms of Vargas, see Ylonka Tillería, “¿Qué mantiene a Bolívar González y Antonio Vargas?” Tintají 65 (primera quincena de abril de 2005): 8.

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58. Floresmilo Simbaña, “Plurinacionalidad y derechos colectivos. El caso ecuatoriano,” in Pueblos indígenas, estado y democracia, ed. Pablo Dávalos (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2005), 209. 59. Francisco Sánchez López, ¿Democracia no lograda o democracia malograda? Un análisis del sistema político del Ecuador, 1979–2002 (Quito: FLACSO Ecuador, 2008), 218. 60. Luis Angel Saavedra, “Gutiérrez on the Tightrope?” Latinamerica Press 36, no. 12 (June 16, 2004): 4–5. 61. Kintto Lucas, “Un ensayo de lucidez,” Tintají 47 (segunda quincena de junio de 2004): 2. 62. Petras and Veltmeyer, Social Movements and State Power, 165. 63. Sánchez, ¿Democracia no lograda o democracia malograda? 65. 64. Eduardo Tamayo G., “Ecuador: Crisis institucional,” América Latina en Movimiento 393 (February 24, 2005): 4. 65. Santiago Ortiz Crespo, “La encrucijada de Pachakutik,” Tintají 57 (segunda quincena de noviembre de 2004): 5. 66. John D. Cameron, “Municipal Democratization and Rural Development in Highland Ecuador,” in Rural Progress, Rural Decay: Neoliberal Adjustment Policies and Local Initiatives, ed. Liisa L. North and John D. Cameron (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2003), 164–86. 67. “Evaluación de la participación electoral,” Rikcharishun Edición Especial (December 2004): 16. 68. Ricardo Ulcuango, “Al árbol se lo conoce por sus frutos,” Tintají 59 (primera quincena de enero de 2005): 4. 69. Luis Macas, “En el camino de Rumiñahui,” Tintají 60 (segunda quincena de enero de 2005): Suplemento especial. 70. Pedro de la Cruz, “Enfrentar a Noboa y construir la unidad de los Pueblos,” Renovación 4 (November/December 2006): 59. 71. Sally Burch, “Ecuador: ¿Vientos de cambio?” América Latina en Movimiento 395 (April 27, 2005): 1–3; Eduardo Tamayo G. and Helga Serrano, “Ecuador: La revuelta de ‘los forajidos,’” América Latina en Movimiento 395 (April 27, 2005): 3–5; Alberto Acosta, “La rebelión de los forajidos,” Tintají 66 (segunda quincena de abril de 2005): 2–3; Luis Ángel Saavedra, “The Rebellion of ‘The Outlaws,’” Latinamerica Press 37, no. 9 (May 4, 2005): 1–2; Gerardo Merino, Abril, bombas mil: La represión desde el poder (Quito: Abya-Yala; CEDHU, 2005). 72. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Democracy in Coma,” Latinamerica Press 37, no. 7 (April 6, 2005): 3–4. At the same time, charges were lifted against former president Gustavo Noboa (2000–2003) and former vice president Alberto Dahik (1992– 1995). 73. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 27. 74. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 37. 75. “Palacio Retreats: Back to Consultations,” Latin American Weekly Report WR05-30 (August 2, 2005); Tintají 73 (primera quincena de agosto de 2005). 76. Humberto Cholango, “Evaluación de la movilización,” Rikcharishun 34, no. 3 (March/April 2006): 7; Eduardo Tamayo G., “Contundente movilización indígena contra TLC en Ecuador,” América Latina en Movimiento 406 (March 29, 2006): 1–2, 6. For a participant-level perspective on this strike, see chapter 10,

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“Uprising, 2006,” in Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Fighting Like a Community: Andean Civil Society in an Era of Indian Uprisings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 175–201. 77. Tamayo, “Contundente movilización indígena contra TLC en Ecuador,” 1–2, 6. 78. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 67. 79. Comisión Comunicación, II Congreso, “Resoluciones tomadas,” Rikcharishun 34, no. 5 (May 2006): 5. 80. Raúl Zibechi, “Indigenous Movements: Between Neoliberalism and Leftist Governments,” IRC Americas Program (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, May 3, 2006), 1.

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Rafael Correa waves during a parade at his August 2009 inauguration for a second term as president (Patricio Realpe/ANPE)

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6 A Citizens’ Revolution

With the trauma of its involvement in Gutiérrez’s government still echoing throughout Pachakutik’s ranks, intense deliberations once again raged over whom to support as a presidential candidate in October 2006, and even whether to enter the race again. A key debate was whether to run an Indigenous candidate such as Luis Macas or Auki Tituaña, or whether to support someone from outside the movement who enjoyed broad popular support, as Pachakutik had done with Freddy Ehlers in 1996 or Lucio Gutiérrez in 2002. Rafael Correa, who was attempting to build alliances outside of the traditional political parties, was the one who was most commonly mentioned as a possible candidate. In an editorial in the Quiteño daily newspaper Hoy, Felipe Burbano de Lara argued that this dispute went to the heart of the conceptualization of Pachakutik. Should it convert itself into an Indigenous party, or retain its original structure as a multiethnic political movement? Pointing to the key role that Indigenous movements played in Ecuador, Barbano noted that it was very difficult to think of a renewed left without the participation of Indigenous peoples. Similarly, if Indigenous peoples did not join a broader leftist movement, they threatened to do little more than isolate themselves from wider political movements.1 Caught between this rock and a hard place, social movements searched for a path forward.

THE PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado first gained national attention during his short-lived stint in 2005 as finance minister under the previous president 103

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Alfredo Palacio. Correa, who earned a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and wrote a dissertation attacking the Washington Consensus, was a strong opponent of free trade agreements with the United States.2 Martin Hart-Landsberg cautions, however, that an anti-neoliberal stance should not be confused with anticapitalist politics, and Correa approached his critique from a nationalist and Keynesian rather than Marxist perspective.3 Upon returning to Ecuador, Correa taught economic theory at the elite private Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ, San Francisco of Quito University) and at the postgraduate studies center Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO, Latin American Social Sciences Institute). As finance minister, Correa advocated poverty-reduction programs and closer relations with Chávez’s government in Venezuela. After four months, tensions with Palacio led the much more radical Correa—who was by far the most popular member of the government—to resign under pressure from the United States after attempting to negotiate an economic agreement with Venezuela.4 Correa left office with the highest approval ratings of any official in the administration. His harsh criticism of previous dollarization and neoliberal policies made him a darling to many activists, who soon forwarded his name as a prospective candidate for the 2006 presidential elections. For the strong and well-organized Indigenous movements, Correa quickly became a controversial and divisive candidate. A devout Catholic, he had worked for a year in a Salesian mission in the community of Zumbahua in the central highland province of Cotopaxi; this work granted him a certain amount of legitimacy in the eyes of popular movements. But he was not an Indigenous person nor did he emerge out of social movement organizing, but rather out of a Catholic left influenced by liberation theology that was motivated by concerns for social justice. Correa had participated in Christian Base Communities and readily acknowledged that his political philosophy had been shaped by the social doctrine of the church. At first Correa presented himself as speaking Kichwa—for example, he used phrases on the campaign trail—but later acknowledged that he spoke very little and had forgotten most of what he had learned.5 Correa, as well as other middleclass supporters and advisers, was very slow to support social movements and their central demands, which included canceling the contract with Occidental Petroleum, closing the U.S. base at Manta, and holding a plebiscite on FTAs. When Correa came to support some of their demands, such as holding a constituent assembly, he did so in an opportunistic fashion that co-opted a key issue and undermined the strength of social movements. Correa’s candidacy raised questions among social movement activists as to whether they should support someone from within their movements, or whether they should ally with a nominee with broader popular visibility and appeal. Guillermo Navarro Jiménez, for example, criticized Rafael

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Correa and León Roldós, another leading candidate, for representing the traditional Christian democratic and social democratic forces that had done so much damage to the country over the past three decades. Instead, he advocated that the left should forward its own autonomous candidate. He proposed that CONAIE, as representative of the strongest leftist force in Ecuador, name the presidential candidate, and that his party, the Maoist Movimiento Popular Democrático (MPD, Popular Democratic Movement), as the second-largest leftist force, name the vice presidential candidate.6 Leading up to the 2006 elections, Correa and Pachakutik discussed forming an alliance. Some observers dreamed of a shared ticket between Correa and a historic Indigenous leader such as Luis Macas. Indigenous activists wanted to put their leader in the presidential slot, but Correa refused to consider running as vice president. Some grassroots activists argued in favor of jumping at the chance to join a ticket, even as a junior partner, that had strong popular appeal and stood a good chance of winning. They thought it would be a serious strategic mistake to pass on this opportunity. The attempts at building an alliance, however, quickly ran into complications. Rather than opening a dialogue with CONAIE on the basis of Indigenous principles of collective decision making, Correa approached individual leaders in Pachakutik as if he were planning to broker a deal with a traditional political party. In September 2005, Correa showed up uninvited at a Pachakutik congress and gave a speech in Kichwa. Delegates interpreted his actions as a folklorization of their political concerns, and to underscore the ridiculousness of Correa’s actions, Tituaña, whom Pachakutik was still seriously considering running for the presidency, replied to him in English. It was the beginning of the end of relations between Correa and Indigenous movements.7 Ulcuango and Cholango compared Correa to Gutiérrez, complaining that his actions were deeply fracturing Indigenous movements. After the fiasco from the alliance with Gutiérrez, Pachakutik remained leery of entering into relations with someone from outside its ranks. The former colonel exploited clientelistic networks to gain strong support in rural communities, with the result that Gutiérrez had deeply divided Indigenous movements. Pachakutik had paid dearly for that mistake, and activists feared that Correa would have a similar impact on their bases. Sociologist Carlos de la Torre notes that Correa managed to accomplish what Gutiérrez could not: “divide and weaken the Indigenous movement.” Pointing to parallels with Velasco Ibarra and criticizing Correa’s use of populist symbols and strategies, de la Torre argues that “Indigenous leaders do not have any reason to trust outsiders.”8 Lucas accuses Correa of deliberately stirring up conflicts among Indigenous sectors in order to advance his candidacy, condemning him for putting his personal electoral interests ahead of those of a social movement.9

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In response to these criticisms, Correa closed off dialogues with Pachakutik over possible alliances, even if doing so meant losing the support of one of the most organized sectors of civil society. Correa subsequently harbored a certain amount of resentment toward organized Indigenous movements for refusing to support his candidacy. Macas proclaimed that in contrast to Correa, “ours is not a three-month project.” He continued to explain that “our political project has a long history, built with years of struggle and humility, not with words, much less with vanity. Correa will pass as Gutiérrez passed, how all presidents and presidential candidates pass; the indigenous movement will stay.”10 Others worried that splitting the popular vote only opened the way for right-wing candidates to gain power. Pachakutik’s position underscored that Indigenous efforts—whether on the streets or in the voting booth—were unlikely to succeed without support from other sectors of Ecuador’s diverse social movements. Tituaña, in particular, had a reputation as an honest and capable local leader as mayor of Cotacachi, but he lacked the national exposure for a successful presidential run. Correa had national exposure and broad popularity, but too many people questioned whether he was ideologically committed to Pachakutik’s center-left agenda. Macas was well known for his long trajectory as an Indigenous leader, but given his record in the Andean Parliament race in the previous election, it was questionable whether he could draw national support.11 At first Macas discarded suggestions that he should run for the presidency; he was determined to stay at the head of CONAIE in its struggles against free trade pacts. Macas also argued that before engaging in electoral campaigns the country desperately needed a new constitution to address fundamental problems that kept leading to failures of state structures. He then proposed holding a primary in order for the left to run one unified campaign, but other parties rejected this proposal, preferring instead to run their own campaigns—and almost certainly assuring that none of the leftist candidates would make it to the second-round vote or the presidency.12 Interviews with political leaders revealed a deeply fractured left.13 Commentators pondered whether it was worth entering the electoral arena under these conditions. They criticized the left for its apparent fear of democracy, and argued that a primary was the only mechanism to arrive at a unified and legitimate candidate.14 Lucas points to this failure as a lost opportunity to consolidate the left and its political project. With a unified candidate, the left would have started its campaign with perhaps 10 percent of the popular support. While perhaps this does not sound like much, in the context of Ecuador’s fractured political environment it represented a significant share from which to build a strong campaign.15 Vanity and sectarian interests triumphed over a unified struggle for social justice.

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In May 2006, Pachakutik nominated Macas as its candidate with the philosophy that it had paid too high a price in forming alliances with political forces outside its own movement. At an April congress in Cañar, Ecuarunari had strongly pressed for a Macas candidacy. “For the first time in history,” Cholango stated, “an Indigenous person emerges out of social spaces, from the most marginalized organizations in the country to represent social sectors that are looking for better ways.”16 Ecuarunari’s support pushed Pachakutik into nominating Macas even though many grassroots members still favored supporting a Correa candidacy. For the first time, Pachakutik would run not only someone from within the ranks of Pachakutik but also a longtime Indigenous leader. Macas formally launched his campaign with an ethnic flourish at the Inti Raymi (June solstice Sun Festival) celebrations at the Puntiachil archaeological site in Cayambe. First in Kichwa and then in Spanish, Macas invoked the memories of Tupak Amaru and Atahualpa. “Today true politics are reborn,” Macas proclaimed. “Politics of our communities, politics of honesty.”17 Given the regional divisions in Ecuador, candidates commonly selected a running mate from a different region of the country in order to broaden their own electoral appeal. Macas selected César Sacoto, a mestizo lawyer and economist from coastal Guayaquil who had worked with the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel foreign debts. Macas announced that their plan of government would be based on nationalizing natural resources, recuperating dignity, ending corruption, and calling a constituent assembly.18 Activists from the coast and Amazon publicly disagreed with a Macas candidacy, preferring instead to support Correa, while Pachakutik’s leaders pleaded with its bases to respect the movement’s decisions. Party members on the coast complained that Macas had ignored them while serving as agricultural minister in Gutiérrez’s government. Some of these dissidents had already made agreements to support Correa’s candidacy, and they did all they could to sabotage Macas’s candidacy. Rather than helping Correa, however, they mostly triggered greater antagonism toward him from organized Indigenous movements.19 Pachakutik also alienated many of its mestizo supporters, as it took an ethnic turn toward becoming a more explicitly Indigenous party. High-profile defections of leaders such as Virgilio Hernández and Augusto Barrera, who left in protest of the closing of previously shared spaces, inevitably hurt the movement’s electoral prospects. As Pachakutik lost its multicultural origins, some of these former militants became Correa supporters. Two different visions for Pachakutik that had always been present became more pronounced: one that Indigenous activists should be in charge and set the agenda for the movement, and a competing one that it should remain open as a shared space for broader social movements with similar visions of

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economic and social justice. Critics complained that Pachakutik was never able to move beyond regional divisions. Even though the coastal provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas had plenty of impoverished urban dwellers, and Afro-Ecuadorians should have formed a logical base of support for a grassroots political movement allied with social movements, Pachakutik never had much of a presence there. These fractures also emerged in local contests. In Otavalo, the popular mayor Mario Conejo left Pachakutik to win reelection with his own movement, Minga Intercultural. Conejo complained that in its turn toward “indianization,” Pachakutik was closing shared spaces that previously had been open to everyone, not just Indigenous peoples. In using the Kichwa word minga, a concept deeply imbued with Indigenous symbolism that refers to a communal work party, Conejo declared that he was returning to the original intercultural concepts that had underscored Pachakutik’s founding. A hard line within Otavalo’s Indigenous movement vocally denounced Conejo’s defection, with militants calling Conejo a traitor and opportunist. Carmen Yamberla, president of CONAIE’s local affiliate FICI, ran against Conejo for mayor on her own electoral vehicle Valle del Amanecer (the Awakening Valley, a traditional term to describe Otavalo), but lost badly. Yamberla and her supporters subsequently pointed to deeply underlying race and class divisions in Otavalo to explain her defeat. Whereas Conejo drew on the privileges inherent in an urban, educated, wealthy, mestizo world, Yamberla campaigned on behalf of the poor, rural, marginalized, Indigenous sectors. Political scientist Rickard Lalander convincingly argues, however, that the true underlying issue was whether Indigenous candidates should run alone on an ethnic platform or in alliances with other sectors of society, and that frankly ethnic-based parties simply do not work.20 During the presidential campaign, Macas criticized Correa for pursuing a “citizens’ revolution” as part of a liberal, individualistic model that did not provide a fundamental ideological break with the neoliberal past. In contrast, Indigenous movements pressed for a “constituent revolution” to rewrite the structures of government to be more inclusive. Correa co-opted the issue of convoking a constituent assembly from Indigenous militants, consolidating his control and leaving Pachakutik as an increasingly marginalized and irrelevant political force. Even though Correa kept a distance from social movements, he recognized a certain value in maintaining relations with Indigenous organizations, including exploiting the rhetorical devices that they had developed. Nevertheless, Timo Schaefer argues that Correa defeated Pachakutik by appropriating the Indigenous anti-neoliberal discourse that was least connected to its ethnic or cultural demands.21 “Alliances are still the way to go, in the future,” anthropologist Fernando García argues. “However, not alliances with the main political parties, but with civil society organisations that want to rebuild the strength of the

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left, and which support the movement’s political platform.”22 Pachakutik coordinator Gilberto Talahua emphasized that as a political movement of collective social sectors such as CONAIE and Ecuarunari, Pachakutik was fundamentally different from center-left parties that people joined on an individual basis. Organizationally, Pachakutik utilized a collective decision-making process in contrast to the vertical nature of traditional leftist political parties.23 According to this line of thought, previous problems resulted not from engaging electoral politics, but from running candidates not tightly integrated into social movements, which led to fractures.24 Even so, Pachakutik failed to gain popular support, and lagged behind presidential candidates from traditional parties representing oligarchical interests. Even within Indigenous communities, Pachakutik could not count on unqualified popular support. In another surprising development, former Amauta Jatari candidate Antonio Vargas returned to Pachakutik after a shamanistic ritual cleansing to run for Congress from his native Amazonian province of Pastaza. Grassroots activists wondered how a discredited leader could return to the fold seemingly without any sanctions. Talahua called Vargas “shameless” and announced that Vargas would lead the congressional slate from Pastaza “over his [Talahua’s] dead body.” Vargas eventually ran for Congress unsuccessfully under a different, local political movement. Nevertheless, the strong local support he continued to enjoy reflected a deeply split movement.25 A record seventeen presidential candidates registered for the October 15 presidential elections, almost guaranteeing that no candidate would win a majority and thereby requiring a November 26 runoff election. June polls placed centrist León Roldós running under an ID coalition in the lead with 23 percent, followed by conservative Cynthia Viteri from the PSC with 16 percent. A large number of voters remained undecided, and some observers predicted that a plurality of votes would be blank or spoiled. The final results flipped what the early opinion polls had indicated. Álvaro Noboa of the conservative PRIAN, who had previously never registered higher than 15 percent support, came in first with almost 27 percent of the vote. In a seeming repeat of the 2002 elections, Noboa once again would face off against a left-populist, this time Correa, who came in second with 23 percent. Noboa mobilized his extensive business networks in support of his candidacy, and used his private philanthropic foundation to give politically motivated handouts to potential supporters. For many marginalized peoples, however, his actions came off looking like those of a condescending oligarch.26 Perhaps the biggest losers were traditional political parties including the ID and PSC. Despite leading in initial polls, their candidates Roldós and Viteri came in fourth (15 percent) and fifth (10 percent), with a corresponding decline in congressional strength. The politics of antipolitics seemed to be

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the dominant force. The 2006 campaign reflected deep political fractures not only among Indigenous movements but also among right-wing, populist, and progressive political parties. “A new political crisis is lurking,” Humberto Cholango commented. Many observers agreed with his assessment that “more turmoil is on the way,” and held little hope that a new government, like all the previous ones over the past ten years, could last out its four-year term in office.27 Ecuador was poised to continue to suffer from a series of weak governments and more political instability. The country seemed to be declining into deeper political chaos and possibly even violence. From the first opinion polls, Macas ranked last with about 1 percent of the vote—faring about as well as Antonio Vargas did in his discredited 2002 campaign.28 Racial discrimination seemed to be an ongoing problem, with the media often ignoring Macas’s candidacy.29 Lucas adds that the campaign was plagued by a variety of problems, including a lack of funds (Macas spent $4,000 on advertisements, compared to millions of dollars in the other campaigns) and a failure of imagination to take advantage of the current political situation. Pachakutik continued to suffer internal divisions and conflict; entering the electoral realm meant that Indigenous movements had “absorbed all of the vices of the political system,” Lucas observes.30 Nevertheless, Macas ran a serious and dedicated campaign. “Our electoral campaign is part of a national mobilization in defense of sovereignty, biodiversity, and natural resources,” he declared. “To realize changes in government, it is necessary to have the backing of a strongly mobilized society that will guarantee these changes.”31 Despite large rallies in rural areas, Macas came in sixth place in the election with a dismal 2 percent of the vote. “When it comes to the vote, it appears that most of the indigenous population does not trust one of their own,” journalist Richard Gott wrote. “They clearly prefer to vote for a white man, who, they probably believe, may well be able to deliver the jobs and housing that they crave.”32 Despite such allegations of racism, Macas very well may have performed so poorly not because he was an Indigenous candidate but because Pachakutik’s ethnicist turn had cut the political movement off from the alliances and successful coalition building that had previously built it into a viable electoral vehicle. Macas’s disastrous loss the year after the Indigenous candidate Evo Morales won an overwhelming victory in Bolivia pointed to a reversal in the political fortunes of social movement organizing in the two countries.33 In contrast to its strong mobilizations against Occidental Petroleum and FTAs in March, the Indigenous movement’s weak electoral showing seemed to underscore that it was more effective as a social rather than electoral movement. After a decade of struggle, CONAIE seemed to have little to show for having entered the realm of electoral politics.

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Much of Macas’s perceived base voted for Gilmar Gutiérrez, who ran in place of his brother Lucio, who had been barred from the campaign. Gutiérrez finished in a surprisingly strong position: third place, with 17 percent of the vote. According to an analysis by Kenneth Mijeski and Scott Beck, only about a quarter of the Indigenous population voted for Macas, whereas almost half voted for Gutiérrez, largely because of his skill in using patronage in rural communities to garner votes.34 Echoes of the previous alliance with the Gutiérrez government seemed to have destroyed Indigenous unity. One commentator noted that the Indigenous vote had “gone up in smoke.”35 Reversing earlier gains, Pachakutik also performed poorly in congressional races, dropping from 10 seats in the previous Congress to only 6. It appeared to have lost its political initiative and to be in the process of declining into a minority special-interest party. Despite their difficulties in gaining traction for their presidential candidates, conservative parties representing traditional oligarchical interests still held dominance in Congress, where the voting was done on a provincial level. The PRIAN had the largest representation with 28 delegates; the PSP had 24 and the PSC, 12. Other leftist parties did worse than Pachakutik, with the MPD gaining only 3 seats and the Partido Socialista-Frente Amplio (PS-FA, Socialist Party-Broad Front, an alliance formed from the fusion in 1996 of the former Socialist and Communist parties), only 1. Indigenous fragmentation was due to a variety of factors, including the growing strength of evangelical churches in areas such as Chimborazo that were home to a high concentration of Indigenous peoples, and the growth of cliental politics and development projects that led to a depoliticization of the population. Nevertheless, Pachakutik’s vote remained high in regions such as Cayambe, which had a long history of radical Communist-oriented political organizing.36 Correa polled even worse than Macas in Indigenous communities, but he gained much more support among mestizos; this gave him the margin necessary to become a competitive candidate. But Macas’s dismal showing led Correa to denigrate CONAIE as an insignificant political force, and one he would not need to court to remain in power. In the second round, citing the threat of Noboa’s alliance with imperial and oligarchical interests, Pachakutik announced its unconditional support for Correa’s candidacy. Correa promised his supporters a radical restructuring of the government as a solution to problems of social exclusion and economic injustice. As journalist Cyril Mychalejko observed, the election offered a choice between Noboa and a neoliberal past, and a future with Correa and the promises of social movements.37 Despite hesitations, it initially appeared that Correa’s and Pachakutik’s political interests would coincide. At the same time, further damaging Pachakutik’s hegemonic presence in rural communities, Gutiérrez initially allied with his former opponent

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Noboa, thereby bringing his Indigenous base against Pachakutik’s current ally Correa. In the November 26 runoff election, Correa scored a decisive victory, winning 56 percent of the vote to Noboa’s 43 percent. In a deeply divided country, Correa presented his political project as one of a few with a truly national reach.38 Carlos de la Torre and Catherine Conaghan credit Correa’s victory to a hybrid campaign, in the sense of blending classic populist discourse with forward-looking calls for change, as well as combining traditional grassroots and clientelistic organizing strategies with the use of modern information technology to communicate his message. The campaign between Correa and Noboa presented “two radically different paradigms of how to govern Ecuador: one that offered an ambitious leftist transformation and one that stood irrevocably opposed to it.” The election had become “a historic referendum on their country’s future.”39 Militant Indigenous activists who had opposed Correa in the first round now greeted his victory with joy. “Correa coincides with our struggles,” Ecuarunari president Humberto Cholango wrote in the Ecuarunari newspaper Rikcharishun. “We ask him to deliver on the changes he promised in his campaign.”40 Indigenous leaders embraced Correa’s triumph as a blow against neoliberalism and hoped that the presidency would open up possibilities for a more participatory democracy. “Ecuador has begun its revolution,” Ecuarunari declared in a press release. “The compañero president Rafael Correa has announced that we will recover our natural resources.”41 Their cheer paralleled that with which they greeted Gutiérrez’s victory four years earlier. History seemed to be repeating itself.

INAUGURATION In his January 15, 2007, inaugural address, Correa denounced “neoliberal globalization that would turn countries into markets, not nations,” and called for an end to “the culture of indebtedness.” Correa defined five key axes of his citizens’ revolution that included calling for a constitutional assembly, fighting against corruption, opposing neoliberal economic policies, increasing funding for health and education, and promoting regional integration.42 He refused to sign agreements with the IMF and resisted free trade pacts with the United States. Correa repeatedly attacked the business oligarchy, pledged reforms that would benefit the country’s poor, and promised to work to create a more just society. He promised to leave the “long neoliberal night” behind and to replace a market with a solidarity economy that empowered the grass roots and responded to local needs rather than distant, wealthy corporations.43 His government, Correa assured

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supporters, would be “of the exploited, not the exploiters.”44 This rhetoric seemed to be in line with that of popular movements. Condemning the established partidocracia (party-ocracy, or party dominance) as part of the problem that Ecuador faced, and considering Congress to be corrupt and ineffective, Correa had decided to run for office as an independent candidate and not in alliance with a party. Instead, he created a new political movement called Alianza País (AP, Country Alliance, sometimes called Acuerdo País, or Country Accord, with “país” also serving as an acronym for Patria Altiva y Soberana, “Proud and Sovereign Homeland”) as a vehicle for his presidential campaign. The only political party that had endorsed his candidacy was the PS-FA. Furthermore, he had campaigned alone, without a slate of congressional candidates. This assured that if he were elected he would face an antagonistic Congress. Rather than being bothered by this potential fate, Correa pledged that his first act as president would be to convoke a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. He could then call for new elections that would reaffirm him in office and provide for a more sympathetic legislature. Since Correa ran alone on the presidential ticket and lacked allies in Congress, he did not hesitate to dismiss Congress and grant a new assembly full legislative powers. Considering how extremely unpopular Congress was, the idea of dissolving the body did not meet with much popular resistance, and in fact may have been part of a calculated ploy to consolidate his base of support. Correa followed the path that Hugo Chávez took in Venezuela after winning the 1998 election. Like Correa, Chávez had run as an independent without the support of a traditional political party. Chávez had similarly complained about Venezuela’s “partidocracia” in which the dominant parties monopolized political spaces to the exclusion of the masses, and he sought to use a constituent assembly to open up new spaces for participatory democracy.45 Chávez had leveraged his election into the drafting of a new constitution that so thoroughly altered governing structures that it required new elections for both Congress and the presidency. In the context of the collapse of the traditional political elite’s monopoly on power and the emergence of new sectors of civil society, marginalized peoples fundamentally remade Venezuela’s political and social landscape. In an unprecedented move, Indigenous delegates received a constitutional guarantee of three seats in the assembly even though they numbered less than 2 percent of Venezuela’s population. The 1999 constitution also included a special chapter that recognized and defended the rights of Indigenous peoples. Chávez had become a key Indigenous ally. As with many presidents in South America, Correa began his mandate with impressively high approval ratings. Some polls put his support at as much as 90 percent, due largely to perceptions that he was following

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through with his campaign promises to convoke a constituent assembly to remake the country’s structures and to increase social services.46 Often these honeymoons are brief before difficult and controversial decisions erode presidential bases of support. A year into his term and with the economy betraying disappointing growth indicators, however, Correa’s popularity still hovered around an impressive 60 percent.47 Despite repeated challenges from the left, on January 15, 2009, Correa completed his second year in office with a stunningly high approval rating of 70 percent.48 Polling firms subsequently provided widely divergent approval ratings, but all of them rated Correa as more popular than any other president since Ecuador’s return to civilian rule in 1979. His sustained level of support rivaled that of Chávez and, similar to his counterpart in Venezuela, Correa faced no serious opponents to his hold on power. In contrast to Ecuador’s history of political instability, Correa appeared to have discovered a winning strategy. Even as the president enjoyed high approval ratings, the discredited Congress (including Pachakutik’s delegates) rated as low as 13 percent.49 When Correa assumed the presidency, many questioned whether he would be able to complete his four-year term, especially since it had been more than a decade since a government had survived the full tenure of its mandate. Some observers believed that Ecuador needed a stronger executive to solve continual problems of instability, including defending itself from external economic forces and neoliberal threats.50 Other activists feared that heightened executive power would come at a cost to the ability of social movements to influence policy decisions. Furthermore, they were concerned that increased state power handed to a sympathetic president could just as easily be used against them if conservatives regained power. Correa, they worried, may have unwittingly laid the groundwork for a new round of authoritarian governments that would lead to disastrous results for popular movements. Broad executive mandates were not necessarily in the best interests of social movements. Pachakutik delegate Ramssés Torres complained that Correa wanted a “submissive and obsequious congress that would not monitor his government.”51 Perhaps civil society could be better served by the checks that an independent Congress could provide on executive power. Even though Correa denied that he was engaging in a cult of personality, from the perspective of social movements the consolidation of power in the hands of a strong and seemingly egotistical president meant that they would lose access to the spaces necessary to press their own agendas.52 Correa’s personal charisma and left-populist discourse demobilized the left, leaving popular movements in a worse situation than when he had taken power. Correa’s cabinet reflected the tensions between his government and social movements. Only a couple of his ministers, most notably Alberto Acosta as head of Energy and Mines and Ricardo Patiño in Finance, received broad

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leftist support. Others were greeted with jeers, which led Correa to angrily denounce his supporters as infiltrators and extremists. Correa’s intemperate reactions led observers to criticize his lack of humility and apparent inability to accept criticism. His selection of advisers also raised questions of whether he would rule with the support of social movements, or with an intimate group of close friends and family members. These problems foreshadowed subsequent difficulties that Correa would have interacting with social movement organizations.53 Unlike with Gutiérrez, representatives of Indigenous movements were largely excluded from Correa’s government. Correa did not invite Pachakutik militants into the key central circles of his government, and after their disastrous experience in Gutiérrez’s government they did not have much desire to press for such positions. Correa was more sophisticated than Gutiérrez in manipulating movements, and activists feared that spaces were closing for social movements. Left-wing Indigenous activists continued to distance themselves from Correa’s government, and there emerged a division that might never be bridged. Correa emerged as president at a point at which popular movements had created a new correlation of forces in South America. Supporters greeted Correa’s election as “a revolution from below, a popular awakening that is challenging the traditional political parties and demanding a new system of governance that responds to the interests and needs of the popular classes.”54 Correa, however, did not emerge out of popular organizing efforts (he was an economist and college professor before becoming president). Social movement leaders questioned whether Correa was ideologically committed to their leftist political agenda. Was he, activists worried, a populist who would opportunistically exploit social movement rhetoric to gain election only to rule in favor of the oligarchy once in office? Given Ecuador’s long history of populist leaders from José María Velasco Ibarra to Abdalá Bucaram, this was a very real and serious concern. Or could his populism, as Ernesto Laclau posited, create a critical juncture that would open up the political system that would move society in a more radical and leftist direction, as arguably happened in Venezuela under Chávez?55 Was Correa part of what political scientist Claudio Katz termed the “modern and civilized left” as symbolized by the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil or Michelle Bachelet in Chile, or a “left nationalist or radical reformist” trend led by Chávez and Morales in Bolivia?56 George Ciccariello-Maher argues in favor of a Leninist concept of “dual power” in which “the revolutionary transformation of existing repressive structures” occurs simultaneously through the actions of a centralized state power from above and through the popular initiatives of people from below. Ciccariello-Maher points to the emergence of communal councils in Venezuela as a positive example of the possibilities of autonomous, alternative power structures, and the checks it provides against top-down manifestations

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of power.57 While Chávez welcomed and embraced these popular initiatives, Correa felt threatened by them and tried to squash them or bring them under his control. Van Cott argues that a decade of Indigenous engagement with electoral democracy highlights both the promises of local governance and the limitations of the potential benefits of participatory democracy. Social movement pressure must be kept up to ensure political party compliance with popular demands, even if those parties are allied with Indigenous movements and have pledged to deepen democracy.58

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY SOCIALISM Militant members of social movements in Ecuador were drawn to Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and the promises and spaces it provided to civil society. Echoing Chávez’s rhetoric, Correa was very eager also to speak of introducing socialism for the twenty-first century into Ecuador. Nevertheless, like Chávez, Correa was never very clear what precisely he meant by this term and remained vague on the details of what this socialism would look like. Some spoke of it as a postcapitalism, or perhaps a post-neoliberalism, understanding neoliberalism as simply the current phase of capitalism.59 For that to be the case, however, the government would need to make a clear break with capitalism, or at least neoliberalism. Often both Chávez and Correa defined twenty-first-century socialism in terms of what it was not. This new form of socialism “differs totally from the idea of state control over the means of production and traditional socialism,” Correa said.60 Other than ambiguous comments about curtailing the power of Congress, depoliticizing the judiciary, expanding government control of natural resources, and democratizing the media, this type of socialism generally lacked concrete proposals as to what it would do.61 This led Sousa Santos to define twenty-first-century socialism succinctly as “a metaphor for something to which one aspires but does not know exactly what it is.”62 During a January 2009 trip to Cuba, Correa rejected the “dogmas history has defeated,” including “the class struggle, dialectical materialism, the nationalization of all property, the refusal to recognize the market.”63 Discarding key elements traditionally associated with socialism while failing to identify alternative visions raised questions as to what exactly Correa meant by twenty-first-century socialism. Chávez faced similar criticisms. At the 2005 World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where Chávez first spoke of the Bolivarian revolution as Socialist, he said that new solutions must be more humanistic, more pluralistic, and less dependent on the state. Nevertheless, both Chávez and Correa relied on strong governmental control in order to advance their political agendas.

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In conversations with German sociologist and political analyst Heinz Dieterich, who is credited with coining the term “socialism of the twentyfirst century,” Correa acknowledged that “almost no one can define it” even while it was urgent to move in that direction. Correa noted that these current ideas on socialism needed to be situated in a pluralistic tradition of many different kinds of socialism: classic, orthodox, traditional, scientific, utopian, agrarian, Christian, and even the Andean socialism of José Carlos Maríategui. When asked what flavor of socialism he belonged to, Correa responded that it was the Ecuadorian version. Even though this new socialism shared similar values with classic socialism of social justice and placed human needs over capital, Correa said that in the twenty-first century a class struggle and government control over the means of production were no longer necessary. Instead, it was more important to democratize the means of production, speak of Latin American integration rather than anti-imperialism, and fight for sovereignty in the face of attempts of international finance institutions to recolonize Latin America. Finally, the socialism should not be dogmatic, and think in terms of principles rather than models.64 Furthermore, Correa opportunistically allied himself with other leftist leaders when doing so seemed to serve his purposes. In August 2009, news outlets beamed Correa’s picture around the world when he met with Fidel Castro in one of the Cuban leader’s few public appearances.65 This positioning led many observers to see Correa as following a similar line of revolutionary populism as Chávez; this populism pledged to create new state structures to replace existing institutions that served elite interests.66 At other times, Correa distanced himself from leftist currents when such associations might prove to be a political liability. Most significantly, Correa initially refused to join Chávez’s Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y El Caribe (ALBA, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), despite his Venezuelan counterpart’s insistent urging.67 Given Correa’s background as an economist, it was logical that some of his most concrete proposals emphasized financial reforms. For example, Correa blamed the Central Bank for subjugating the country to foreign and neoliberal interests, and he sought to eliminate its autonomy. He also pledged to increase taxes on the wealthy and create mechanisms for more effective revenue collection in order to increase funding for education and health services. Correa forwarded a nationalistic economic platform and criticized foreign oil corporations for extracting the majority of petroleum rents out of the country. As he consolidated control over power, he pushed through congressional reforms that raised taxes on windfall oil profits, and used these funds to provide subsides to poor people to lower their utility costs, expand access to credit, and improve social services.68 “Now the oil is everyone’s,” Correa declared.69 He stopped short, though, of nationalizing

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natural resources. Furthermore, more important than the nationalization of natural resources is the nationalization of the industry that extracts the wealth from those resources. It was common for neoliberal governments to privatize industries that governments had built to exploit valuable resources, thereby limiting public ownership of the means of production. Over time, Correa toned down his incendiary rhetoric and began to position himself as a moderate. The Andean Group Report observed “that although Correa is radical and often overreacts to criticism, he is probably not dogmatically leftwing.”70 Although he did not directly speak of a “third way” between capitalism and communism, as some populist leaders had done in the 1960s, his emphasis on “the people” while continuing to embrace elements of capitalism led him in a similar conservative direction. Indigenous activists complained that his social policies were neither so revolutionary nor so socialistic.71 “Correa is a little better compared to other presidents,” FICI president Carmen Yamberla said. “But we’re not convinced that he will defend the people, especially the indigenous people.”72 The right would not give up power easily and neither was the Correa government strong enough to implement more radical proposals. Macas questioned whether terminology like “socialism of the twenty-first century” was little more than a cover to continue systems of oppression without breaking with imperialism or challenging capitalist modes of production.73 Given the realities and traditions of the Ecuadorian political system, it remained an open question as to whether Correa could implement fundamental social changes without resorting to clientelistic practices such as opportunistically using public funds to garner popular support. “Any policy that indefinitely postpones the anti-capitalist goal ends up reinforcing oppression,” Katz stated. “Socialism requires preparing and consummating anti-capitalist ruptures.”74 Correa’s handouts to the poor did not alter the structures of society, and critics suspected that they were merely clientelistic ploys designed to shore up his political base of support. These types of policies underscored doubts as to whether Correa could legitimately lay claim to leftist credentials. Even while appearing to drift rightward, Correa’s government took some steps that gained him Indigenous and broader popular support. On July 8, 2008, for example, he expropriated 195 companies belonging to the Isaías Group in order to recover some of the assets that customers had lost when corporate corruption led to the collapse of their bank, Filanbanco, in 1998. Conservative opponents complained about the attacks on private property, but Correa’s supporters applauded the subjugation of private property to the public good. Correa gained further support from social movements when on December 12, 2008, with the price of oil falling, he decided to default on part of Ecuador’s foreign debt. Although the treasury did have the means to make payments, Correa made this decision on a political basis.

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He rhetorically labeled the debt that previous governments had contracted to benefit economic elites as “illegal, illegitimate, and corrupt.” Furthermore, Correa argued that Ecuador should sacrifice debt payments rather than cut social investments.75 His actions were similar to those of Bolivia’s President Morales, who nationalized natural gas and seized large landholdings, thereby increasing his level of support by distancing himself from the conservative opposition. On many key issues, Correa’s policies paralleled those of social movement activists. Indigenous and popular movements had long complained that previous governments had sacrificed national sovereignty in pursuing policies that benefited elite interests. In contrast to Mahuad, who had signed free trade deals with the United States, adopted the U.S. dollar as legal tender, and leased the military base at Manta, Correa positioned himself as a strong ally of social movements. In March 2007, activists gathered in Quito for the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases. Social movements had become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the U.S. presence at Manta, in part because of the involvement of U.S. personnel at the base in human rights violations. Organizers selected Ecuador as the conference site specifically because of Correa’s decision not to renew the Manta lease at the end of its ten-year term in 2009.76 On other issues, Correa’s positions placed him at odds with others on the left even though he was broadly seen as part of the pink tide sweeping across South America. Correa came out of a Catholic Socialist tradition, which, for example, meant that his positions on topics such as abortion were not the same as those of leftist feminists. Environmentalists opposed his state-centered development projects, which led to significant tensions over what to do with mining and petroleum concerns. His agrarian policies favored large-scale economic development and minimized aid for small farmers. Instead of drawing on the support of rural Indigenous activists who had removed previous presidents from power, much of Correa’s base came out of the white, urban, middle-class forajido movement that had played a key role in the April 20, 2005, street mobilizations that had ousted Gutiérrez. Many of those who allied with Correa were from the academic and NGO worlds and felt increasingly squeezed by previous governments’ neoliberal policies.77 At the same time, social movements were mounting growing criticisms of the (negative) influences of NGOs and the depoliticization of their social struggles that were excluded from the centers of power. Correa’s government only deepened tensions between NGOs and social movements. ICCI published an editorial in its newsletter Boletín ICCI-Rimay criticizing Correa for not being a true leftist. It contrasted a “social left” with an “electoral left.” Correa’s government, ICCI charged, was not of the left because instead of governing with and for popular movements he filled his government

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with his personal friends, family members, colleagues, opportunists, those expelled from Indigenous movements, and other confused people. What was missing were representatives of the social left, those who emerged out of organized social, popular, and Indigenous movements. Correa’s government had more in common with twentieth-century social democracies than the ideals of twenty-first-century socialism, ICCI charged. Rather than empowering people and popular movements, Correa grotesquely criticized the historic importance of Indigenous and other social movements. Furthermore, he had not provided viable solutions to key problems such as unemployment and low salaries. Correa had not delivered on the fundamental changes of which people in this “deep Ecuador” (Ecuador profundo) who were “from below and to the left” had long dreamed. Nevertheless, the editorial concluded, the left had elected the government, and that left needed to engage in the serious task of orienting and pressuring Correa so that he would implement projects that the social left desired.78 It is also possible that, as Pablo Ospina observes, Correa’s government was of the left because of how it sought to destroy traditional elites, but it definitely was not a government of social movements, even though it had taken over much of their agenda. If Correa disappeared, Ospina argues, within two weeks his political movement would disintegrate. Significantly, and in contrast, if something similar happened to Macas, Indigenous movements would continue to exist.79 From their marginalized position, Indigenous movements debated how to rebuild their previous strength. Delfín Tenesaca, president of the Ecuarunari-affiliated Movimiento Indígena de Chimborazo (MICH, Chimborazo Indigenous Movement), argued that it was time to turn back to the grass roots, to close the gap that had grown so large between the leadership and the bases. “We have seen the need to make changes and adjustments that will enable us to consolidate and once more become the strong organisation that we were,” Tenesaca said.80 Even though Indigenous organizations had previously played leading roles in challenging neoliberal policies and violations of national sovereignty, with Correa now in office they searched for ways to prevent their voices from being marginalized in favor of state-centered actions. “The capitalist elites no longer set the entire region’s agenda with impunity,” Katz writes. “The dominant classes can no longer rely on their strategic neoliberal compass; the popular movement has recovered its street presence; and U.S. imperialism has forfeited its capacity to intervene.”81 Sporadic mobilizations, however, could not achieve the movement’s goals of participatory democracy and social justice. Activists argued that a new constitution was necessary to realize revolutionary changes. Wealth and power had been concentrated in the hands of only a few people, and access to land, water, and other resources needed to be democratized so that everyone would have equal access.82 “Currently the state is constructed for

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the benefit of a few and the exclusion of many,” Cholango stated. A new constitution that guaranteed health care, education, agrarian reform, and nationalization of natural resources was key to righting historic wrongs.83 “Indians, peasants, the youth, women, intellectuals,” Cholango argued, “are all dreaming of constructing a plurinational socialist state with justice and equality for all.”84 A decade after the last constituent assembly in 1998, the political landscape in Ecuador had completely changed. In order to realize more profound and permanent changes, Indigenous organizations once again demanded a new constituent assembly.

NOTES Portions of this chapter are drawn from “Ecuador: Indigenous Struggles and the Ambiguities of State Power,” in The Resurgence of Latin American Radicalism: Between Cracks in the Empire and an Izquierda Permitida, ed. Jeff Webber and Barry Carr (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming). 1. Felipe Burbano de Lara, “Los dilemas de Pachakutik,” Hoy, June 6, 2006. 2. Rafael Vicente Correa, “Three Essays on Contemporaneous Latin American Development” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2001). For a portrayal of Correa’s rise to power, see Kintto Lucas, Rafael Correa: Un extraño en Carondelet (Quito: Planeta, 2007). Also see Catherine M. Conaghan, “Ecuador’s Gamble: Can Correa Govern?” Current History 106, no. 697 (February 2007): 77–82; and Catherine M. Conaghan, “The 2006 Presidential and Congressional Elections in Ecuador,” Electoral Studies 26, no. 4 (2007): 823–28. 3. Martin Hart-Landsberg, “Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South: Challenges and Possibilities,” Monthly Review 61, no. 4 (September 2009): 16. 4. Rafael Correa Delgado, “Carta-renuncia de Rafael Correa al Presidente de la República,” Tintají 73 (primera quincena de agosto de 2005): 3; Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Economy Changes Lanes,” Latinamerica Press 37, no. 19 (September 21, 2005): 1–2. 5. Heinz Dieterich, “Diálogo con el Presidente Rafael Correa,” in Ecuador y America Latina: El socialismo del Siglo XXI, ed. Rafael Correa (Quito: APDH, 2007), 57, 59. 6. Guillermo Navarro Jiménez, “Candidatura autónoma” opción histórica de la izquierda ecuatoriana (Quito: Ediciones Zitra, 2006), 83. 7. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 71. 8. Carlos de la Torre, “Los indígenas y Correa,” Hoy, July 1, 2006. 9. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 83. 10. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Leftists Split on United States,” Latinamerica Press 38, no. 18 (October 4, 2006): 1–2. 11. Kintto Lucas, “No hay cama pa’ tanta gente,” Tintají 83 (segunda quincena de enero de 2006): B1; “Luis Macas es precandidato presidencial por Pachakutik,” Hoy, April 26, 2006. 12. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Campaign Starts with a Bust,” Latinamerica Press 38, no. 11 (June 14, 2006): 2–3.

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13. “Izquierda: Nadie se junta con nadie,” Tintají 77 (primera quincena de octubre de 2005): 6–9. 14. “El miedo a las primarias en la izquierda,” Tintají 93 (segunda quincena de junio de 2006): A2; Kintto Lucas, “¡Qué lejos está la izquierda!” Tintají 93 (segunda quincena de junio de 2006): B1; Edgar Isch López, “Momento crítico para la lucha por la unidad,” Tintají 93 (segunda quincena de junio de 2006): B2. 15. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 77. 16. Humberto Cholango, “Evaluación del II Congreso,” Rikcharishun 34, no. 5 (May 2006): 3. 17. “La candidatura de Macas fue lanzada ayer en Puntiachil,” El Comercio, June 30, 2006, 3. 18. “El riesgo de la división persiste en Pachakutik,” Hoy, May 23, 2006; “El décimo binomio se inscribió ayer en el TSE,” El Comercio, August 15, 2006. 19. “El ‘lío’ de candidaturas fracciona a Pachakutik,” Hoy, June 24, 2006; “Líderes de Pachakutik admiten que hay división,” Hoy, June 27, 2006; “El movimiento indígena en apuros,” El Comercio, June 27, 2006, 6; “Correa cierra el tema Pachakutik,” El Comercio, June 28, 2006, 3; “Pachakutik de la Costa también está dividido,” El Comercio, June 29, 2006, 6; “Pachakutik de Guayas desconoce a Macas,” El Comercio, July 3, 2006, 3; “El movimiento Pachakutik presenta mayores fisuras,” Hoy, July 4, 2006; “Macas no se consolida aún en Pachakutik,” El Comercio, July 27, 2006; Lucas, Rafael Correa, 76. 20. Rickard Lalander, “Crónica de un divorcio anunciado: Pachakutik y La Minga Intercultural en Otavalo,” Ecuador Debate 74 (August 2008): 205–24; Rickard Lalander, “Between Interculturalism and Ethnocentrism: Local Government and the Indigenous Movement in Otavalo-Ecuador,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 29, no. 4 (October 2010): 505–21. 21. Timo Schaefer, “Engaging Modernity: The Political Making of Indigenous Movements in Bolivia and Ecuador, 1900–2008,” Third World Quarterly 30, no. 2 (March 2009): 400. 22. IPS, “Is Indigenous Unity More Than Skin Deep?” at www.ipsnews.net/news .asp?idnews=33615, June 14, 2006. 23. “Evaluación de la participación electoral,” Rikcharishun Edición Especial (December 2004): 16. 24. Ylonka Tillería, “¿A dónde va Pachakutik?” Tintají 83 (segunda quincena de enero de 2006): B2–3. 25. “Talahua: ‘Ni muerto dejaré que Vargas sea candidato,’” Hoy, July 5, 2006; “Antonio Vargas se candidatiza, no sin antes hacerse una ‘limpia,’” El Comercio, July 6, 2006. 26. Carlos de la Torre and Catherine Conaghan, “The Hybrid Campaign: Tradition and Modernity in Ecuador’s 2006 Presidential Election,” International Journal of Press/Politics 14, no. 3 (July 2009): 341. 27. Alonso Soto, “Uncertainty Overshadows Ecuador Presidential Race,” Reuters, August 15, 2006. 28. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 70–83; Xavier Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú (La Paz: PNUD y CIPCA, 2008); Hernán Ibarra, “La victoria de Rafael Correa y la ola progresista en América del Sur,” Ecuador Debate 69 (December 2006): 17.

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29. Luis Macas, “Quieren boicotear la candidatura de Macas,” August 4, 2006, at www.luismacas.org/2006/08/quieren-boicotear-la-candidatura-de.html. 30. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 97–98, 126. 31. Comunicación Pachakutik, “He sentido la solidaridad y la fraternidad de la gente,” Rikcharishun 34, no. 7 (September 2006): 3. 32. Richard Gott, “Will Ecuador Go Bananas?” Guardian, October 19, 2006, at commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_gott/2006/10/post_519.html. 33. José Antonio Lucero, Struggles of Voice: The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes, Pitt Latin American Series (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), vii. 34. Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck, “The Electoral Fortunes of Ecuador’s Pachakutik Party: The Fracaso of the 2006 Presidential Elections,” Latin Americanist 52, no. 2 (June 2008): 53. Also see the analysis in Sara Báez Rivera and Víctor Bretón Solo de Zaldívar, “El enigma del voto étnico o las tribulaciones del movimiento indígena: Reflexiones sobre los resultados de la primera vuelta electoral (2006) en las provincias de la sierra,” Ecuador Debate 69 (December 2006): 19–36. 35. Marco Arauz, “El voto indígena se esfumó con Luis Macas,” El Comercio, October 19, 2006. 36. Báez and Bretón, “El enigma del voto étnico o las tribulaciones del movimiento indígena,” 24–26. 37. Cyril Mychalejko, “Ecuador Swings Left,” Against the Current 21, no. 6 (January/February 2007): 13. 38. Dieterich, “Diálogo con el Presidente Rafael Correa,” 42. 39. De la Torre and Conaghan, “The Hybrid Campaign,” 350. 40. Humberto Cholango, “Editorial,” Rikcharishun 35, no. 1 (January 2007): 2. 41. Ecuarunari, “Ecuador empezó su revolución,” Boletín/2006 (Quito, November 26, 2006). 42. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 295–308. Also see “Correa’s Actions at Odds with Discourse,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-03 (January 18, 2007): 4. 43. Magdalena León, “Ecuador: La búsqueda de un ‘nuevo modelo,’” América Latina en Movimiento 32, II época, no. 430 (March 18, 2008): 31. 44. “Nebot Tries to Rally Opposition to President Correa,” Andean Group Report RA-08-01 (January 2008): 14. 45. Greg Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government (London: Verso, 2007), 55. 46. “‘Plan Ecuador’ Launched,” Andean Group Report RA-07-03 (March 2007): 16. 47. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “The Good with the Bad,” Latinamerica Press 40, no. 1 (January 23, 2008): 4. 48. “Correa Attempts to Define Modern Socialism,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-02 (January 15, 2009): 3. 49. “People Power Piles Pressure on Ecuador’s Congress,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-05 (February 1, 2007): 2. 50. Rafael Quintero, “Las innovaciones conceptuales de la Constitución de 2008 y el Sumak Kawsay,” in El Buen Vivir: Una vía para el desarrollo, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 78–79. 51. “Constituent Assembly to Supercede Congress,” Andean Group Report RA-0707 (July 2007): 6.

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52. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 232. 53. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 145–47, 184–89. 54. Roger Burbach, “Ecuador’s Popular Revolt: Forging a New Nation,” NACLA Report on the Americas 40, no. 5 (September/October 2007): 9. 55. Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: NLB, 1977). 56. Claudio Katz, “Socialist Strategies in Latin America,” Monthly Review 59, no. 4 (September 2007): 37. 57. George Ciccariello-Maher, “Dual Power in the Venezuelan Revolution,” Monthly Review 59, no. 4 (September 2007): 42. 58. Donna Lee Van Cott, Radical Democracy in the Andes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Also see Leon Zamosc, “The Indian Movement and Political Democracy in Ecuador,” Latin American Politics and Society 49, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 1–34. 59. François Houtart, “Socialismo del siglo XXI: Superar la lógica capitalista,” in Acosta and Martínez, El Buen Vivir, 152. 60. “Correa Reigns over Institutional Chaos,” Latin American Weekly Report WR07-16 (April 26, 2007): 4. 61. “Battle for Constituent Assembly Heats Up,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-32 (August 16, 2007): 4. 62. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Las paradojas de nuestro tiempo y la Plurinacionalidad,” in Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 26. 63. “Correa Attempts to Define Modern Socialism,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-02 (January 15, 2009): 3. 64. Rafael Correa, “Por fin América Latina se atreve a generar pensamiento propio: El Socialismo del siglo XXI,” in Ecuador y America Latina: El socialismo del Siglo XXI, ed. Rafael Correa (Quito: APDH, 2007), 19–34. 65. “Fit-Looking Fidel Castro Appears on Cuban TV,” New York Times, August 23, 2009. 66. Andrés Ortiz, “Populismo y transnacionalidad: Una hipótesis sobre el liderazgo de Chávez y Correa,” Ecuador Debate 73 (April 2008): 63–76. 67. “Ecuador and Venezuela Set Up Joint Oil Company,” Andean Group Report RA-08-09 (September 2008): 16. On ALBA, see Hart-Landsberg, “Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South.” 68. Catherine M. Conaghan, “Ecuador: Correa’s Plebiscitary Presidency,” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 2 (April 2008): 55. 69. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “‘We’ve Balanced Out the Power,’” Latinamerica Press 39, no. 19 (October 17, 2007): 1. 70. “Nebot Leads Massive Protest in Guayaquil,” Andean Group Report RA-08-02 (December 2007): 14–15. 71. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Uno es el discurso . . . otra la realidad,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 9, no. 105 (December 2007): 6. 72. Thea Riofrancos, “Ecuador: Indigenous Confederation Inaugurates New President and Announces National Mobilization,” Upside Down World, February 6, 2008.

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73. Luis Macas, “El debate político ideológico, que los pueblos y nacionalidades deben trabajar para construir un gobierno popular y alternativo,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 122 (May 2009): 10. 74. Katz, “Socialist Strategies in Latin America,” 38. 75. “Correa Appears to Backtrack on Debt,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-0847 (November 27, 2008): 4; “Correa Leads Ecuador into a Political Default on Its Debt,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-08-50 (December 18, 2008): 1–2; Simon Romero, “Ecuador: President Orders Debt Default,” New York Times, December 13, 2008. 76. Marc Becker, “Ecuador: International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases,” Upside Down World, March 15, 2007. 77. “Las ONG dejan su huella en Ciudad Alfaro,” El Comercio, July 6, 2008, 7. 78. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Un verdadero gobierno de izquierda,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 111 (June 2008). The reference to Ecuador profundo draws on Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, who in Mexico Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996) argues for the importance of the Indigenous roots of a country’s culture. 79. Rafael Guerrero, Hernán Ibarra, Pablo Ospina, and others, “Una caracterización del gobierno y la Asamblea Constituyente. Diálogo sobre la coyuntura,” Ecuador Debate 73 (April 2008): 12–13. 80. Pablo Ortiz-T., “Ecuador,” in The Indigenous World 2008, ed. Kathrin Wessendorf (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs [IWGIA], 2008), 147–48. 81. Katz, “Socialist Strategies in Latin America,” 29, 30. 82. Norman Wray, “Los retos del régimen de desarrollo: El Buen Vivir en la Constitución,” in Acosta and Martínez, El Buen Vivir (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 60. 83. Humberto Cholango, “Un estado plurinacional significa transformar el estado,” Rikcharishun 35, no. 2 (May 2007): 3. 84. Cholango, “Editorial,” 1.

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Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez and Honduras’s ousted president Manuel Zelaya with Rafael Correa on the balcony of the Government Palace in Quito (Patricio Realpe/ ANPE)

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7 Rewriting the Constitution . . . Again

On April 15, 2007, three months after Correa took office, 80 percent of the Ecuadorian electorate approved a referendum to convoke an assembly to rewrite the constitution. On September 30, 2007, Correa’s political movement AP won a majority of seats in the Constituent Assembly. A year later, on September 28, 2008, almost two-thirds of the voters approved the new constitution that had been drafted largely under Correa’s control. As was the case with Venezuela’s 1999 constitution, Ecuador’s new Magna Carta so fundamentally remapped Ecuador’s political structures that it required new local, congressional, and presidential elections. Correa also dominated these contests. This series of electoral victories consolidated Correa’s control but it came at the cost of marginalizing social movements from the political changes sweeping the country.

PLEBISCITE Rewriting the constitution was a lengthy process, and one fraught with conflict. Even though surveys indicated that deep popular discontent with the existing political order led as much as 80 to 90 percent of the population to support Correa’s move, attempts to change government structures went against the institutional interests of the established political parties.1 Opponents feared that Correa, similarly to Chávez, would use this mechanism to strengthen the executive and consolidate his political control over the country. They opposed governments that ruled through plebiscites, complaining that such a system would lead to a polarized political environment. Scaling back a system of checks and balances would also limit the 127

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ability of opponents to act.2 Correa denied that he was seeking to entrench himself in power, and pledged to resign if constitutional reforms did not proceed. Diego Ordóñez from the conservative Unión Demócrata Cristiana (UDC, Christian Democratic Union) complained that Correa’s proposals would cause political instability and hurt the country’s economic growth.3 Supporters, on the other hand, contended that a weak executive had contributed to political instability in Ecuador, and that Correa was pursuing a proper path to solve these problems. To overcome these barriers, Correa first needed to gain legal approval to write a new constitution. He issued an executive decree calling for a referendum on whether or not to convoke a constituent assembly. In order to gain congressional approval, Correa had to engage in delicate negotiations with the same political parties that he had denounced as part of the corrupt political establishment. Piecing together support from the parties of discredited ex-presidents Gutiérrez and Bucaram with those of allies in the ID and Pachakutik on the center-left, Correa gained the majority votes necessary to proceed with the referendum. Gutiérrez, in particular, flipped back and forth between supporting and opposing the assembly, with Correa alternating between embracing Gutiérrez in order to gain his political support and denouncing him as “a traitor and untrustworthy.”4 Apparently the PSP and PRE eventually supported the assembly as a result of a series of traditional political backroom deals, including naming Jorge Acosta from the PSP as head of the TSE and removing the prohibition against Gutiérrez running for office.5 Pachakutik leader Gilberto Talahua contended that a constituent assembly was so important that Correa should bypass Congress and order the TSE to call for a popular referendum. If Correa failed to comply with his electoral promises, Talahua pledged, Indigenous movements would stage street protests.6 On February 13, CONAIE together with about forty other social movement organizations marched on Congress to force the legislature to take action. It took quite some maneuvering to make the assembly happen, but as the PSP’s Édison Chávez, the Congress’s first vice president, said, the vote on that day to move forward with the assembly was a “historic decision.”7 While constitutional assemblies commonly are charged solely with drafting a new Magna Carta, constituent assemblies assume full legislative authority. Correa proposed, and social movements wanted, a constituent assembly. Indigenous leader and intellectual Floresmilo Simbaña traces back to the French Revolution a tradition of constituent assemblies that place power directly in the hands of the people. In Ecuador, even though previous constitutions had been drafted by constituent assemblies, Simbaña argues, they were the products of reactionary oligarchical interests rather than embodiments of the expression of the popular will.8 Similarly, Luis Macas notes that despite popular perceptions, most of the previous

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nineteen constitutions had been drafted not by constituent assemblies but rather by “commissions of notables” who had been named by the president or Congress. The resulting documents reflected elite interests. Only in the liberal-dominated 1906 constituent assembly, Macas argues, were popular concerns taken into account. Although common people were not directly and physically present, “the overwhelming force of Alfaro’s montoneros [hill peoples] comprised of women, blacks, montuvios, and Indigenous armies led by their own generals” on the streets made their presence known “as a ghost” that influenced the outcome of the discussions. Organized social movements needed to emulate this model to make their concerns known in the new constitution.9 In a speech on the ninety-sixth anniversary of the assassination of liberal leader Eloy Alfaro, AP party activist Alberto Acosta similarly pointed to the important advances of the 1906 constitution, and how its drafting was the culmination of a political process rather than the result of the efforts of individual leaders. A similar process should be emulated in a new constituent assembly.10 Convening a constituent assembly with full legislative powers had questionable constitutional legitimacy, and holding a referendum to convoke the assembly was a mechanism to provide a cloak of legality. This issue of legitimacy led Bolivian lawmakers to decide not to convoke a constituent assembly in 1994, preferring instead to follow existing constitutional provisions to approve reforms to their charter in two subsequent legislative assemblies. Not only did this maneuver avoid the appearance of extraconstitutional actions, but it also blocked attempts by those outside the political mainstream to influence the proceedings. At the same time, popular organizations feared constitutional changes might roll back social, economic, and political gains from the 1952 revolution.11 In 2008, in contrast, Morales sought to draft a new constitution through a constituent assembly, and that process immediately got bogged down in questions of legitimacy. Nevertheless, constituent assemblies have the potential to make a more democratic and inclusive society, but only if they are backed up by a strongly mobilized population ready to assure that the assembly will implement policies to their benefit. Ecuador’s Congress feared that a constituent assembly would undermine its mandates, and insisted that the process respect the results of the recent legislative election. Gutiérrez’s PSP, in particular, insisted that the assembly not dissolve the current Congress. In drafting the text of a public referendum to convoke the assembly, the TSE ignored this demand. In response, opposition legislators appealed to the Tribunal Constitucional (TC, Constitutional Council) to discard the referendum as unconstitutional. This impasse led to an institutional meltdown: dissident deputies first turned on their former ally and voted to remove Jorge Acosta from the head of the TSE for violating the constitution, and in retaliation the TSE removed fifty-seven

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deputies from Congress for overstepping their bounds. The conflict spilled out into the streets as the TSE replaced the deputies with their alternates.12 It appeared that Ecuador was heading back toward political instability. In the end, however, Correa and the TSE finally triumphed over the ruling-class legislators. On April 15, 2007, voters went to the polls to decide on a simple question: Do you approve the convocation and installation of a constituent assembly with full powers, in conformity with the electoral statute appended to it, to transform the constitutional form of the state and elaborate a new constitution?13

Correa won the referendum by an overwhelming margin, with more than 80 percent of the electorate approving the measure. In no small part, the referendum won thanks to the support of Indigenous peoples. “It is a victory for the Indigenous movement,” Cholango declared. It was “the triumph of all of the accumulated histories of the Indigenous and popular social struggles in Ecuador.”14 Cholango argued that political parties had failed and people were ready for a change, and now was the hour of social movements. The referendum’s victory represented a rejection of the neoliberal economic model that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few privileged people. A new constitution would provide an opportunity to nationalize natural resources, renegotiate trade agreements, and assert the country’s sovereignty by taking actions such as evicting the United States from the Manta air base. Cholango urged the implementation of social policies to increase funding for education, end illiteracy and discrimination, and improve health care. He embraced a political project to end inequality and discrimination. The referendum represented the beginning of “a truly profound change.”15 Hopes ran high among social movements that this was the political opening that they had long desired. Although the oligarchy still maintained control over most of the country’s political and economic power, the balance of forces definitely seemed to be shifting to the left. While the referendum’s victory was a major personal triumph for Correa, it did leave social movements feeling marginalized from the political changes sweeping the country. Even though Correa denied that he was engaging in a cult of personality, from the perspective of social movements the consolidation of power in the hands of a strong and seemingly egotistical executive meant that they would lose access to the spaces necessary to press their own agendas.16 After approval of the referendum to hold a constituent assembly, another lengthy debate emerged concerning requirements stipulating who could run for seats in the assembly. The opposition succeeded in discarding a requirement to collect the signatures of 1 percent of those on the electoral rolls to stand as a candidate for office. Apparently the opposition thought

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this would split the social movement vote that was loyal to Correa. As a result, the ballot turned into a chaotic mess, with 3,224 candidates and twenty-six national alliances competing in the election.17 Correa dubbed the campaign for control of the assembly as “the mother of all battles.”18 Like his counterpart Chávez in Venezuela, Correa seemed to relish the opportunity to face off directly against his opponents.

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS In the September 30, 2007, elections for deputies to the Constituent Assembly, Correa consolidated his political control by winning a majority of seats, thereby assuring that a new constitution would be to his liking. He had campaigned alone for the presidency, but now he intentionally built up AP as his electoral vehicle. Correa won almost 70 percent of the vote for the assembly, far outpacing his nearest rival, former president Lucio Gutiérrez’s PSP, which won barely 7 percent of the vote. An unusually high participation rate of almost 90 percent (absentee rates are often two or three times higher) granted the assembly legitimacy and a clear mandate to draft a new constitution. The assembly was comprised of 130 members, with 24 elected on a national level, 100 by province, and 6 by expatriates (2 each from the United States, Europe, and the rest of Latin America). The traditionally dominant parties in the Congress held only a small minority representation in the assembly and were significantly weakened by their electoral defeat. In addition to Gutiérrez’s PSP, which held 18 seats, Noboa’s PRIAN had 8, and the PSC had 5. Even though Correa regularly criticized the “party-ocracy” for their ineptness in how they had run the Ecuadorian political system in favor of their own established institutional interests rather than for the people in general, none of these “traditional” parties had a long history of deeply entrenched control over Ecuador’s political system. Both the PSP and PRIAN had only recently been founded—in 2002—as vehicles for the presidential campaigns of Gutiérrez and Noboa. The fourth-largest party in the assembly, the PSC, was the oldest one but dated only to 1951. None of the other “traditional” parties gained a significant voice in the assembly.19 Even as the previously dominant parties stepped up their attacks on Correa, they willingly participated in the writing of the new constitution— seemingly wishing to retain some control over, or at least influence in the direction of, the new constitution. Conservatives, in comparison, had abstained from Venezuela’s 2005 legislative elections, thereby leaving the opposition weak and marginalized. Learning from that experience, PSC leader Luis Fernando Torres said that the opposition would not stand aside

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while leftists installed a “totalitarian model” copied from Venezuela. Instead, Torres said, “We will participate actively. We will not permit Ecuador to become part of the Iran-Venezuela axis.”20 In a throwback to Cold War rhetoric, the conservative opposition attempted to frame the issues in a way that intentionally played on society’s worst fears. Leftist parties and social movements did not fare any better than their conservative opponents in gaining seats in the assembly. A planned leftist alliance of two small parties including the MPD and three political movements including Pachakutik failed to win enough seats to have a significant presence. Pachakutik gained only four seats, and together with the traditional parties was left behind as an increasingly marginalized and irrelevant political force. Even this showing was a bit of a surprise, as earlier polls had indicated that Pachakutik might not win any seats in the assembly and was in danger of losing its access to a position on the ballot.21 The public had come to lump Pachakutik with the rest of the discredited political class as part of the country’s problems. “Despite its scathing criticisms of the country’s traditional parties and its goal to profoundly change Ecuador’s politics,” Mijeski and Beck note, Pachakutik “has simply become another maligned party whose interest in patronage outweighs its commitment to social justice.”22 Despite Pachakutik’s dismal showing, its political coordinator Jorge Guamán pledged support to Correa and the assembly. In order to monitor the assembly’s progress, Pachakutik would organize meetings in rural communities where its bases of support lived.23 Ecuarunari declared that “we are fighting in the Constituent Assembly for a true democracy in which all of us have the rights to decent work, education, health with dignity, identity, and access to communal and individual property.” These goals, the Indigenous federation contended, “would only be possible if as peoples and nationalities we are able to gain a broad representation of popular sectors in the Constituent Assembly, but also maintain an organized struggle with everyone mobilized.”24 Constituent assemblies could lead to positive changes, activists argued, but only if people made them happen. Guillermo Almeyra calls a constitution “a piece of paper in the barrel of a cannon” that “like all other laws are applied only if there is a relation of social forces that bring them into being.” It is not sufficient to approve laws, Almeyra argues, unless there is appropriate pressure to force the government to implement them. This pressure does not happen only in the electoral realm, but also through the presence of an organized and mobilized social movement.25 Cholango warned against elite attempts to disrupt and paralyze the move toward constitutional reform, as had happened in Bolivia.26 “I am not only passing through,” Guamán stated. “I want to make history. And make history for everyone, not only for a small group. We want to improve the lives of all Ecuadorians.”27 Pachakutik was insistent that it would continue to be politically relevant.

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In contrast to the dismal showing for both the left and the right, Correa’s AP movement won 80 seats, well more than half of the 130 in the assembly necessary to pass legislation. In part, this margin of victory was due to some Indigenous candidates who joined Correa’s party instead of running with Pachakutik. For example, FENOCIN president Pedro de la Cruz, who had been an alternate congressional deputy for the Socialist Party from 1998 to 2003, now won election as a delegate to the assembly from AP. Justifying his candidacy, he pointed to the crisis of neoliberalism and popular resistance as leading to a new progressive government with broad support. As a social movement, FENOCIN vowed to observe and protect the assembly’s work.28 Mónica Chuji, one of the more radical members of Correa’s AP coalition, was a Kichwa from the Amazonian community of Sarayaku, which had a long history of fighting against petroleum extraction. She had previously served as Correa’s communication secretary, effectively providing an Indigenous face for the president’s policies. Chuji declared her allegiance to CONAIE and the Indigenous movement out of which she emerged: “I owe the indigenous movement and my behavior in the assembly will be in that direction,” she said.29 Like Chuji, many Indigenous activists believed that they could most effectively influence the content of the new constitution by working inside Correa’s government. Between the four Pachakutik delegates and de la Cruz and Chuji, the assembly had six Indigenous delegates. Eight Afro-Ecuadorian delegates also participated in the assembly, although only one was closely allied with Afro-Ecuadorian social movements. As with previous assemblies, this one was still made up predominantly of people from the dominant white-mestizo social classes. Despite its margin of victory, AP was a very loose and diverse group of social movement activists, academics, and other political leaders. Holding the coalition together could represent a challenge. Correa had the foresight to assure that decisions in the assembly would be made by a simple majority vote of 66, rather than a two-thirds margin that would grant more legitimacy to the constitutional process. Again, this was a decision based on lessons learned from observing developments in Venezuela and Bolivia. In Venezuela, Chávez held a commanding majority in the assembly (winning 62.5 percent of the vote, which translated into 121 out of 128 seats) and easily pushed through the reforms that he desired.30 In Bolivia, in contrast, Morales won 54 percent of the seats but failed to win a controlling majority as defined by that constitutional process; this meant that he was continually squeezed between conservative opponents and his more radical supporters who demanded quicker change. Correa’s level of support fell somewhere between the two, and he sought to emulate Chávez’s success while avoiding the pitfalls into which Morales fell. In the end, Correa’s 80 votes were just short of the 86 seats necessary for a two-thirds majority. Nevertheless, he could count on the support of both Pachakutik and MPD. Both had 4

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seats, granting him a two-thirds majority that would provide a larger stamp of legitimacy on the process of rewriting the constitution. The 2008 Constituent Assembly created a critical juncture for Indigenous movements as it opened up a historic opportunity to decolonize the country’s political structures. Could activists exploit the openings that the drafting of a new constitution provided to advance their interests and political agenda? “The democratic phase in which we have lived to this point,” Ecuarunari argued, “has allowed that a few become wealthy while the majority are impoverished as a result of unemployment, migration, lack of access to resources and services. All of this,” Ecuarunari continued, “has been aided and legalized by nineteen constitutions written in 177 years of republican history.”31 Eighty percent of the Ecuadorian population was poor and excluded from the political process. It was necessary to refound the Ecuadorian state on the basis of their collective force so that the government would respond to their needs.

CIUDAD ELOY ALFARO The Constituent Assembly began work on drafting the country’s twentieth constitution on November 29, 2007. The assembly had six months to complete its work, with a possibility of extending its mandate for additional periods of two more months each. The new constitution would then be submitted to a public referendum. If approved, Correa would call for congressional and presidential elections under the new constitution. The government built a complex near Montecristi in the coastal province of Manabí to house the constitutional debates. Christened Ciudad Eloy Alfaro, it was named after the general who led a successful liberal revolution in 1895 and was one of the country’s most renowned leaders. The government also inaugurated a public TV channel to broadcast the assembly’s sessions. Correa said that a public station was important to provide people with objective information on the debates independent of private propaganda. The assembly also set up a website (www.asambleaconstituyente .gov.ec) that posted proposals, resolutions, bulletins, and blogs from assembly members. Correa’s former energy minister, the well-known and highly regarded economist Alberto Acosta, led the AP ballot.32 He won the most votes in the September 30 elections, and with this support was elected president of the assembly. As head of the assembly, Acosta sought “to construct a truly democratic society, underscored with the values of freedom, equality, and responsibility.” His vision for a new society included spaces for both individuals and community concerns, where “economic rationality would be reconciled with ethics and common sense.”33 Acosta pledged to work

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under the principle of sumak kawsay, the Kichwa concept of living well, not just living better. “Western development is only concerned with politics and economics,” Pachakutik delegate Carlos Pilamunga stated. “We are also concerned with cultural elements, plurinationality, and the environment.” The sumak kawsay advocated modifying state structures in order to “search for harmony between people and nature.”34 Acosta echoed these sentiments with pledges that the assembly would be more inclusive than any previous government, and would incorporate the concerns of Indigenous peoples, Afro-Ecuadorians, and others who lacked representation.35 He cautioned that if the process were not democratic, neither would be the final product. In a speech at the inauguration of the assembly on November 29, 2007, Acosta argued that this constitution would be different because the writing process was different. Rather than being a meeting of specialists, of “notables,” this assembly valued and sought out citizen participation and input. The task facing the delegates was not just to write a new document, but “to construct a new way of doing politics.”36 Acosta’s leadership in the assembly gained both him and the constitutional project a good deal of popular support, even as social movements became increasingly alienated from Correa. The assembly was divided into ten commissions of thirteen assembly members each to address issues such as health, education, agriculture, tax reform, and traffic legislation. With eighty delegates, AP had eight representatives on each commission that placed it in absolute control of the assembly’s agenda. Even as the assembly began its debates, Correa used his dominance of the body to push through new policies, including an economic reform that increased taxes on the wealthy.37 Other issues, including electoral reform and reorganization of governing structures, were more controversial and difficult to implement. Despite repeated charges from the conservative opposition, AP delegates reiterated that the constitution would respect and guarantee the rights of private property—as long as it fulfilled a social function.38 Similarly, articles in the constitution that scrapped the autonomy of the Central Bank and politicized the judiciary encouraged Correa’s supporters while deepening conservative opposition. Arguably, however, a constitution that respected private property might embody an anti-neoliberal position, but not one that was necessarily anticapitalist. Radicals repeatedly questioned whether Correa was truly committed to pressing a leftist agenda. Correa’s goal was to write a new constitution that reduced the power of traditional political parties and increased executive power. He proposed extending presidential terms from four to six years, allowing for immediate reelection, and permitting the president to dissolve Congress and call for new elections. Critics complained that Correa was using the assembly to entrench his hold on power. Xavier Ledesma from PRIAN resigned his seat,

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complaining that Correa’s party engaged in the same “authoritarian, despotic and perverse practice of power” that it purported to oppose.39 Correa denied these charges, and claimed that he served at the will of the people. To underscore this point, the day before the assembly began its work Correa made the symbolic gesture of offering his resignation in case he did not comply with the people’s desires. In response, the AP-controlled assembly ratified him in his post. Although the assembly was supposed to be sovereign, throughout the assembly Correa maintained an invisible but very real and heavy-handed presence that sought to control its work as well as the direction and final content of the constitution. Critics complained about the “hyperpresidentialism” of the resulting document. Although the draft constitution did not lengthen the presidential term from four to six years as Correa had advocated, it did strengthen executive power in other ways, including provisions for reelection and the power to dissolve Congress.40 Although Correa had initially argued that both the National Congress and Constituent Assembly could run simultaneously, empowered by his repeated and overwhelming electoral victories he now called for the dismissal of the Congress and the placing of its legislative powers in the hands of the assembly. In part, these debates turned on the phrase in the April 15 referendum that the assembly would be imbued with “full powers.” Social movements, whose interests the former Congress had never represented, supported Correa on this point. On October 22, 2007, CONAIE mobilized thousands of its members to march in Quito in support of the Constituent Assembly and for the closure of the corrupt and inefficient Congress, even while insisting on real change rather than empty rhetoric.41 “We are not prepared to negotiate at all with anyone,” Humberto Cholango warned. “This assembly must take place because it must take place.”42 Lucas pointed to the mobilization as evidence of CONAIE’s continuing relevance. It remained “the social organization with the greatest ability and capacity to mobilize people.”43 Its presence, however, would be felt from outside the assembly as a social movement, rather than as a direct participant in the debates. In tune with the goals of the executive branch, one of the Constituent Assembly’s first acts was to declare the Congress in indefinite recess until the new constitution was drafted. With Congress dominated by the largely discredited traditional political parties, Correa’s move gained wide approval even though it had no clear legal basis. Those parties complained that their concerns would be marginalized in the new assembly and denounced the move as unconstitutional. The assembly claimed that it had acted within its mandate, and that it represented the popular sovereign will of the Ecuadorian people. Despite their objections, in order to head off a constitutional crisis the Congress agreed to go into recess, first for a month and then “indefinitely” for the term of the assembly. With Congress in recess, the

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Constituent Assembly assumed full legislative powers. The Congress never reconvened, and its closing represented the last time that Ecuador’s previously dominant parties had a significant presence on the country’s political landscape.

INDIGENOUS AGENDA Indigenous activists approached the constitutional project with open eyes. Traditional political interests dominated the current constitution promulgated in 1998 and marginalized Indigenous demands, thereby becoming only one more in a long list of eighteen previous exclusionary constitutions. For that reason, CONAIE publicly presented a proposal to the new assembly for policy changes that would “contribute to a true process of change and revolution.” CONAIE urged moving beyond representative forms of democracy to the inclusion of more participatory mechanisms that included communal rights. This did not mean the rejection of universal and secret elections, but rather using these “in combination with Indigenous mechanisms for nominating and removal of authorities.” The goal was to “democratize democracy,” to radicalize it into a mechanism that would ensure popular participation in political processes.44 While simultaneously defending the assembly from right-wing attacks, leftist activists needed to push sympathetic assembly members to incorporate their concerns into the new constitution. Being squeezed between these two concerns placed social movements in a very difficult position. They found themselves walking a fine line between undermining the assembly’s potentially progressive advances and settling for less than what they wanted. In order to keep pressure on the delegates and to have their voice heard in the assembly, CONAIE and Ecuarunari established an office in Montecristi. From there, they lobbied the assembly while informing their members of the nature of debates and mobilizing popular support for their positions. As the assembly began its work, more than one thousand Indigenous delegates gathered at Santo Domingo de los Tsa’chilas for CONAIE’s Third Congress of Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador. Assembly member Mónica Chuji read a letter from assembly president Alberto Acosta in which he promised to “fight for the recognition of the rights and achievements of all Indigenous peoples and nationalities.” His letter emphasized that Indigenous movements and their struggles against the oligarchy and colonial powers were of transcendent importance to the social transformation that the country was experiencing. “The historical consciousness, the cultural inheritance of Indigenous peoples and nationalities,” he wrote, “are needed to build an inclusive and just society.” Acosta called for a unity

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of Indigenous organizations in order to realize that goal.45 Indigenous activists had powerful allies in the assembly. At CONAIE’s congress, Indigenous leaders declared their opposition to policies that would lead to an extraction of natural resources, particularly of petroleum and water, from Ecuador. These resources were of strategic importance to the development of the country, and activists declared that they must be protected as part of the national patrimony. Outgoing CONAIE president Luis Macas emphasized that as long as these resources were not in the hands of the people, the country did not belong to everyone. Delegates also appealed for the development of a social economy. Indigenous leaders called on the assembly to change government structures and the political system to end social exclusion and inequality. They presented an Integral Agrarian Reform plan to redistribute land, eliminate inequality, and stop environmental destruction. Correa celebrated the one-year anniversary of his government one and a half months into the work of the Constituent Assembly. Some observers complained about the assembly’s slow pace: the delegates had not yet approved a single article. Assembly president Alberto Acosta dismissed notions that the assembly was not complying with the mission that the people had given it. Rather, he emphasized the importance of careful debates. “The creation of a new constitution,” he argued, “requires a process of reflection and analysis on the needs of society and, in particular, on the vision of the type of country it wants to construct.” Building a democratic society required creating not only new institutions but also new values. It would take time to build a solid foundation for an inclusive, equitable, and just society that respected life.46 Halfway through its six-month mandate, the assembly was bogged down in its work. It had trouble coming to a consensus on the preamble for the new constitution, and the ten commissions were making slow progress on defining the nature of the new constitution. Critics complained that the reason for the delays was that Correa had unduly burdened it with additional legislative tasks. In addition, the assembly had become muddled in lengthy theoretical debates concerning philosophies of governance. Hot-button social issues such as abortion rights and gay marriage also threatened to derail the delegates’ work. In addition, the constitutional process faced external threats, including calls from conservative politicians in the coastal city of Guayaquil for regional autonomy. With the deputies still hard at work, on March 11, 2008, CONAIE organized a march in support of the Constituent Assembly.47 Demonstrating the significant ability of Indigenous movements to mobilize their bases in street demonstrations, twenty thousand people joined the march. The march and a subsequent gathering with AP officials concluded with a promise to continue meetings between the executive branch and Indigenous representatives

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to study their demands and proposals.48 CONAIE also sent Correa a lengthy letter emphasizing that Indigenous movements had been in the lead in organizing against neoliberal economic policies that impoverished the majority of Ecuadorians and criminalized social struggles. But rather than just articulating what they opposed, CONAIE emphasized that they had also forwarded concrete proposals to move toward a better world. The letter laid out a list of twenty-three demands, ranging through issues of opposition to resource extraction and militarism and support for Indigenous rights and institutions, including the ever-present call for recognition of plurinationality in the new constitution.49 Correa did not respond to their overtures as warmly as social movements would have liked. Two months later, on May 13, 2008, CONAIE released a statement in which it distanced itself from Correa because of his racist, authoritarian, and antidemocratic statements.50 The declaration surprised casual observers and solidarity activists who assumed that social movements would support the populist Correa. In reality, there was little new in the statement. It merely reflected the long-simmering tensions between Correa and social movements that only became more visible as the president seemed to drift to the right. The statement indicated that Indigenous movements were closely watching political developments, and would continue to denounce any maintenance of neoliberal economic models. Indigenous leaders emphasized that the revisions they were proposing to Ecuador’s constitution would benefit everyone in the country, not just Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, in reality there were not really Indigenous problems, but solutions for problems that the entire country faced.51 As Zamosc notes, “Indigenous struggles in Latin America falsify the basic tenets of the ‘new social movements’ approach.” Rather than privileging the more limited and sometimes fundamentally conservative identity politics of cultural affirmation and ethnic rights, Indigenous organizations in Ecuador embraced a class struggle that engages “broader battles over social issues and political power.”52 First and foremost, Indigenous activists emphasized the importance of political changes, specifically the primary and continuing demand to acknowledge the plurinational character of the Ecuadorian state. This meant not only recognition of fourteen Indigenous nationalities, but also acknowledgment that their systems of life, education, and economy were different from those of the dominant society. Among their specific and concrete proposals, CONAIE and Ecuarunari urged direct representation of Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian nationalities in the National Congress, perhaps to the point of each of the fourteen Indigenous nationalities and sixteen Indigenous peoples internally selecting one delegate each to the Congress. Furthermore, the National Congress should be renamed an Asamblea Plurinacional Legislativa (Legislative Plurinational Assembly).53 “We know how to organize ourselves,” AP

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delegate and Indigenous leader Mónica Chuji declared, claiming that Indigenous organizations should be in charge of selecting their own congressional representatives.54 It was this form of illiberal, corporate governance that Correa sought to end by granting everyone equal rights under one law. Luis Macas bristled at the suggestion that Indigenous communities were advocating a corporatist style of organization, as if they were a labor guild or football club. Rather, he emphasized, they were nationalities with their own territories, languages, histories, and cultures, and should have rights of representation based on that status.55 Similar to long-running debates in the United States over affirmative action policies, these proposals introduced a minefield of disagreements about whether treating historically marginalized peoples the same as the dominant classes in reality maintained the former in a socially exclusionary position. As Lucero notes, corporatist models have traditionally been much stronger in Bolivia than in Ecuador, and this led to a more entrenched use of ethnic labels in Ecuador “to frame their struggles.”56 Charges of corporatism seemed to run counter to the types of organizational structures that Indigenous activists had typically used to advance their agendas. In the economic realm, activists argued that the neoliberal model was not the correct one for Ecuador. The extractive economy was damaging to the environment and society. Mining, in particular, harmed local communities in their struggles for land, life, biodiversity, and their very survival. Production and resource extraction that did not provide a social function needed to be halted. In addition, previous governments had ignored the domestic agrarian economy. Indigenous leaders argued that emphasis needed to be placed on small and medium-sized producers rather than favoring large corporate and agribusiness interests. In contrast, CONAIE called for “recuperation of popular sovereignty in the running of the economy.” This was necessary because Ecuador had “lived for twenty-five years with an economic model that much more than concentrating wealth also promotes dispossession, inequality, and the handing of sovereignty to large foreign monopolies.” The goal of the economic system, CONAIE argued, should not be profit but human welfare, the sumak kawsay. Social movements should regain control over state structures to use them for the common good rather than for the profits of elites.57 Concretely, activists pressed for replacing the U.S. dollar as legal tender in Ecuador with a regional currency as a step toward reclaiming sovereignty over monetary policy. They also called for nationalization of natural resources, governmental support for microcredit, and equal rights for women. Access to water was a human right, and the new constitution should declare it to be a social good and strategic resource whose commodification and privatization would be outlawed. Water should be used first to meet human needs and to guarantee food sovereignty before being apportioned for

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industrial needs. Similarly, land needed to be used for the common good, and large concentrated landholdings should be broken up. As former agricultural minister Luis Macas noted, “Revolutions begin with an agrarian revolution.”58 Natural resources should be used for the benefit of the entire country, not just for a small wealthy elite or for those on whose territory they were found. CONAIE’s allies contrasted a “conservative plurinationalism” that sought to exclude the government from control over resources on Indigenous territories, with their view of a “progressive plurinationalism” that demanded government presence as a way to reinforce national sovereignty.59 In addition to the political and administrative division of Ecuador into provinces, cantons, and parishes, CONAIE and Ecuarunari proposed the addition of a fourth level of communal territory governed by local community governments.60 Similar to communal councils in Venezuela, the idea was to return political power to a grassroots level. Socially, Ecuador needed to rethink how people were organized. Modernity had not benefited Indigenous communities. The country faced an extreme out-migration that the government needed to address. Education through high school should be free, secular, obligatory, and bilingual in Spanish and an (unnamed) Indigenous language. Universal health care should also be guaranteed. The rights of community media should also be protected, including granting Indigenous peoples, Afro-Ecuadorians, and other popular sectors preference in acquiring radio frequencies.61 Women should have full and equal rights, including provisions for maternity leave and the protection of young children. Social security, Indigenous activists declared, was an “imprescriptible and inalienable right.” Finally, protections for informal workers and domestic employees should be upheld.62 On an international level, Indigenous organizations sought for the country to be ruled under the principles of peace, sovereignty, solidarity, and dignity. This would mean, in particular, evicting the United States from the Manta air base. The government should guarantee and protect the rights of immigrants. Finally, foreign debts should be declared to be illegitimate and unpayable.63 In May 2008 with its work far from complete, the assembly voted to extend its mandate for two more months. As the eight-month mark approached and with Correa’s popularity ratings in decline, the assembly hesitated to extend its mandate for yet another two months. AP delegates feared that doing so would make it more difficult to gain approval for the constitution in the upcoming public referendum. Failure to make the original deadline already had led to a significant drop in the assembly’s popularity. Instead, Correa pressed the assembly to accelerate the pace of its work. In response, on June 23 Acosta resigned his post as assembly president, stating that the lengthy process of constitutional deliberations should not be short-circuited. He complained that the AP’s decisions were

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guided by expediency rather than principles of participatory democracy. “The constitution does not belong to AP nor to Rafael Correa,” Acosta declared, “but to the broader society.”64 Indigenous organizations pleaded with Acosta not to leave, seeing him as their primary and most powerful ally in the assembly. Ironically, the conservative opposition also sided with Acosta, but for an entirely different reason. The longer they could drag out the assembly’s work, the greater the chances that voters would reject the final draft. With Acosta gone, public approval ratings for the assembly fell even farther. Some observers thought that Acosta wanted to leave so that his reputation, and with it his future political prospects, would not be sullied by the failures and shortcomings of the assembly. Fernando Cordero, who was committed to bringing the assembly’s work to a rapid conclusion, replaced him. Under Acosta’s control, the assembly had approved only fifty-seven articles. On Cordero’s first day as president, the assembly approved ninety articles, and Cordero said that they could approve as many as two hundred articles a day. Having Acosta step aside assured that the assembly would meet its July 25, 2008, deadline, but it came at the cost of further damaging the assembly’s image and placing approval of the constitution at risk. Social movements slowly became aware that the assembly under Correa’s control would provide little possibility for fundamental societal changes on these issues. The government engaged in much talk, but very little action. The delegates could have engaged pressing issues of mining and petroleum extraction, but they enacted few concrete proposals to deal with these concerns. CONAIE and Pachakutik did not perform well in electoral contests, but historically they had experienced a good deal of success in pressing policies through street protests. Since both Correa and Indigenous movements shared similar policy concerns in their opposition to neoliberalism and support for a constituent assembly, in a pinch their interests would coincide. But strengthening the executive meant co-opting social movements. These contradictions led many activists to argue that they could organize most effectively as a social movement outside the government rather than by joining Correa’s project.

PLURINATIONALISM On the eve of the assembly’s beginning its work on the new constitution, CONAIE released a draft proposal of what it wanted to see included in the new constitution. Their proposal began with the statement: Ecuador constitutes a plurinational, sovereign, communitarian, social and democratic, independent, secular, solidarity, unitary state with gender equality.65

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The 1998 constitution had defined Ecuador as “pluricultural and multiethnic,” but stopped short of the more politically charged term “plurinational.” When the 1998 constitution failed to deliver on its promises, Indigenous movements returned to pressing their long-standing and key central demand of plurinationalism. Assembly president Alberto Acosta argued strongly in favor of including the concept of plurinationalism in the constitution and became one of CONAIE’s staunchest allies on this issue. “The construction of a plurinational state,” Acosta contended, “is not only a challenge but a necessity.”66 The Constituent Assembly refused to lead its definition of Ecuador with the term “plurinational” as CONAIE advocated, but for the first time the 2008 constitution incorporated this contentious word into its text. Article 1 now declared that Ecuador was a constitutional state of rights and justice, social, democratic, sovereign, independent, unitary, intercultural, plurinational and secular.67

Indigenous movements finally had realized their long-sought-after and highly symbolic goal. Tucked into these debates were disagreements over what plurinationalism means. CONAIE wanted plurinationalism to empower Indigenous peoples, including granting them control over commercial enterprises on their lands. As Maximilian Viatori and Gloria Ushigua note, activists embraced the discourse of plurinationalism “to stress the systemic discrimination under which indigenous people suffer and to pressure the state to recognize indigenous rights that would balance historical inequities in the distribution of resources.”68 Theodore Macdonald emphasizes that the goal of pursuing this policy was “inclusion as equals in a plurinational state.”69 Elites sometimes retreated into a primordial fear that “savage Indians” would impose their form of life on the rest of the country. Conservatives also expressed concern that the doctrine of plurinationality would create “quasi ministates in which the Ecuadorian state could not exercise its sovereignty.”70 AP delegates wished to leave the term vaguely defined, essentially assuring that it would remain on the level of rhetoric without any significant substance or concrete implications.71 The language of Indigenous nationalities originated in the 1920s as part of Marxist discourse, and during the 2008 Constituent Assembly leftists continued to support Indigenous demands for the creation of a plurinational state. José Villarroel Yanchapaxi wrote in the Maoist newspaper Opción that to recognize Ecuador as a plurinational state would not only mean acknowledging the territorial rights of Indigenous peoples and nationalities, but would also finally include them in “the construction of a free, sovereign, and socialist country.”72 More than an ethnic demand, plurinationalism had strongly radical undertones.

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Even among Indigenous activists the significance of plurinationalism was hotly debated, with those allied with CONAIE most interested in pressing the issue. In an edited volume on plurinationalism, Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez note that some factions of the Indigenous movement were opposed to plurinationalism, favoring the concept of interculturality instead. “Perhaps under pressure to gain political control over the short term, advised by possible political party interests,” those who took this position had “confused the scope of the discussion.”73 FENOCIN president and AP delegate Pedro de la Cruz, an activist closely allied with the Socialist Party, was one of those who remained skeptical of the practicality of the concept of plurinationalism; instead, he stressed the fundamental importance of interculturality as leading to respectful and fruitful relationships among different groups.74 Historian Galo Ramón echoed these concerns. From his perspective, plurinationalism was too vague of a term. Furthermore, plurinationalism recognized diversity, but interculturality was better because it embraced unity in this diversity. Finally, according to Ramón, whereas plurinationality might work in a situation where only one people inhabits a contiguous territory, it works less well in a much more fluid situation such as Ecuador, which, in particular, had seen a heavy rural–urban migration. For these reasons, Ramón argues that interculturality was better equipped and positioned to transform exclusionary, racist, unequal structures.75 In addition to an ideological opposition, for competing federations such as FENOCIN and FEINE the language of Indigenous nationalities and the demands of plurinationalism were too closely associated with CONAIE to be a viable organizational demand.76 In contrast to Ramón, Sousa Santos contends that plurinationalism is broader than interculturality, and that it is possible to have interculturality without plurinationalism, but not plurinationalism without interculturality.77 For Ecuarunari, “plurinationalism means building a strong and sovereign state that recognizes and makes possible the full exercise of collective and individual rights, and promotes equal development for all of Ecuador and not only for certain regions or sectors.” They denied that plurinationalism means creating a state within a state, as was commonly charged. Rather, it is “a democratic rupture that permits the organization and social control over public goods and the state, and in this way surpasses the neocolonial system that marginalizes and subjects people.”78 CONAIE contended that this communitarian form of government was not a mechanism to guarantee undue special privileges. Furthermore, the Indigenous federation emphasized that plurinationalism would form part of a unitary state.79 Plurinationalism would “strengthen a new state through the consolidation of unity, destroying racism and regionalism as a necessary prerequisite for social and political equality, economic justice, direct and participatory democracy, communitarianism, and interculturality.”80 Plurinationalism

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would benefit everyone in the country, and in a sense was a demand more relevant for the dominant culture because due to their subordinate position, Indigenous peoples already functioned in an intercultural setting. Indigenous intellectual Luis Maldonado Ruiz defines plurinationalism as “the legal and political recognition of cultural diversity,” reflecting people with “differentiated historical entities who share common values, particular identities, forms of social and political organization, historical origin, and language.” Plurinationalism challenged previous governmental attempts to divide Indigenous peoples, de-ethnicize them through labels such as “peasants,” or denigrate them with racist terms such as “savages,” “naturals,” “tribes,” “hordes,” and “ethnics.” For these reasons, Maldonado argues, “it was necessary for Indigenous peoples to look to the language and conceptual development of the social sciences of the dominant class for a concept that provides the best expression of their socio-political reality.” Maldonado proceeds to define three key elements of a plurinational state. First is the recognition of the diversity of peoples and cultures, including respect for different visions of development and social and political organization. This would require “recognition of two political subjects and rights, that of citizenship and of nationalities or peoples.” Citizenship, in contrast to nationality, refers to those with rights in a nation-state. Furthermore, a citizen’s relationship with the state is expressed on an individual basis, while the conceptualization of nationality embraces communal aspects. The second element requires the transformation of the state and hegemonic powers. “Incorporating nationalities and peoples into the new state implies the abolition of all forms of oppression, exploitation, and inclusion,” Maldonado argues. Plurinationalism “should have as its objective the decolonization of the country and the state, permitting a just and egalitarian participation.” Finally, a plurinational state requires an interculturality that implies respect among different nationalities, peoples, and cultures. A plurinational state, Maldonado concludes, would end systems of domination and replace them with relations of equality.81 AP delegate and Indigenous leader Mónica Chuji considered a plurinational state to be “a new form of a social contract that respects and harmonizes the rights of Indigenous peoples and nationalities with the judicial structure and political force to recognize their status as political subjects with clear rights.” Such a state would “recognize and guarantee the exercise, application, and force of the fundamental rights” of Indigenous peoples and nationalities.82 She emphasized that plurinationalism would not mean dissolving the Ecuadorian state, nor would it lead to its fragmentation into unconnected autonomous groups. Rather, she stressed, plurinationalism proposed “unity in diversity.”83 Cholango listed recognition of a plurinational state as the “highest aspiration” of the movement.84 Recognizing the diversity of peoples and nationalities was necessary to achieve sovereignty

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for the country. Plurinationality was critical for Indigenous peoples, Cholango argued, because “we no longer want to speak only of democracy.” Rather, he maintained, “we should decolonize democracy and get rid of the colonial obscurity that has lasted for more than 514 years.”85 Only by shedding a “false democracy with folkloric characteristics” would a “real democracy” emerge.86 Embracing plurinationalism was necessary to realize a true democracy. In March 2008, CONAIE’s president Marlon Santi presented assembly president Alberto Acosta with a formal proposal to create a plurinational state in Ecuador. Santi emphasized that enacting the proposal was necessary to assure grassroots participation in the refounding of Ecuador. After delivering the statement to Acosta, a delegation of 150 CONAIE activists met with vice president Lenin Moreno. The delegation emphasized that plurinationality did not mean dividing the state. Rather, embracing cultural diversity was necessary to focus attention on the needs of Indigenous communities.87 Acosta responded positively, and with such high-level support CONAIE was finally well positioned to gain their long-standing demand. Was the inclusion of the term plurinational a symbolic or concrete victory for Ecuador’s Indigenous rights movements? CONAIE maintained that the best way to transform Ecuador’s political and economic structures was for the new constitution to “declare Ecuador as a plurinational state, based on the existence of the diversity of nationalities and peoples as entities with their own unique economies, politics, cultures, and histories.”88 Plurinationalism should not remain on the level of a formal paper declaration, but instead should contribute to a fundamental change in the structure of the state that would lead to the “decolonization of our nations and peoples.”89 In the end, its importance would be defined by how this new language would be implemented, and whether activists were willing to accept it as merely a cultural advance or exploit it as an effective tool to pry open spaces in Ecuador’s historically exclusionary state structures. Finally, revising the constitution to include one of CONAIE’s principal demands required more than organizing street protests; it necessitated direct involvement with the same electoral apparatus that some of the movement’s most radical proponents shied away from joining. Building a new and better world entailed negotiating numerous inherently contradictory positions.

LANGUAGES In addition to plurinationalism, a struggle in the Constituent Assembly was whether Kichwa and other Indigenous languages would be granted official status. In laying out its proposals for the new constitution, CONAIE argued that “it is impossible to promote those languages (and with them

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those cultures and their other ways of understanding the world) without a national and collective effort.” If this goal, CONAIE continued, remained only an Indigenous concern it would never be realized. “Interculturality is a matter for all Ecuadorians,” the federation declared. “When a language is lost a vision of the world also disappears,” and that would be a blow to the entire country.90 Preserving and promoting Indigenous languages would benefit all of Ecuador. On July 13, 2008, toward the end of the assembly’s work, Acosta, now just a regular delegate for the AP after resigning the presidency of the assembly, asked why the proposed constitutional text excluded an official recognition of Indigenous languages. As an alternative, he proposed: Spanish and Kichwa, as the primary languages of intercultural relations, are the official languages of the country. Other languages are for official use in the zones inhabited by other peoples and nationalities. All of the country’s languages are part of its cultural patrimony, and as such the state will respect, conserve, and promote them.91

Under instructions from Correa, at 1:00 a.m. on July 19, 2008, in the middle of a final marathon session, the AP-controlled assembly voted against Acosta’s proposal to grant Kichwa official status. In response, the Pachakutik delegates along with AP ally Mónica Chuji walked out of the session.92 That vote against Kichwa faced an immediate and visceral reaction from Indigenous organizations. Ecuarunari’s leader Humberto Cholango labeled the assembly’s action as racist, and CONAIE’s president Marlon Santi called Correa a racist. Activists complained that Correa spoke Kichwa (and then only poorly) on the campaign trail to pander to Indigenous communities, while at the same time refusing to support movement demands.93 Correa retorted that in much of the country it was more important to learn English than Kichwa.94 Indigenous languages became central to debates about what kind of country delegates wished Ecuador to become. On July 24 at 2:00 a.m. while undertaking the final editorial revisions to the constitution and under the symbolic guidance of FENOCIN president Pedro de la Cruz, the assembly revised the proposed constitutional text to read: Spanish is the official language of Ecuador; Spanish, Kichwa and Shuar are official languages for intercultural relationships. Other ancestral languages are for official use for Indigenous peoples in the areas they inhabit and on the terms that the law stipulates. The state will respect and will stimulate their conservation and use.95

By all appearances, the last-minute inclusion of Kichwa in the constitution was either a concession or a sap to Indigenous organizations in order to gain their support for the document in the upcoming referendum. Rumors

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swirled that Correa’s allies wanted to include Shuar, the third most important language in Ecuador but one spoken largely only in the southeastern Amazon and neighboring Peru, in order to undercut Kichwa, the Ecuadorian variant of the pan-Andean Quechua language and the only Indigenous language that could legitimately be considered for use on a countrywide basis.96 Even though the text recognized the importance of Indigenous languages, activists criticized the document for stopping short of granting them official status equal to Spanish. These editorial revisions on language provisions illustrate how easy it is to make minor cultural concessions rather than undertake the fundamental changes to the political landscape that would be necessary to create a more inclusive social and economic system. In reality, as with the wording on plurinationality, the constitutional text on Indigenous languages was adopted largely from CONAIE’s October 2007 draft proposal. That recommendation read: Spanish and Kichwa are the official languages for intercultural relations. The other languages of the nationalities are official in the regions and areas of their use and comprise part of the national culture.97

Despite Indigenous complaints, the draft constitution did include precisely the same construction of Spanish and Kichwa as “official languages for intercultural relations” that CONAIE originally proposed, and even took it one step further with the inclusion of the dominant language in the southeastern Amazon. Furthermore, this text was not significantly different from the 1998 constitution that recognized Kichwa, Shuar, and other ancestral languages as official for the use of Indigenous peoples. Removing Shuar would have been a step backward, but retaining it was little more than maintaining the status quo rather than advancing Indigenous rights. In addition, the phrase “official languages for intercultural relations” was very vague, although how it would be concretely implemented would be worked out later in secondary legislation that would interpret and implement constitutional provisions. As with plurinationalism, attempts to grant Kichwa and other Indigenous languages official status have a much longer history than many observers of Ecuador’s current social movements realize. As with constructions of Indigenous nationalities, it was the Communist left that historically pressed most aggressively for the rights of Indigenous languages. In the 1944–1945 Constituent Assembly, Ricardo Paredes, the founder of the Ecuadorian Communist Party, convinced the assembly of the importance of recognizing Indigenous languages. As a result of his efforts, Article 5 of the 1945 constitution stated that “Spanish is the Republic’s official language. Kichwa and other aboriginal languages are recognized as elements of the national culture.”98 Although the 1945 constitution stopped short of granting Kichwa official status, it was an important step in that direction.

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Why did CONAIE oppose the constitution’s constructions on Indigenous languages? Was criticizing the text almost an automatic response from having spent years as a social movement working in the framework of oppositional politics during which they had become so accustomed to condemning governmental positions that they had become blind to potential gains in legislation? Did their opposition emerge out of a growing frustration and deepening antagonism to the Correa government? Did their criticisms reflect a serious political agenda, or were they simply part of ideological positioning? While the rationale for CONAIE’s actions was not entirely clear, it did point to the underlying tensions that emerge when social movements engage state policies.

COLLECTIVE RIGHTS CONAIE demanded that in addition to advancements in acknowledging Ecuador’s plurinational character and embracing Indigenous languages, the collective rights of Indigenous peoples and Afro-Ecuadorians codified in the 1998 constitution be maintained and expanded. While the 1998 constitution referred to “Indigenous peoples who self identify as nationalities of ancestral races,” Chapter 4 of the new constitution overtly recognized the collective rights of “communities, peoples, and nationalities.” Article 56 stated that “Indigenous communities, peoples, and nationalities, AfroEcuadorians, montuvios, and comunas form part of the unified, indivisible Ecuadorian state.” Article 57 “recognizes and guarantees Indigenous comunas, communities, peoples and nationalities in conformity with the constitution and agreements, conventions and declarations and other international human rights instruments for the protection of collective rights.” These rights included those of embracing an ethnic identity, being free of racial discrimination, holding communal territories, and protecting natural resources.99 In arguing for these gains, CONAIE declared that it “was necessary to rethink Ecuador from an inclusionary perspective instead of one of subordination, where everyone has the right to live according to their traditional customs.”100 On many levels, the constitution represented serious and dramatic gains for Indigenous aspirations. Articles 58 and 59 similarly defended the collective rights of AfroEcuadorians and montuvios to their identities, cultures, and traditions. While Indigenous leaders embraced the new constitution as an important advancement, some Afro-Ecuadorians and montuvios complained that the constitution privileged Indigenous rights over their own. “Indigenous peoples are placed in the first category, Blacks in the second, and montuvios in the third,” Luis Alvarado, president of the national association of montuvio peoples, said. This inequality was offensive for his group.101 Gaining broad

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support for the new constitution in the midst of competing social movement interests could quickly become an ideological minefield.

CAMPAIGNS As the assembly rushed the constitution to completion, it began to streamline the legislative process. Opponents complained that articles were being steamrollered through without sufficient debate. In one final marathon session that ran from 12:40 p.m. on Friday, July 18, to 8:35 the following Saturday morning, Cordero had the assembly approve 120 articles, dropping in the process 50 articles that were originally envisioned to be in the constitution. Twenty opposition members walked out of the session in protest.102 As tensions rose, Correa betrayed his authoritarian tendencies. He condemned the presence of twenty “infiltrators” in the AP whom he accused of working in favor of the opposition. Leading the list of infiltrators were Acosta and Chuji, who increasingly had tangled with the president, including breaking ranks with AP to vote in favor of granting Kichwa official status. Acosta and Chuji retorted that Correa was the infiltrator, and that they had always been straightforward as to their political agenda. Others, such as the revolutionary priest Fernando Vega, were known for working against corruption and in favor of using the constitution to introduce deep transformations into the country. More surprising, however, were people like Pedro de la Cruz, who as head of FENOCIN had occasionally clashed with the competing Indigenous organization CONAIE and generally had been a loyal ally of the president. His inclusion raised the specter that Correa identified with the dominant classes, and was willing to work with representatives of marginalized groups only when they remained subordinate to his will, but that he always felt uncomfortable and even threatened by lower-class challenges to power.103 The final draft contained 444 articles, almost twice as many as the previous 1998 constitution. Correa complained about “barbarous” mistakes in the constitution that would need to be corrected before it would be ready for the public referendum. He implied that these were Acosta’s fault and had been introduced under his mandate, though he was vague on details.104 Of the 130 delegates in the assembly, 94 voted in favor of the new text, including Pachakutik, MPD, and 4 independent members of the PSP. Thirty-two opposed it, including the PSC, PRIAN, and PSP. Six delegates were absent. Lengthy and contentious debates in the Constituent Assembly resulted in a constitution that provided a basis for a more inclusionary and participatory political system. Like Venezuela’s constitution, this one employed genderinclusive language, explicitly employing both male and female nouns and

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pronouns. It also expanded democratic participation, including providing for the recall of elected officials and lowering the voting age to sixteen. In addition, the constitution extended the franchise to legal residents who had lived in the country for at least five years, Ecuadorian immigrants outside the country, and members of the armed forces. Proponents applauded the expansion of democratic rights, while conservatives complained that this was simply a mechanism for the left to pad its electoral support.105 Of course, how wide to open electoral participation was not a new issue; previous constituent assemblies had also continually struggled with similar concerns. The constitution codified much of the agenda for which popular movements had long advocated, including a ban on foreign military bases and reasserting government control over oil, mining, transport, telecommunications, and other economic sectors that had been privatized by previous governments. The new constitution guaranteed the right to information, including public access to community-based media.106 It also rejected neoliberalism, and embraced a solidarity economy that proclaimed an intent to place the interests of people and their communities over those of capital.107 This included increased resource allocation to education, social services, and health care. The constitution supported food sovereignty, outlawed transgenetic seeds, and prohibited the privatization of water and the concentration of landholdings. FENOCIN and CONAIE had successfully pressed the assembly to include policies that would strengthen local food markets by emphasizing self-sufficiency and providing subsidies to small and medium-sized producers.108 The new document also incorporated the concept of sumak kawsay, that is, of living well, not just better; defended Indigenous languages; and, in a highly symbolic gesture, embraced plurinationalism in an effort to incorporate Indigenous cosmologies into the governing of the country. Given Correa’s attempts to exclude and delegitimize Indigenous movements, activists were surprisingly successful in incorporating their demands into the new constitution. In part, this is evidence of their continued strength as a social movement. Although they had not mastered the skills necessary to achieve large electoral victories, as a social movement Indigenous militants were still able to press their concerns in the halls of power. They were prepared for the assembly, and were able to take advantage of the opportunities it provided to advance their agenda. The disintegration of the traditionally strong parties and the fragmentation of other competing forces also provided the militants with access to political spaces with which they were able to capitalize. A combination of factors allowed them to succeed more than otherwise might have been the case. Environmentalists warmly embraced the constitution for recognizing and protecting the rights of nature, a recognition that built on a growing environmental consciousness in the 1980s and 1990s throughout the

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Americas.109 Constitutional reforms in Colombia in 1991 and Brazil in 1998 established the right of people to enjoy a clean and sustainable environment, even though the extension of human rights to the realm of nature was controversial at first.110 Ecuador’s new constitution took this one step further to recognize the rights of nature itself; it was the first country in the world to do so. Article 71 declared that “nature or Pachamama [the Kichwa term for Mother Earth], from which life springs, has the right to have its existence integrally respected.”111 Walsh shows how the codification of the rights of nature existed in a triangular relationship with the sumak kawsay and development regimes.112 The inclusion of the rights of nature measure was due largely to assembly president Alberto Acosta, who pressed for the need to go beyond an anthropocentric vision. Acosta argued that while giving rights to nature might seem as strange to some as the need to give rights to slaves or women, “great changes require bold action and open minds.” Similar to how it was necessary to stop the buying and selling of slaves, it was now important to halt the commodification of nature. “If social justice was the central axis for social struggles in the twentieth century,” Acosta maintained, “environmental justice will increasingly play that role in the twenty-first century.” These rights included that of the very existence and restoration of nature.113 Assembly member Leonardo Viteri commented that while at first it might appear unusual to grant nature rights, it should not be so “if even corporations have rights.”114 Unions welcomed progressive labor legislation that outlawed subcontracting and improved pay and working conditions, issues that Indigenous organizations had also demanded be included in the new constitution.115 What proponents applauded as a blow to neoliberalism, conservative opponents denounced as outdated and discredited statist and totalitarian policies. Correa was increasingly squeezed between all these forces. Following Venezuela’s lead, Ecuador created five branches of government. In addition to the executive, legislative, and judicial, the constitution added an electoral branch, the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE, National Electoral Council), and a Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social (CPCCS, Council of Citizenship Participation and Social Control). This last branch was in charge of nominating officials, including the attorney general and comptroller general. Its purpose was to increase citizen participation and improve political transparency, although the conservative opposition was concerned that it would concentrate more power in Correa’s hands. Even though Pachakutik’s national coordinator Miguel Lluco previously had specifically called for citizen participation as a mechanism to perfect democracy, now more radical activists complained that this construction advanced a fundamentally liberal, individualistic project rather than taking into account the needs and concerns of Indigenous peoples and nationalities as collective units, as was necessary for building a plurinational state.116

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In contrast, advocates argued that stronger administrative structures were necessary to bring stability to this chronically politically unstable country. The most vocal and steadfast opposition to the new constitution came from the conservative oligarchy. The most reactionary elements of the Catholic Church called for a vote against the document in the September 28, 2008, referendum, largely because of its ambiguous stances on abortion laws, same-sex marriage, and religious education. Reproductive rights in particular remained a highly contentious issue throughout the assembly’s work, especially for feminists who lamented what they perceived to be a lost opportunity to advance their concerns. Before the assembly began its work, the Consejo Nacional de Mujeres (CONAMU, National Council of Women) had released a broad list of economic, social, and political reforms they wished to see included in the new constitution; these reforms ranged from general statements such as support for a plurinational state to specific concerns such as recognition for same-sex unions. In the end, they were disappointed at the minimal advances that they achieved.117 According to women’s organizations, illegal abortions were the second-largest cause of maternal death in Ecuador, whereas the medical procedure was a simple one with minimal risk in countries where it was legal.118 Correa personally was opposed to abortion rights, and in order to head off religious opposition, he had the assembly write into the document a guarantee to the right to life since conception. Article 45 of the Montecristi document stated, “The state shall recognize and guarantee life, including its care and protection from conception.” Nevertheless, because the constitution did not specifically mention abortion, the Ecuadorean Episcopal Conference led by Archbishop Antonio Arregui and other conservative bishops allied with Opus Dei accused the document of leaving the door open for this medical procedure. They urged Catholics to be aware of irreconcilable differences between the constitution and their faith. In response, Correa angrily complained that the church was intervening in politics; at the same time, he continued to insist that the bishops had misinterpreted the constitution and that indeed it did guarantee the right to life beginning at conception. CONAIE complained that the church’s position was part of an orchestrated campaign “devoted to confusing and misleading national public opinion,” intentionally contributing to false and misleading interpretations in order “to protect the disastrous national oligarchy’s privileges and interests.”119 Correa previously had managed to maintain good relations with the Catholic Church, but those now broke down as its hierarchy aligned itself with right-wing economic elites.120 On the last day of the assembly’s work, delegates changed the wording of Article 67 from defining marriage as a union of two people to that of a union of a man and a woman, effectively eliminating the promise of gay marriage that had been included in the proposed draft.121 The constitution

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did, however, legalize same-sex civil unions, and maintained previous bans on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists accused the Catholic Church of exploiting homophobia in order to distract people from more important issues and to defend its economic interests.122 ICCI argued that social issues including gay marriage, abortion, and the constitution’s failure to mention God were nothing more than pretexts for conservative religious actors to oppose the social and economic gains that the new constitution would represent.123 Some on the radical left were very vocal in their support of the new constitution, and they criticized the conservative opposition for distorting the content of the document. The Maoist newspaper Opción argued that leftists should support the constitution because it was an anti-imperialist, antineoliberal document that favored economic justice, including sovereignty over natural resources. They underscored for their readers the advances in the document, including increased access to health care and education, advancements in food sovereignty, opposition to concentrations of landholdings, and a requirement that private property fulfill a social function.124 In contrast, some moderate leftists came out against supporting the constitution. León Roldós complained that the final draft contained revisions that the assembly had not approved. Former priest Eduardo Delgado and leader of the left-leaning party Polo Demócratico (Democratic Pole) complained that the document still supported a neoliberal extractive industry–based development model, even if the proceeds from that extraction funded social programs rather than flowing into the pockets of transnational corporations. “A state is not plurinational if it only takes the folkloric aspects into account but doesn’t revise its development model,” Delgado said.125 He hoped that the constitution would embody more fundamental economic changes. Ecuarunari and others on the Indigenous left viewed the new constitution as a mixed bag. In some aspects, it was a step forward, particularly on a symbolic level. In others it was a jump backward, including in some very material aspects such as promoting large-scale mineral extraction. Nevertheless, if popular movements opposed the constitution because it did not have everything they wanted, they would play directly into the hands of their traditional enemies. If they supported it, they would strengthen the hand of a political force that did not embody their interests. How could they support the constitutional project without giving the appearance of allying with the government? Some Indigenous leaders complained that rather than moving forward, the new constitution would turn the clock back to before the promulgation of the current constitution in 1998. Indigenous organizations felt that they had been placed in a very difficult position.

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Facing this conundrum, Indigenous movements decided to take what they could get rather than lose everything on a more principled stance. In a lengthy meeting on July 29, 2008, Ecuarunari decided to tepidly and tentatively support Correa’s project of rewriting the country’s constitution in the upcoming referendum.126 Supporting the constitution, Cholango declared, was not the same as supporting a political party or an individual. They were not giving Correa a blank check. Rather, Cholango categorized the gains of the constitution as the result of long struggles of diverse social movements.127 In the run-up to the September 28 referendum, Ecuarunari become even more vocal in its support for the constitution, calling on its bases to vote in favor of it. It published a special issue of its periodical Rikcharishun specifically to argue in favor of the reforms, pointing in detail to the gains that the new constitution would provide, including prohibiting the privatization of water. In a lead editorial, Cholango contended that due to the organization’s pressure, they had “incorporated fundamental demands for all Ecuadorians, particularly Indigenous nationalities and peoples.” Approval of the new text would “mark the beginning of a New Plurinational State.”128 Other individuals and social movements who were critical of the government joined Cholango and Ecuarunari in a Frente por el SÍ y el Cambio (Front for YES and Change) to campaign for passage of the referendum. They declared that “the new constitution is the result of decades of resistance and struggle of social movements, the Indigenous movement, and diverse sectors of the Ecuadorian people; it does not belong to any one person.” They noted that the new constitution embodied very important social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental advances, including plurinationality, interculturality, collective rights, the rights of nature, defense of political sovereignty, food sovereignty, Latin American integration, expansion of education and health care, water as a human right, rights of migrants, respect for diversity, a solidarity economy, and access to media. The social movements applauded that the text made repeated references to the sumak kausay, beginning in the preamble that called for a new form of citizenship that embraced diversity and harmony with nature in order to live well. The new constitution was a strike against neoliberalism, and a movement toward opening up democratic participation. All these factors provided strong reasons to support the new constitution, which the activists hoped would lead to significant progress for the country. In order to advance this agenda, it was important first to go to the polls to defeat conservative economic forces that were campaigning against the constitution, and then to maintain pressure on the government to implement the positive gains that the document embodied. “Only the popular ratification of the constitutional project will guarantee,” the group stated, “the realization of the changes for which we have long hoped.” They held a September 4 march and other activities in favor of the constitution.129 Former Correa

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allies including Mónica Chuji urged a vote in favor of the constitution even with all its defects, not as support for Correa but in order to take advantage of a historic opportunity to build a democratic plurinational state.130 Deciding whether CONAIE, the largest and most significant Indigenous organization, would support the constitution proved to be a long and involved process. ICCI criticized Ecuarunari for making too hasty of a decision based on the consultation of too few of its members and before the finalization of the text of the new constitution, seemingly having made that move in order to force CONAIE to also support the constitution’s passage.131 On August 5, a week after Ecuarunari announced its support, CONAIE’s leaders decided not to make a decision until it had consulted with its bases, even though it appeared that a majority of its members had already decided to support the constitution.132 It was not until a month later that CONAIE finally announced its tentative and tepid approval for the document. In a September 4 press release timed to correspond with the march in support of the constitution, the Indigenous federation observed that “since the 1990s [they] had been calling for a participatory plurinational constituent assembly to draft a new constitution that would correct the errors of the historic exclusion of the rights of Indigenous peoples since the creation of the current Ecuadorian state.”133 Despite its advances in sovereignty policies and social, environmental, economic, cultural, and civic participation, CONAIE argued that unfortunately the new draft constitution did not provide “significant innovations in comparison to the 1998 constitution.” The federation, therefore, would “continue fighting unfailingly until there is a true recognition of our demands for a new plurinational state.” Nevertheless, CONAIE decided to support the constitution in order “to bury once and for all for all the old state structures, the dying party-ocracy and domestic oligarchy, colonialism, neocolonialism, and the unjust and inhumane neoliberal pattern that has done so much damage to the country.” CONAIE and its base organizations would remain vigilant in the face of any proposed extractive mining or natural resources projects. Finally, CONAIE reminded Correa “that any revolution and change in Latin America will never be able to be carried out without the participation of Indigenous nationalities and peoples.” It urged the president to set aside his arrogance and to foster harmonious relationships with Indigenous and other social movements. Otherwise, the historic opportunity “to carry out a true change and revolution” in Ecuador would be lost.134 Similar to Ecuarunari’s Humberto Cholango, CONAIE president Marlon Santi declared that this “support for the referendum is support for the political project of the Constitution, and it does not mean that CONAIE is supporting the political process” of Correa.135 The Indigenous federation wanted to avoid the dangers of being too closely associated with the Correa administration.

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CONAIE was the last organization to announce its support for the referendum; the competing Indigenous federations FENOCIN and FEINE had already made such statements soon after the assembly had finished its work in July.136 As Lucero notes, all these organizations “often engage in pragmatic mixes of contestation and negotiation,” something that their positions on the constitution reflected.137 Despite official statements of support, lingering tensions remained between Correa and Indigenous activists as well as among the various Indigenous federations. Involvement in electoral politics only seemed to deepen those tensions. Correa, for his part, aggressively campaigned in favor of the constitution, including organizing a massive march in Quito on August 23 and distributing one million copies of the draft text. He emphasized the gains in the document, including elimination of labor subcontracting, implementation of universal social security, increased environmental protections, support for family structures, and respect for regional autonomy. Correa complained that right-wing groups, particularly conservative student movements allied with their reactionary counterparts opposed to the leftist governments of Chávez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia, were threatening violence to disrupt the planned referendum. In response, Correa invited the Carter Center along with the OAS and the European Union to observe the vote. Even as the political tension heightened, Correa solidified popular support for the referendum, although regional divisions remained deeply entrenched with Correa continuing to enjoy much more support for his project in the highland capital of Quito than in the coastal city of Guayaquil. Backing for Correa and the constitution also reflected deep class divides in the country—even in Guayaquil the political project was gaining much more support in poor neighborhoods than in wealthy ones.138

REFERENDUM On September 28, 2008, Correa won an overwhelming victory with almost two-thirds of the electorate voting in favor of the new constitution. As Mario Unda observed, the right campaigned “openly as a bloc . . . and were defeated as a bloc.”139 The constitution lost only on the home turf of the president’s two main opponents. Voters defeated it by a very thin margin in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, where mayor Jaime Nebot remained overwhelmingly popular (although it easily won passage in the province of Guayas), and in the former president Lucio Gutiérrez’s Amazonian province of Napo.140 Nebot threatened to use the referendum’s defeat in Guayaquil as a justification for not complying with the constitution, and flamed the passions of a separatist movement that sought autonomy for the coastal city. Correa’s social policies, however, strongly appealed to the

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city’s impoverished population that tempered such moves. In the run-up to the plebiscite, polls indicated growing popular support for the constitution. Correa’s supporters called on the left to support the constitution because it was “the result of a very democratic process, the most democratic in history.”141 Acosta argued that unlike previous efforts, this constitution had “the support of the masses, beginning with those who had always been marginalized and displaced.”142 He called the constitution “a collective project written today thinking about tomorrow,” with the result being “the most Ecuadorian in the history of the republic.” Acosta pointed to the constitution’s positive values of decentralization, autonomy, solidarity, equity, integration, and dignity.143 The outcome of the vote indicated that the majority of the country agreed with his assertion. Despite their disagreements with Correa, the left wing of the Indigenous movement embraced the triumph as their own, much as they had greeted Correa’s initial electoral victory almost two years earlier. They pointed to its large margin of victory in rural Indigenous areas as the result of their organizing efforts. Humberto Cholango, in the name of Ecuarunari, declared that passage of the constitution represented a new and historic stage in Ecuador’s history. The first constitution in the Americas to recognize a plurinational and intercultural state was the culmination of two centuries of struggle for the sumak kawsay. The wide margin of victory meant the “definitive burying of an exclusionary neoliberal system.” But, Cholango cautioned, Indigenous communities that had so strongly thrown their support behind the constitution now faced the most difficult and serious challenge—assuring that the gains of the new document would actually be implemented. Indigenous movements would need to retain a protagonist role in order to avoid sliding back into oligarchical control.144 “The people’s political project,” as Franklin Falconí wrote, “does not begin nor end with Correa and the assembly.”145 Even with a new constitution, grassroots social movements retained a continuing political relevance in determining Ecuador’s future. A week after the approval of the constitution, Ecuarunari’s leaders gathered in Quito to analyze the results of the referendum and to decide how to proceed. The new constitution, they declared, was “the beginning of a new process of struggle for the construction of a plurinational and intercultural state.” This victory was due “thanks to the convergence of various social and popular forces that rose up against the oligarchical right and U.S. imperialism.” To be successful, this process would need to continue advancing. Ecuarunari was determined not to lose through neoliberal laws what they had gained on the street through uprisings and mobilizations.146 At the end of October, CONAIE held a similar meeting in Tena in the Amazon to map out strategies for how to proceed in this new political context. CONAIE also condemned neoliberal extractive policies that ran counter

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to the sumak kawsay. CONAIE declared that its political wing Pachakutik would maintain absolute independence from the government, and that the federation could not take positions without first consulting with its bases. It also condemned Correa’s government for its genocidal policies against the isolated Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples of the Huaorani nationality in the Amazon, and for pursuing extractive enterprises that violated the fundamental rights of Indigenous peoples and nationalities and put their lives in danger. Similar to Ecuarunari, CONAIE hoped to achieve its goals through the mobilization of its bases. It threatened to launch another uprising if Correa continued to pursue his extractive policies.147 “Rafael Correa does not want to see us united,” Luis Macas declared. “If you think just because he is tall and has green eyes he will be our leader, you are mistaken.”148 Indigenous movements continued to distance themselves from Correa’s government, and it appeared to be a division that would never be bridged. The constitution went into effect on October 20, and plans proceeded to hold new presidential, congressional, and municipal elections on April 26, 2009. In the meantime, the 76 delegates who had won the most votes in the elections for the Constituent Assembly formed an interim Congress (nicknamed the Congresillo, or “little congress”). Critics complained that this interim legislative commission did not have legitimacy since the Constituent Assembly’s mandate ended in July with the drafting of the new constitution, and if anything the previously elected National Congress should resume its mandate. After Venezuela approved its new constitution in 1999, the Constituent Assembly had similarly appointed a “Congresillo” that incensed the conservative opposition, which saw it as running roughshod over existing constitutional provisions.149 Cholango argued that all 130 delegates to the Constituent Assembly should remain in their seats until a new Congress could be elected. Nevertheless, the AP took 46 of the seats in the interim body, giving it complete control over the transition process as well as allowing it to approve legislation until a new Congress could be elected and seated. Conservatives continued to complain that Correa’s reforms were leading to strong executive domination over the judiciary. Correa had stolen the thunder from Indigenous militants in pressing for a new constitution, and even in going one step farther in granting CONAIE their long-standing demand to have Ecuador declared a plurinational country. It was not without reason that CONAIE resented Correa for taking over their issues and occupying spaces that they previously held. At the same time, Correa held those to his left hostage because criticizing him played into the hands of the oligarchy, which was equally eager to attack him from the right. The position of Indigenous movements in the writing of a new and progressive constitution pointed to the promises and limitations of a social movement realizing its agenda through engagements with governing bodies. As part of a well-organized civil society, social movements could

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influence the direction of governmental deliberations, but engaging state structures also inherently required compromises and trade-offs. Sousa Santos noted in a speech to the Constituent Assembly that “for social movements, the true struggle begins the day after the approval of the constitution.”150 It was not sufficient to draft new legislation, and social movements needed to remain vigilant to assure that the government followed through on its promises to implement progressive policies. “Recognition of a plurinational state is an important step, but it is not enough,” Acosta commented. “Now we have to build it.”151 Assembly member Norman Wray added that inasmuch as citizens and public powers were able to build “a more harmonious relationship between nature, the state, the market, and society, the change will begin to be a reality.” It was up to people to determine whether or not those objectives would be realized.152 The future remained to be written, and that was the task that now faced Indigenous movements.

NOTES Portions of this chapter are drawn from “Correa, Indigenous Movements, and the Writing of a New Constitution in Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives (special issue, “Globalizing Resistance: The New Politics of Social Movements in Latin America”), 38, no. 1 (January 2011). 1. Kintto Lucas, Rafael Correa: Un extraño en Carondelet (Quito: Planeta, 2007), 203. 2. Catherine M. Conaghan and Carlos de la Torre, “The Permanent Campaign of Rafael Correa: Making Ecuador’s Plebiscitary Presidency,” International Journal of Press Politics 13, no. 3 (July 2008): 280–82. Also see Conaghan, “Ecuador: Correa’s Plebiscitary Presidency,” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 2 (April 2008): 46–60. 3. “Correa Ratchets Up Tension by Threatening to Resign,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-08 (February 22, 2007): 4. 4. “Correa’s Actions at Odds with Discourse,” Latin American Weekly Report WR07-03 (January 18, 2007): 4; Catherine M. Conaghan, “The 2006 Presidential and Congressional Elections in Ecuador,” Electoral Studies 26, no. 4 (2007): 827. 5. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 183 6. “Frantic Talks but No ‘Pact’ over Referendum,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-06 (February 8, 2007): 7. 7. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 207. 8. Floresmilo Simbaña, “Aportes iniciales para el debate de un proceso de Asamblea Constituyente,” Yachaykuna 7 (November 2007): 39–59. 9. Luis Macas, “Presentación,” in Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), Constitución del estado plurinacional de la república del Ecuador. Propuesta de la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador-CONAIE (Quito: CONAIE, October 2007).

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10. Alberto Acosta, “De 1906 a 2008: Dos constituciones, dos revoluciones,” in Bitácora Constituyente (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2008), 39–42. 11. Donna Lee Van Cott, “Constitutional Reform in the Andes: Redefining Indigenous-State Relations,” in Multiculturalism in Latin America: Indigenous Rights, Diversity, and Democracy, ed. Rachel Sieder (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 53. 12. “57 diputados ‘destituidos’ por el TSE; Correa se suma,” El Comercio, March 8, 2007, 1, 3; Lucas, Rafael Correa, 211. 13. “Squabbling over Assembly Continues,” Andean Group Report RA-07-03 (March 2007): 14. 14. Humberto Cholango, “Un estado plurinacional significa transformar el estado,” Rikcharishun 35, no. 2 (May 2007): 3. 15. “Entrevista a Humberto Cholango,” Espacios: Aportes al pensamiento crítico contemporáneo 14 (February 2008): 61–62. 16. Lucas, Rafael Correa, 232. 17. “Correa Confident about Constituent Assembly Elections,” Andean Group Report RA-07-09 (September 2007): 5. 18. “Battle for Constituent Assembly Heats Up,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-32 (August 16, 2007): 4. 19. “Correa Succeeds in Demolishing ‘Traditional’ Parties,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-41 (October 18, 2007): 3; Augusto Barrera, “Significado y perspectivas del proceso constituyente,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 6 (November 2007): 13–17. 20. “Congress Grants Correa Constituent Assembly,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-07 (February 15, 2007): 3. 21. “Correa Should Win Slim Majority in Assembly,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-36 (September 13, 2007): 11. 22. Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck, “The Electoral Fortunes of Ecuador’s Pachakutik Party: The Fracaso of the 2006 Presidential Elections,” Latin Americanist 52, no. 2 (June 2008): 54. 23. “Pachakutik anuncia veeduría política,” El Comercio, October 28, 2007, 9. 24. Ecuarunari, “Nuestra propuesta a la Asamblea Constituyente,” Rikcharishun 35, no. 3 (August 2007): 4. 25. Guillermo Almeyra, “La mano y el Codo,” Rebelión, at www.rebelion.org/ noticia.php?id=62482. 26. “Congress Grants Correa Constituent Assembly,” 3. 27. Jorge Guamán, “Jorge Guamán, candidato de la lista 18,” Rikcharishun 35, no. 3 (August 2007): 3. 28. Pedro de la Cruz, “El mundo del trabajo y el cambio social,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 7 (March/April 2008): 33; “La Fenocin vigilará a la asamblea,” El Comercio, November 5, 2007, 6. 29. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “‘We’ve Balanced Out the Power,’” Latinamerica Press 39, no. 19 (October 17, 2007): 2. 30. Donna Lee Van Cott, “Andean Indigenous Movements and Constitutional Transformation: Venezuela in Comparative Perspective,” Latin American Perspectives 30, no. 1 (128) (January 2003): 57. 31. Ecuarunari, “Nuestra propuesta a la Asamblea Constituyente,” 4.

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32. Alberto Acosta’s best-known work is Breve historia económica del Ecuador, Biblioteca General de Cultura 7 (Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 1995). 33. Alberto Acosta, “El sentido de la refundación constitucional en tiempos de crisis,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 7 (March/April 2008): 17. 34. “El Buen Vivir es el respeto por la persona y por la naturaleza,” El Comercio, June 29, 2008, 39. 35. “Correa Sweeps Constituent Assembly Elections to Consolidate Power in Ecuador,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-39 (October 4, 2007): 2. 36. Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2008), 24. 37. “Nebot Tries to Rally Opposition to President Correa,” Andean Group Report RA-08-01 (January 2008): 14. 38. “El estado controlará el uso del agua, la tierra y las semillas,” El Comercio, June 28, 2008, 6. 39. “Constituent Assembly Disbands Congress,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-48 (December 6, 2007): 3. 40. “Correa podría estar 10 años en el poder,” El Comercio, July 5, 2008, 3. 41. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “El movimiento indígena va hacia un nuevo posicionamiento histórico,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 9, no. 103 (October 2007): 2–6; “Indígenas marchan hacia el congreso,” El Comercio, October 28, 2007, Revista Siete Días, 2. 42. “Correa Faces Showdown with Congress,” Latin American Weekly Report WR07-02 (January 11, 2007): 3. 43. Kintto Lucas, “La CONAIE y el Presidente: La necesidad de encontrarse en el camino,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 9, no. 103 (October 2007): 7. 44. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente: Propuesta de nueva constitución—desde la CONAIE—para la construcción de un estado plurinacional, unitario, soberano, incluyente, equitativo y laico (Documento de principios y lineamientos) (Quito: CONAIE, September 18, 2007), 3, 7, 8. 45. Marc Becker, “Marlon Santi: Commitment and Challenge to Reconstruct a New CONAIE in Ecuador,” Upside Down World, January 15, 2008. 46. Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente, 36, 35. 47. “Por el Agua, la Vida y un Estado Plurinacional . . . movilicémonos el 11 de marzo!” Rikcharishun 36, no. 1 (March 2008): 1. 48. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “Positivo diálogo entre el Gobierno y el Movimiento Indígena con respecto a la construcción del Estado Plurinacional,” Quito, March 11, 2008, at www.conaie.org/es/ ge_comunicados/20080311.html. 49. Letter from CONAIE to President Rafael Correa Delgado, March 11, 2008. 50. “La CONAIE toma distancia con el Gobierno,” Ayni Solidaridad 2, no. 16 (June 2008): 8. 51. Norman Wray, “Los retos del régimen de desarrollo: El Buen Vivir en la Constitución,” in El Buen Vivir: Una vía para el desarrollo, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 56. 52. Leon Zamosc, “The Indian Movement and Political Democracy in Ecuador,” Latin American Politics and Society 49, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 28. 53. ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, “Los Kichwas somos hijos de la Rebeldía”: Propuesta para la Asamblea Constituyente (Quito: CONAIE, 2007), 6–7.

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54. “La Asamblea Constituyente está abierta a la Plurinacionalidad,” El Comercio, March 23, 2008. 55. Luis Macas, “Construyendo desde la historia: Resistencia del movimiento indígena en el Ecuador,” in Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez, Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 95. 56. José Antonio Lucero, Struggles of Voice: The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes, Pitt Latin American Series (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 60, 113. 57. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente, 2. 58. Luis Macas, “Ley de soberanía alimentaria,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 118 (January 2009): 8. 59. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez, Plurinacionalidad: Democracia en la diversidad (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 189. 60. ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, “Los Kichwas somos hijos de la Rebeldía,” 7–11. 61. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente, 21. 62. ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, “Los Kichwas somos hijos de la Rebeldía,” 11–12. 63. ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, “Los Kichwas somos hijos de la Rebeldía,” 14. 64. “En A. País no hay gerente-propietario,” El Comercio, June 29, 2008, 3; also see Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente, 43–50. 65. CONAIE, Constitución del estado plurinacional de la república del Ecuador. 66. Acosta, “El estado plurinacional, puerta para una sociedad democrática. A manera de Prólogo,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 15. 67. República del Ecuador, “Constitución de 2008,” at pdba.georgetown.edu/ Constitutions/Ecuador/ecuador08.html. 68. Maximilian Viatori and Gloria Ushigua, “Speaking Sovereignty: Indigenous Languages and Self-Determination,” Wicazo Sa Review 22, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 15. 69. Theodore Macdonald Jr., “Ecuador’s Indian Movement: Pawn in a Short Game or Agent in State Reconfiguration?” in The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States, ed. David Maybury-Lewis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2002), 184. 70. “La plurinacionalidad no dará paso al control de los recursos,” El Comercio, July 6, 2008, 3. 71. “Correa at Loggerheads with Indigenous Groups,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-08-20 (May 22, 2008): 4. 72. José Villarroel Yanchapaxi, “¿Hacia un estado plurinacional socialista?” Opción 8, no. 147 (May 21–June 4, 2008): 16. 73. Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 8. 74. “La Asamblea Constituyente está abierta a la Plurinacionalidad,” El Comercio, March 23, 2008. 75. Galo Ramón, “¿Plurinacionalidad o interculturalidad en la Constitución?” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 125. 76. Agustín Grijalva, “El Estado plurinacional e intercultural en la Constitución ecuatoriana del 2008,” Ecuador Debate 75 (December 2008): 55. 77. Sousa Santos, “Las paradojas de nuestro tiempo y la Plurinacionalidad,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 38. 78. Ecuarunari, “Nuestra propuesta a la Asamblea Constituyente,” 4.

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79. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente, 5. 80. ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, “Los Kichwas somos hijos de la Rebeldía,” 5. 81. Luis E. Maldonado Ruiz, “El estado plurinacional desde la perspectiva de los pueblos, Primera parte,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 110 (May 2008); Macas, “Construyendo desde la historia,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 96. 82. Mónica Chuji, “El estado plurinacional,” Yachaykuna 8 (April 2008): 14, 16. 83. Mónica Chuji, “Políticas ambientales: Los límites del desarrollismo y la plurinacionalidad,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 7 (March/April 2008): 55. 84. “Entrevista a Humberto Cholango,” 64. 85. Humberto Cholango, “Editorial,” Rikcharishun 35, no. 3 (August 2007): 1. 86. “Entrevista a Humberto Cholango,” 64. 87. CONAIE, “Positivo diálogo entre el Gobierno y el Movimiento Indígena con respecto a la construcción del Estado Plurinacional.” 88. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “Resoluciones del III Congreso de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos del Ecuador,” Rikcharishun 36, no. 1 (March 2008): 8. 89. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente, 2. 90. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente, 21–22. 91. Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente, 236. 92. “La asamblea hizo su tarea,” El Comercio, July 20, 2008, 1. 93. “La Ecuarunari está molesta por la exclusión del quichua,” El Comercio, July 21, 2008, 4; “La Conaie tacha de ‘racista’ al Presidente,” El Comercio, July 24, 2008, 3. Also see Marlon Santi, “El mashi que negó su propia historia,” Ayni Solidaridad 2, no. 18 (August 2008): 10. 94. “El cruce de críticas sube de tono en la bancada de A. País,” El Comercio, July 23, 2008, 4. 95. “Los acuerdos llegaron a medianoche,” El Comercio, July 25, 2008. 96. Daniel Denvir, “Wayward Allies: President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadorian Left,” Upside Down World, July 25, 2008. 97. CONAIE, Constitución del estado plurinacional de la república del Ecuador. 98. Marc Becker, “State Building and Ethnic Discourse in Ecuador’s 1944– 1945 Asamblea Constituyente,” in Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, ed. A. Kim Clark and Marc Becker (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007). 99. República del Ecuador, “Constitución de 2008.” 100. CONAIE, La CONAIE frente a la asamblea constituyente, 19. 101. “Grupos étnicos no apoyaron articulado,” El Telégrafo (Guayaquil), July 18, 2008, 5. 102. “La asamblea hizo su tarea,” El Comercio, July 20, 2008, 1. 103. “R. Correa cuestionó a asambleístas de A. País,” El Comercio, July 20, 2008, 5; “La acusación de Correa evidencia las fricciones,” El Comercio, July 22, 2008, 3. Also see Fernando Vega, “La ética en la nueva carta política,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 7 (March/April 2008): 60–64; and Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Infiltrados, desmovilizados, confiscados, . . . Un extraño en el movimiento social ecuatoriano,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 112 (July 2008). 104. “Correa observa ‘barbaridades,’” El Comercio, July 23, 2008, 3. 105. “El padrón tendrá más electores,” El Comercio, July 7, 2008, 3.

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106. “Comunicación: Los banqueros sin derecho a tener medios,” El Comercio, July 2, 2008, 3; “El Estado no ejercerá control en el contenido de los medios,” El Comercio, July 8, 2008, 6. 107. Magdalena León, “Ecuador: La búsqueda de un ‘nuevo modelo,’” América Latina en Movimiento 32, II época, no. 430 (March 18, 2008): 32. 108. “Alternative agrarian norm,” Latinamerica Press 40 (July/August, 2008): 11. 109. Eduardo Galeano, “Nature Is Not Mute,” Progressive 72, no. 8 (August 2008): 19. 110. Esperanza Martínez, “Los Derechos de la Naturaleza en los países amazónicos,” in Derechos de la Naturaleza: El futuro es ahora, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009), 87. 111. República del Ecuador, “Constitución de 2008.” 112. Catherine Walsh, “Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional Arrangements and (De)colonial Entanglements,” Development 53, no. 1 (March 2010): 18. 113. Alberto Acosta, “Los grandes cambios requieren de esfuerzos audaces. A manera de Prólogo,” in Acosta and Martínez, Derechos de la Naturaleza, 15, 17–18. 114. Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente, 260. 115. “Decision Time for Constituent Assembly,” Andean Group Report RA-08-05 (May 2008): 4–5; ECUARUNARI and CONAIE, “Los Kichwas somos hijos de la Rebeldía,” 8. 116. Lluco, “Acerca del Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik— Nuevo País,” in Movimiento indígena en América Latina: Resistencia y proyecto alternativo, ed. Fabiola Escárzaga and Raquel Gutiérrez Aragón (Puebla and Mexico City: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Gobierno del Distrito Federal. Casa Juan Pablos, Centro Cultural, 2005), 125; Bolívar Beltrán, “Fundamentos de la plurinacionalidad,” América Latina en Movimiento 34, II época, no. 453 (March 2010): 21. 117. Rocío Rosero Garcés, “Las mujeres ecuatorianas, la constituyente y la constitución,” Tendencia: Revista de análisis político 5 (May 2007): 109–13. 118. “El tema del aborto preocupa políticamente al Gobierno,” El Comercio, July 5, 2008, 6; “A. País rectifica: Dice sí al derecho a la vida,” El Comercio, July 12, 2008, 6; “Dos temas polémicos durante el cierre,” El Comercio, July 18, 2008, 4; Paula Castello Starkoff, “Despenalización del aborto y nuevo proyecto constitucional: Un tema polémico,” Íconos 32 (September 2008): 19–23. 119. Consejo de Gobierno de la CONAIE, “La CONAIE frente al referéndum y la nueva constitución,” Rikcharishun 36, no. 1 (August–September 2008): 5. 120. Rosa Rodríguez, “President ‘Stabbed in the Back’ by Church over Constitution,” Interpress Service, August 25, 2008, at www.ipsnews.net/news.asp ?idnews=43667. 121. “Al final, el matrimonio gay se cayó,” El Comercio, July 19, 2008, 4. 122. Daniel Denvir, “Ecuador’s Proposed Constitution Causes Rift between Left and Right,” Advocate.com (September 27, 2008). 123. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Tres pretextos . . . y un solo motivo,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 108 (March 2008): 2–6. 124. “Estamos en campaña, el SÍ debe imponerse,” Opción 8, no. 149 (June 21–July 5, 2008): 4; “Sobran razones para votar SÍ,” Opción 8, no. 150 (July 6–21, 2008): 3.

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125. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Indecision Ahead of Constitution Vote,” Latinamerica Press 40 (September/October 2008): 24. 126. Ecuarunari, “Asamblea extraordinaria de la Confederación de los Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador,” Rikcharishun 36, no. 1 (August–September 2008): 4. 127. “Ecuarunari apoya el sí pero cuestiona críticas de Correa,” El Comercio, July 30, 2008. 128. Humberto Cholango, “Las razones por qué vamos a votar sí,” Rikcharishun 36, no. 1 (August–September 2008): 2. 129. Frente por el SÍ y el Cambio, “Boletín de Prensa,” August 28, 2008. 130. Mónica Chuji, “Señores Acuerdo País y compañeros y compañeras asambleístas,” Quito, September 15, 2008. 131. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Después del 28 de septiembre: La movilización es contra el modelo extractivista: Nuestro debate no está en la nueva constitución,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 113 (August 2008). 132. “La Conaie no tiene clara su posición,” El Comercio, August 6, 2008. 133. Consejo de Gobierno de la CONAIE, “La CONAIE frente al referéndum y la nueva constitución,” 5. 134. Consejo de Gobierno de la CONAIE, “La CONAIE frente al referéndum y la nueva constitución,” 5. 135. “Conaie respalda proyecto de Constitución,” El Comercio, September 4, 2008. 136. “La Feine respaldará al sí en el referéndum,” El Comercio, July 29, 2008. 137. Lucero, Struggles of Voice, 170. 138. “Correa Prepares to ‘Sell’ Constitution,” Latin American Weekly Report WR08-32 (August 14, 2008): 5; “Referendum Campaign Heats Up,” Andean Group Report RA-08-09 (September 2008): 4. 139. Mario Unda, “Entre la crisis y las elecciones: La derechización del gobierno y el peligro de derechización de la izquierda radical,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 124 (July 2009): 12. 140. Simon Romero, “President Wins Support for Charter in Ecuador,” New York Times, September 29, 2008; Adrián López A. and Paula Cubillos Celis, “Análisis del Referéndum Constitucional 2008 en Ecuador,” Íconos 33 (January 2009): 17. The vote was 64 percent in favor, 28 percent against, 7 percent void (nulo), and 1 percent blank. 141. “Nueva Constitución: ¡Victoria popular! Ahora, a decir ¡SÍ!” Opción 8, no. 151 (July 22–August 6, 2008): 4. 142. Acosta quoted in Sousa Santos, “Las paradojas de nuestro tiempo y la Plurinacionalidad,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 21. 143. Alberto Acosta, “Siempre más democracia, nunca menos: A manera de prólogo,” in El Buen Vivir: Una vía para el desarrollo, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya Yala, 2009), 23. 144. Humberto Cholango, “Confederación Kichwa del Ecuador ante el triunfo del SI,” Quito, September 30, 2008, at www.ecuarunari.org/es/noticias/ no_20080930.html. 145. Franklin Falconí, “El NO construye su discurso en los medios,” Opción 8, no. 149 (June 21–July 5, 2008): 6.

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146. Ecuarunari, “Resoluciones Asamblea extraordinaria ECUARUNARI,” Quito, October 6, 2008, at ecuarunari.org/es/noticias/no_20081006.html. 147. CONAIE, “Resoluciones de la asamblea extraordinaria realizada en Tena,” Quito, November 6, 2008, at www.conaie.org/es/ge_comunicados/20080611.html. 148. Ángela Meléndez, “La Conaie lanza advertencia a Correa,” El Comercio, November 1, 2008. 149. Greg Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government (London: Verso, 2007), 21. 150. Sousa Santos, “Las paradojas de nuestro tiempo y la Plurinacionalidad,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 61–62. 151. Acosta, “El estado plurinacional, puerta para una sociedad democrática,” in Acosta and Martínez, Plurinacionalidad, 20. 152. Wray, “Los retos del régimen de desarrollo,” in Acosta and Martínez, El Buen Vivir, 62.

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Indigenous leaders from CONAIE, FENOCIN, and FEINE during a May 2010 protest against a bill to regulate water resources (Patricio Realpe/ANPE)

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8 2009 Elections

Correa won the April 26, 2009, presidential election with 52 percent of the vote.1 The president termed this the next phase of his citizens’ revolution, and he promised to accelerate the pace of political and economic changes. He “dreamed of a scenario in which there is no misery, there is no inequality, there is no injustice.” To achieve these goals, he would pursue reforms that would expand the popular economy, including supporting informal businesses, microenterprises, artisans, and cooperatives.2 Having won five elections in a row, Correa appeared positioned to win reelection in four years, as permitted under the new constitution, and to remain in power until 2017. After Ecuador had quickly run through ten chief executives in ten years, Correa potentially could stay in power for ten years. Ecuador had rapidly moved from a remarkable period of political instability to an equally remarkable period of stability. The significance of Correa’s victory should not be understated. Most South American presidential campaigns are multiparty races that require either a runoff election between the top two vote getters or a congressional decision to select the victor. Salvador Allende, for example, won the historic 1970 presidential race in Chile, which brought the first openly avowed Marxist to power in the Americas through electoral means, with only 36 percent of the vote. Correa’s victory was the first time since Ecuador’s return to civilian rule in 1979 that a candidate won a high enough percentage of the vote to avert a runoff election. In order to avoid a second round, a candidate must either win more than 50 percent of the vote, or gain at least 40 percent of the vote and outpace the nearest rival by at least 10 percentage points. In Ecuador’s fragmented and contentious political landscape, it was unusual for any candidate to poll more than 25 percent of the vote 169

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in the initial multicandidate round. For someone to win in the first round, particularly in the crowded field of eight candidates that Correa faced, was unprecedented in Ecuador, and almost unheard of anywhere in South America. Evo Morales’s 2005 victory in Bolivia with 54 percent of the vote was the first time since that country’s return to civilian rule in 1979 that a candidate had won the election with a majority of the vote. A variety of factors contributed to Correa’s first-round victory. Unquestionably, he counted on broad public support for his political project. Correa faced a weakened and discredited opposition, with many of the traditional political parties in complete collapse. The Ecuadorian electorate also suffered from fatigue from frequent and extraconstitutional changes in power, and many people welcomed the political stability Correa’s first term (although truncated, due to the calling of elections under the new constitution) brought to the country. They welcomed his continuation in power. Correa’s closest competitor in the 2009 elections was former president Lucio Gutiérrez of the PSP, who placed a distant second with 28 percent of the vote. Gutiérrez continued to draw a significant amount of support from his native Amazonian region, winning those provinces by a wide margin. He also polled well in evangelical Indigenous communities in the central highland provinces of Bolívar, Chimborazo, and Tungurahua. Even though Gutiérrez continued to identify himself with the left, most of those on the left denounced him as a center-right populist, and those who supported him came largely from more conservative communities. Furthermore, many people from the conservative opposition voted for him, including from the most traditional sectors of the Catholic Church grouped into Opus Dei, because they recognized him as their best opportunity to defeat Correa. Their opportunistic positioning led Correa to condemn “the amorality of our powerful sectors, of the Ecuadorian right, because they put their interests before their principles.” No one, Correa claimed, “can vote for a person with such serious moral and intellectual limitations as Lucio Gutiérrez.” Following this strategy, the old elite “shot themselves in the foot, thank God.”3 For social movements, even if they had serious misgivings about Correa’s policies and his tendency to monopolize their political spaces, their old ally Lucio Gutiérrez was a much worse alternative. The third-place candidate was billionaire banana magnate Álvaro Noboa of the right-wing PRIAN; he had almost defeated Correa in the 2006 elections and Gutiérrez in 2002. In 2009, however, with the right completely discredited but still running on the same neoliberal agenda of privatization, opening up the country to foreign capital, and lowering taxes for the most wealthy, he polled only 11 percent. This was his worst showing in four attempts to win the presidency. Many of his former supporters now voted for Gutiérrez in a desperate attempt to block Correa’s political ascendancy. Three other conservative candidates together won about 4 percent of the vote.

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The other formerly dominant traditional parties such as the PSC also continued to lose support. In fact, all the parties that largely defined the return to civilian rule in 1979 and actively contested power over the last thirty years—the PSC, ID, DP, and PRE—had now largely disappeared. The PSC did not run a presidential candidate, instead focusing its energies on congressional and municipal elections. In the coastal commercial port city of Guayaquil, which had become a strong bastion of opposition to Correa’s left-populist government, the conservative PSC mayor Jaime Nebot easily won reelection. Despite its declining fortunes, the PSC still won eleven seats in the national assembly, making it the third most powerful party in Congress. Noboa’s right-wing PRIAN won seven seats. PRE and ID barely made a showing, with three and two seats respectively. The right was far from unified, with much of its program extending little beyond a stated opposition to Correa. Even in Guayaquil, political allegiances fell out along class lines, with poor people strongly supporting Correa, including many of those who voted for Nebot as mayor. The left did not fare any better in the 2009 elections than the right. Martha Roldós, the strongest left-wing presidential competitor, won less than 5 percent of the vote. The daughter of the progressive president Jaime Roldós, who returned Ecuador to civilian rule in 1979 but was killed two years later in a mysterious plane crash, ran as a candidate of the Red Ética y Democracia (RED, Ethics and Democracy Network), which grouped labor leaders and other leftist militants. Her campaign was based largely on attacking Correa, without successfully presenting an alternative to his citizens’ revolution project. Mario Unda complained that while she might be a leftist, she was running with a political party that was drifting toward the right through alliances with oligarchical interests.4 Longtime radical Socialist leader Diego Delgado strongly questioned Correa’s commitment to socialism, but his candidacy failed to gain 1 percent of the vote. Similar to how conservatives had grouped much of their vote behind Gutiérrez to keep Correa out of power, many on the left preferred to opt for Correa instead of risking a conservative victory. With traditional political parties discredited and the opposition in disarray, Correa had largely consolidated his political control over the country. Contentious divisions within Correa’s coalition, however, indicated that a new correlation of forces might be emerging, not as a conservative opposition but as an expression of popular movements, Indigenous peoples, and other leftists who felt marginalized by Correa’s political project. A string of high-profile dissidents left his party, complaining that Correa’s authoritarian nature left no space to discuss or question the decisions he made. Many on the left had urged Alberto Acosta, the popular former president of the 2008 Constituent Assembly, to run against Correa. He had emerged as one of the most forceful opposition leaders. When it appeared unlikely that he

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could rally the left against Correa in the face of the president’s overwhelming popularity, he declined to enter the race. In October 2008, he traveled to the Americas Social Forum in Guatemala, where he gave a rousing speech in support of plurinationalism and Indigenous rights as codified in the recently approved constitution. His presence at the forum illustrated his alliance with social movements, and his belief in changing the world from that perspective. Former ally Mónica Chuji accused Correa of presenting “a rehashed neoliberalism with a progressive face.”5 She loudly complained of the antidemocratic tendencies in Correa’s party and his insistence on following old-style politics that included an emphasis on extractive enterprises that threatened the environment. She questioned whether a project led by a leader with authoritarian tendencies could be a participatory revolution moving toward twenty-first-century socialism. Instead, Ecuador needed a system of plurinationalism based on pluralism, respect, and democracy to move the country forward. Chuji initially created a left opposition movement called the Coordinadora por la Unidad de la Izquierda y Defensa de la Vida (Cuidv, Coordinating Body for the Unity of the Left and in Defense of Life) to compete in the 2009 elections, but later joined Martha Roldós as the lead congressional candidate for the leftist RED coalition. Pachakutik did not run a presidential candidate, and refused to endorse any of the nominees. After Pachakutik’s disappointing experience with Macas in the 2006 elections, activists remained leery of venturing another bid for the country’s highest office, preferring instead to focus their efforts on local races. CONAIE stated that as an organization they would not support any presidential candidate, including the leftist Martha Roldós despite earlier conversations with her. Ecuarunari’s president Humberto Cholango echoed a similar policy. “We are not going to support any presidential candidate,” Cholango said, “because none represents a real alternative for the country.”6 Instead, both CONAIE and Ecuarunari urged support for local and congressional candidates running under the Pachakutik banner. Despite this strategy, Pachakutik suffered significant losses to the AP, and barely survived with only four seats in the national assembly. Some militants pointed to this minimal presence as a victory, as (similar to the elections for the Constituent Assembly) earlier polls had indicated that Pachakutik might not win even one congressional seat. In traditionally strong bases of support such as Cayambe, Correa won by a very large margin.7 Even in their weakened state, Indigenous movements still influenced the outcome of the elections. Pachakutik’s withholding of official support from Correa probably cost his party a majority in the Congress. Further complicating the electoral fortunes of Indigenous movements, Pachakutik’s leadership had become disconnected from its base, and it provided little reason to Indigenous voters to support a party that claimed

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to represent their interests. These divisions underscored perennial issues of representation and authenticity. Lucero notes that while membership in Indigenous federations is collective and overlapping, voting is an individual and exclusionary exercise. A result is an absence of a strong correlation between Indigenous communities and Indigenous candidates or political parties. This complicates claims to representation of Indigenous concerns in the political realm. Furthermore, political parties tended to operate on the basis of clientelistic relations rather than representation as typically negotiated in traditional Indigenous community relations. Even Indigenous political parties tended to create new elites who became disconnected from Indigenous communities.8 Lalander points to Correa’s success as the consequence of his ability to fill a power vacuum left by this crisis of representation resulting from a disconnect between leadership and the movements’ bases.9 Historically, Pachakutik fared much better in local races than in congressional or presidential ones, and the same held true in the 2009 elections. Alone or in alliance with other parties, Pachakutik won about 26 mayoralties as well as dozens of other seats on municipal councils. These local victories led to what John Cameron calls “the ‘municipalization’ of peasant politics.”10 In Chimborazo, Mariano Curicama, who had previously been elected mayor of Guamote first with the ID and then later with Pachakutik, now won election as prefect of the province in an alliance between Pachakutik and AP. Pachakutik’s most significant triumph was that of Salvador Quishpe to the prefecture of the province of Zamora Chinchipe in the southeastern Amazon. Quishpe, who was of Saraguro descent, won in alliance with the leftist MPD party. Quishpe had a long trajectory in the Indigenous movement, previously serving as the leader of Ecuarunari and as a deputy for Pachakutik in the National Assembly. Despite Correa’s claims that he had a strong base of support in areas of the most intense protests against mining, Quishpe won in such an area precisely because of his long history of struggle against neoliberalism and extractive enterprises. Pointing to the significance of his victory, Quishpe noted that he defeated not only a single candidate, but a coalition comprised of the Correa government, right-wing parties, and foreign mineral interests. “It does not matter to the government or mineral interests who wins,” Quishpe said, “as long as Salvador Quishpe does not win,” because they knew that “with a prefect such as myself it will not be easy to deliver our wealth to the hands of a group of Canadian mining companies.” He called for support for his campaign to defend the rights of water, nature, collective rights, food sovereignty, and the sumak kawsay. “We know that large-scale mining will not guarantee these rights,” he said. He also pointed to evidence that mining contributed little to the local economy.11 Quishpe’s triumph left open possibilities for advancing Indigenous political agendas through the avenue of electoral participation.

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Despite gains in local elections throughout the highlands and Amazon, Pachakutik faced significant defeats in the northern highland province of Imbabura, where it had held the mayoralties of Cotacachi since 1996 and Otavalo since 2000. In Cotacachi, Tituaña lost by a wide margin to another Indigenous candidate, Alberto Andrango. Tituaña had previously served in alliance with UNORCAC, but now that organization supported its cofounder and FENOCIN leader Andrango, who ran in alliance with Correa and the AP. Tituaña had lost popular support when he opposed passage of the new constitution because of its populist overtones; the constitution nevertheless won by an overwhelming majority in Cotacachi. The appearance that he allied with Nebot in opposition to Correa’s policies further alienated his supporters. In contrast, building a strong alliance with a local social movement was key to Andrango’s victory.12 In neighboring Otavalo, after leaving Pachakutik to run with Minga Intercultural in 2006, Conejo won reelection, but now in alliance with the AP. As in Cotacachi, Pachakutik candidate José Manuel Quimbo lost by a significant margin. Lalander attributes Conejo’s victory to the “Correa effect,” as it would have been very difficult for him to win without this strategic alliance with AP.13 While Correa personally enjoyed majority support, the same was not true for his AP coalition, which lost control over Congress. The party won 59 of the 124 assembly seats, just short of the 63 votes needed to pass legislation. Even that figure was higher than the 55 that some observers had initially predicted. After campaigning in 2006 without the support of a political party or alliances with congressional delegates, three years later Correa still had difficulty drawing his new party together. January 25, 2009, primaries for legislative and local races were fraught with difficulties and disorganization. The AP was by no means an ideologically homogeneous or coherent party; this may have been its greatest strength but it also created its largest weakness. While it incorporated a broad range of people, that diversity threatened to pull the party apart into left and right wings. In an attempt to strengthen the electoral fortunes of his congressional allies in the run-up to the April vote, Correa implemented several populist economic measures, such as restructuring the foreign debt. Even these efforts failed to extend his shirttails to congressional contests. Adding an additional layer of complications to Correa’s plans to consolidate power was the strong showing of Gutiérrez’s party in the legislative races. The PSP won nineteen seats, making it the second-largest and a very antagonistic presence in Congress. Correa’s complications in controlling the Congress were further highlighted by the delay in reporting the results of the congressional vote. It was not until July 1, more than two months after the April 26 elections, that electoral officials finally released the results. This postponement, together with Correa’s weaker than expected showing, took much of the shine off his victory. Gutiérrez claimed he had evidence

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of a monstrous fraud that had denied him victory, although the electoral council rejected the charge. AP congressional leader Fernando Cordero, in turn, charged the opposition with fraud, including claims that they had moved votes from the AP to other small left-wing parties, in particular the RED.14 The electoral council contended that the delay in reporting the vote was due to Gutiérrez’s politically motivated challenges to the electoral outcome. International observers, meanwhile, criticized Correa’s overwhelmingly dominant media presence as compromising the fairness of the election. Even though the AP fell far short of the two-thirds majority it enjoyed in the Constituent Assembly, it still remained the largest party in Congress. But to gain a controlling majority would require building alliances with smaller leftist parties. Such alliances were sure to be fragile. Correa claimed that he should be able to secure a total of seventy votes in Congress, but he almost immediately lost support of the MPD, the strongest of the various left-wing parties, that had won five seats in Congress. The MPD moved into a position of a determined opposition when Correa cracked down on its primary ally, the powerful teachers’ union, the Union Nacional de Educadores (UNE, National Union of Educators). Correa proposed a new evaluation system for teachers designed to improve the quality of public education. The UNE, which represented about two-thirds of the country’s teachers, strongly opposed the attack on its hegemonic power. They charged Correa with seeking to fire teachers in order to replace them with his supporters. The UNE responded with marches in both Quito and Guayaquil, and finally led a strike in September 2009. Correa denounced these actions as nothing more than attempts to create chaos, and called the strike a failure because only 5 percent of the country’s schools closed. After twenty-two days the strike came to an end; at that point, the government agreed to involve the UNE in the new evaluation system.15 Not being able to count on the aid of the MPD put additional pressure on Correa to build alliances with the remaining small left-wing parties that together controlled a total of thirty-one seats.16 When the Congress convened for the first time on July 31, 2009, AP leader Fernando Cordero won the presidency with seventy-four of the 124 votes. AP delegates also picked up the first and second vice presidencies, positions that previously had been reserved for opposition parties, as well as nine of the thirteen legislative commissions. Opponents criticized these procedural votes as reflecting the continuance of traditional political practices as the majority vote came only with the support of corrupt PRE delegates and others who had voted against the new constitution at Montecristi.17 The PSP was the only party to contest the AP for control of the leadership posts. Both the MPD and Pachakutik abstained from voting for the congressional leadership. Nevertheless, the new constitution significantly strengthened executive power at a cost to the

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legislature, so losing congressional control did not provide a substantial liability to Correa, who could still rule through decrees and referenda. It was this presence of a strong and increasingly antagonistic executive unwilling to cultivate alliances with sympathetic political forces that so unnerved social movements.

EXTRACTIVE ENTERPRISES Many Indigenous militants on the left viewed Correa’s government as highly contradictory. On one hand, he had promulgated a new constitution that codified much of what popular movements had long demanded, including reasserting government control over oil, mining, transport, telecommunications, and other economic sectors that had been privatized by previous governments. Correa also spoke in favor of national sovereignty, and denounced the repayment of what he saw as an illegitimate foreign debt. The constitution also embraced plurinationalism and the sumak kawsay, two key and highly symbolic Indigenous demands. On other points, Correa had a much more complicated relationship with social movements. A series of events contributed to the growing tensions between Correa and leftist Indigenous federations. To the consternation of many rural dwellers who might otherwise be strong government supporters, Correa sought to expand and develop mining industries and other extractive enterprises. Gloria Chicaiza calls large-scale mining a crime, not only because of the contamination it creates but because of how it undercuts and directs resources away from agricultural production.18 Correa refused to grant communities prior and informed consent before mining activities could proceed on their lands. He argued that these types of economic activities would grow the economy, provide more employment, and contribute to spending for social programs, and that all of this could be accomplished without a serious environmental impact. Opponents were not convinced of the likelihood of these positive advantages and, given the dirty legacy of petroleum extraction in the Amazon, they recognized that often those who bore the brunt of ecological impacts of extractive enterprises rarely realized any of their economic benefits. Indigenous communities criticized Correa for repeatedly approving laws that went against their interests, including laws that expanded mining concessions, privatized water resources, and ended Indigenous control over bilingual education programs.19 Alberto Acosta claimed that Correa’s extractive enterprises were not consistent with the constitution’s emphasis on the sumak kawsay. “We are obligated to optimize the extraction of petroleum without causing environmental and social damage,” he argued. Ecuador needed to realize the highest possible benefit from each barrel of

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oil extracted, rather than be concerned about maximizing production. “We have to learn,” he continued, “exporting natural resources had not led to development.” Rather, “the principal factor in production and development is the human being.”20 Ecuador had to change, Acosta insisted, “that vision that condemns our countries to be producers and exporters of raw materials” that historically had underdeveloped economies in the developing world.21 From his perspective, the sumak kawsay led to a fundamentally different concept of development. Environmental and Indigenous rights activists had long struggled against mining and resource extraction, and in particular had launched successful campaigns against oil extraction in the Amazon.22 Glen David Kuecker similarly relates the story of a grassroots struggle against a transnational copper mining corporation in the remote and marginalized highland community of Junín.23 These and other successes convinced activists that resistance to global capitalism was not futile. It remained an open question whether or not a strong executive, as with Chávez in Venezuela, would rule on behalf of the masses, or whether Ecuador had entered a new round of populist governance that would be detrimental to Indigenous and other popular movements. Despite Correa’s seemingly leftist credentials, Ecuador’s militant Indigenous movement felt pushed deeper into the anti-Correa camp. In response to grassroots pressure, Correa attempted to negotiate an end to oil exploration in the biologically sensitive and diverse Yasuní National Park in exchange for international debt relief and development aid. Yasuní is home to the Huaorani, who had gained little from the petroleum economy.24 In November 2007, just as the assembly began its work on the constitution, a simmering dispute at Yasuní boiled to the surface. In the town of Dayuma, local inhabitants protesting oil exploitation seized control of several oil wells. They demanded support for economic development and environmental protections for Indigenous communities. Correa responded with a heavy hand, deploying the military to stop the dissidents and accusing the protesters of being unpatriotic saboteurs. He complained about “infantile environmentalists” creating obstacles to economic development, and dismissed groups that opposed him as part of an “infantile left” comprised of “fundamentalists” who should not be allowed to derail his programs.25 The government arrested forty-five people and charged them with terrorism for attempting to disrupt petroleum extraction. After protests from human rights activists, Correa finally lifted a state of emergency that he had imposed, though the government kept twenty-three activists in detention. In March 2008, the assembly granted amnesty to 357 social movement leaders facing criminal charges for their actions in defense of the environment from mining and petroleum actions.26 For some, this repressive response showed Correa’s true colors. Correa pursued an aggressive and combative policy against his opponents. His

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attitude was not limited to those on the conservative right, as he also relentlessly attacked progressive forces that were opposed to his policies. Correa’s opponents threatened to raise challenges to his actions, leading to further friction between social movements and Correa’s supporters.27 Correa’s efforts to restrict the actions of social movements led to charges that he was attempting to criminalize political protest. The Indigenous think tank ICCI criticized Correa for betraying “signs of subscribing to the most radical proposals of colonial territoriality in recent years.” This included his desire to open spaces to mining, privatizing biodiversity, and increasing petroleum extraction.28 In response, Correa called on his opponents to respect the law. “No more strikes, no more violence,” he said. “Everything through dialogue, nothing by force.”29 He indicated that he would not be swayed by social movement pressure. Further complicating the political landscape against which these protests took place, the Amazonian province of Orellana, where Dayuma is located, was not a base of support for Pachakutik. The movement was so weak and divided in the province that it had not run candidates for political office. Instead, local inhabitants were more likely to support the PSP of Gutiérrez, who appealed to more conservative constituents with his clientelistic policies.30 Given these competing alliances, Correa’s responses to the Dayuma protests became more complicated than a populist president simply rejecting the demands of a social movement. Nevertheless, Correa’s opponents on the left and in popular and Indigenous movements did not hesitate to use the conflict to criticize him for his alleged repressive and authoritarian tendencies.31 In March 2009, the environmental NGO Acción Ecológica faced a threat of removal of their legal status because of their opposition to Correa’s plans to expand the mining industry. Acción Ecológica was founded in 1986 and had long collaborated with Indigenous communities and organizations, including OPIP in the Amazon, on their struggles against petroleum extraction. The organization used nonviolent direct action to advance a grassroots environmentalism that drew on an Indigenous cosmology that emphasized coexistence with the land. More recently, Acción Ecológica had fought strenuously against water privatization, including linking it to the strain that large-scale mining placed on water supplies for household use. The issue of water privatization seemingly ran this organization—which advanced the rights of nature as codified in the constitution—afoul of the Correa administration. When faced with a massive outcry, Correa quickly backpedaled, claiming that removal of the organization’s legal status was an administrative rather than political decision. Acción Ecológica, the government argued, was improperly chartered by the Ministry of Health when it should be under the Ministry of the Environment, a ministry that did not exist when the group was founded in 1986.32

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Correa claimed to promote responsible mining endeavors that benefited both the government and local communities. He favored socially responsible large-scale mining operations governed by strong state control to protect the environment and workers’ rights. He emphasized the importance of the revenues that mining would generate to fund important social programs. Attempting to pursue such a policy, of course, could easily alienate both environmentalists and business interests. Responding to popular pressure, on April 15, 2008, in the middle of drafting the new constitution, the assembly approved the Mining Mandate, which placed strict controls on large-scale mining. Reflecting the typical divisions in the assembly, ninety-five delegates voted in favor of the mandate, one voted against it, and twenty-five abstained. The assembly revoked or suspended more than five thousand mining concessions for six months while it worked to draw up a new law. Assembly president Alberto Acosta embraced the legislation as “correcting the horrors, the errors, of an era during which the interests of the poor were not considered, but rather impoverished people and the environment.”33 The Mining Mandate did not enjoy everyone’s support. In reaction to the loss of their jobs, some miners marched on the presidential palace in protest of the legislation. Geographer Anthony Bebbington defines five general positions that various people have taken in these debates on the trade-offs between protecting the environment and favoring economic development. These range through conservationist environmentalism, deep ecology, environmental justice, environmentalism of the poor, and resource-nationalist environmentalism. Clear divisions exist between the conservation-minded environmentalism of the first two positions and the social justice concerns of the last three, but Bebbington points to the inherent tensions among the last three positions, all of which are broadly associated with the left. Correa, together with Morales in Bolivia and Chávez in Venezuela, generally adhered to the resourcenationalist position that favors national over foreign or private control of natural resources. This position also tends to be willing to sacrifice local or Indigenous concerns if doing so were to benefit the country as a whole. In contrast, Indigenous and environmental activists generally adhered to the positions of environmental justice or environmentalism of the poor, which critiques economic inequalities and human rights abuses from a class perspective. These activists argued that it was unjustifiable to sacrifice the rights of marginalized populations for the benefit of the country as a whole.34 A hotly debated topic was whether or not local communities should have the right to accept or reject resource extraction on their lands. In a May 2008 letter, CONAIE demanded that Indigenous communities be consulted before any mining commenced on their lands. Indigenous organizations, of course, wished to maintain control over their territory, while Correa wanted to maintain the right to decide when and where mining operations would

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take place.35 CONAIE’s vice president Miguel Guatemal criticized Correa’s hesitancy to challenge neoliberal economic models, particularly in regard to “multinationals that are being strengthened for the exploitation of our resources to their benefit.” CONAIE president Marlon Santi threatened an Indigenous uprising if their concerns were not addressed.36 In the end, the constitution conceded that communities had the right to consultation, but extractive endeavors would not be subject to their consent or veto power. This decision was a major blow to the power of social movements. Acción Ecológica president Ivonne Ramos argued that the constitution’s failure to protect the rights of local communities meant that the country had not broken from a reliance on the exploitation of natural resources to provide its primary source of income, with all the resulting liabilities and complications that this position implied.37 CONAIE also demanded the removal of Galo Chiriboga and Marcela Arguinaga, the ministers of mining and environment. Correa refused to concede on either point, and remained unperturbed by CONAIE’s reminder that it had played a central role in removing previous presidents from office. In response, he exploited divisions within Indigenous movements between CONAIE, FENOCIN (which supported Correa), and FEINE (which maintained a more moderate line).38 Deep divides persisted between fundamentally different ideas on how to organize the economy so that it would benefit the country and its inhabitants. Debates over mineral extraction once again boiled to the surface in January 2009 when the interim Congress approved a new mining law. Correa pushed legislation that he believed would create new jobs and help grow the economy. Canadian companies held a large number of mining concessions and pressed the government for permission for large-scale, open-pit mining. Opponents complained about a lack of adequate environmental safeguards, and argued that the law was unconstitutional because it contradicted provisions of the new constitution that protected the environment and Indigenous rights. Mónica Chuji denounced the law as a neoliberal imposition that allowed transnational corporations to hold majority interests in mining endeavors. She accused Correa of presenting “a rehashed neoliberalism with a progressive face.” Chuji felt particularly betrayed because as an AP delegate to the Constituent Assembly she had chaired Roundtable 5, which was tasked with examining natural resources and biodiversity, and had introduced the environmental provisions including restrictions on mining and water privatization into the constitution.39 Indigenous activist and CONAIE vice president Miguel Guatemal proclaimed that “this is a racist and rude government, and in the coming elections we will withdraw our support and void our ballots.”40 The progovernment FENOCIN and more conservative FEINE acknowledged that while most of their concerns were incorporated into the law, they were also bothered by the failure to

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include mechanisms for prior consultation before commencing operations on Indigenous lands.41 Correa denounced the dissidents as “criminals and subversive terrorists,” and insulted Indigenous and environmental activists for blocking the country’s progress. He criticized the tactics of a small group of environmentalists who he complained disrupted production that would benefit the entire country. On January 20, 2009, thousands of Indigenous activists took to the streets in a “Day of Mobilization for Life” against the new mining law as well as Correa’s proposals to privatize water. Protesters shut down the Panamerican Highway between the highland towns of Latacunga and Ambato, as well as other highways in the southern highlands and eastern Amazon. Activists also led organized demonstrations in Quito and Cuenca. Although the marches were peaceful, the government responded with force, beating and arresting protesters, and firing tear gas and bullets that injured dozens.42 For social movements committed to sustainable development, Correa’s repressive responses to resistance hardly seemed different from those of previous right-wing neoliberal governments.43 More than any other issue, the conflicts over mining illustrated the wide, growing, and seemingly insurmountable gap between Correa and social movements. The president contended that the protesters did not have any significant support, and that their leaders lacked genuine representation. “Three or four people are enough to make a lot of noise,” he claimed, “but, quite sincerely, they don’t have the popular backing.” Rather, he claimed that he enjoyed broad public support for the mining law, and that this translated into electoral endorsement of his government, even in areas such as Azuay that were strong centers of protest against mining operations. Furthermore, he accused some of the leaders of protests against large-scale mining as having interests in small-scale mining, even though artisanal mining had a much more negative impact on the environment.44 Correa denounced members of Indigenous movements for being infantile environmentalists and for being in alliance with political conservatives who sought to undermine his leftist government. “We are not allied with the right,” Ecuarunari president Humberto Cholango retorted. “Our struggle has always been loyal to and consistent with the Ecuadorian people, with the organizations, and with the most poor and humble sectors of our country.” Rather than seeking to undermine democracy, Indigenous peoples and nationalities in Ecuador “want to bring the neoliberal oligarchical model to an end, to terminate the injustice which we have been living.” Cholango demanded instead a “true agrarian reform” that would redistribute land as well as “recuperate and renationalize natural resources.” The Indigenous leader denied that social movements had a hidden agenda; rather, “our aspirations and struggles are authentic, and in favor of Ecuador recuperating its dignity.” Cholango pledged to keep fighting until the neoliberal model

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was destroyed. “We will not allow this process of change to be truncated, stopped, or remain half completed,” Cholango declared.45 Ecuarunari also published an alternative proposed water law to conserve and protect water resources.46 On these and other issues, Ecuarunari consistently ran to the left of Correa, challenging him for his failure to make a clean break with Ecuador’s neoliberal past. In retaliation for Indigenous opposition to his economic development plans, Correa stopped funding for the Consejo de Desarrollo de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades del Ecuador (CODENPE, Development Council of the Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador). He justified the move with allegations that its director and longtime Indigenous leader Lourdes Tibán had misused its finances. CODENPE was an Indigenous-run government agency created in 1998 under Mahuad’s government to give Indigenous peoples a larger role in development programs in their communities. It replaced an earlier development organization, the Consejo Nacional de Planificación de los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador (CONPLADEIN, National Ecuadorian Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian Planning Council), which held representation by different Indigenous organizations. CONAIE had convinced the government to replace that council with CODENPE, which was structured around Indigenous nationalities and peoples. This move marginalized competing organizations, especially FENOCIN and FEINE, which had pressed an alternative proposal for representation to be held by federation instead.47 In the face of Correa’s moves against CODENPE, Chuji retorted that for Correa, “like all neoliberal governments, we Indians represent an obstacle to development.” Chuji denounced Correa’s arrogance, racism, and authoritarianism based on the principle of “I am the state” that allowed him to act unilaterally without considering the interests of other Ecuadorians, or the impact his decisions would have on the country. “This is another example of the great lie that the citizens’ revolution has become,” Chuji concluded.48 Continuing his onslaught against Indigenous dissidents, Correa also began to criticize Indigenous justice systems. In addition, he removed control of the Dirección Nacional de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe (DINEIB, National Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education) from CONAIE, where it had historically been positioned, placing it instead under the control of the Ministry of Education. The government condemned the program as inefficient, politicized, ideological, sectarian, and racist. Furthermore, DINEIB allegedly lost its autonomy because it had supported the antimining movement.49 Correa’s attacks on Indigenous movements led CONAIE president Marlon Santi to state that despite constitutional codification of plurinationalism, “the government does not really want to recognize” those gains. Rather, Correa advanced a process of “disaccreditation,” in which “the movement loses representation and participation in whatever agenda or

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economic process are taking place through the state.” Pablo Dávalos, who had long worked closely with Indigenous movements and briefly joined Correa in the Finance Ministry under the Palacio government, added that Correa’s goal was “to neutralize the ability of the indigenous movement to mobilize and to destroy it as a historic social actor.” Despite the apparent advances in the 2008 constitution, “the new political system is more vertical, more hierarchical, and more dependent on the president than before.” Dávalos argued that Correa’s “government is far from a leftist government and corresponds more closely to the interests of powerful groups that are emerging with the new mining and agro-fuels sectors.” In fact, Dávalos suggested that Correa’s approach was closer to “intervention strategies developed by the World Bank toward social movements in the 1990s through projects geared at specific groups including women, peasant farmers, youth and indigenous.”50 Rather than addressing structural issues of oppression and exploitation, social movements accused Correa of engaging in clientelistic strategies that played the interests of one group off another with the goal of advancing the interests of a political leader. Former close ally Alberto Acosta commented that another problem with Correa was that he had only recently entered into political life whereas Indigenous uprisings had a much longer trajectory. “He is assuming the role of the bearer of collective political will and he doesn’t realize that in large part the earlier historic process is the explanation for the positive results of Correa and Alianza País,” Acosta said. The lack of a strong social movement meant that he did not understand “that he is there, in the presidency, thanks to the great effort made by the Ecuadorian society.”51 Acosta also criticized Correa for his failure to understand “that a social movement is not a corporate organization that could be appeased with the handing out of posts and privileges.” Correa’s policies would lead him to “continue to consolidate a highly personalised, extremely vertical power with authoritarian and Messianic overtones.” His egotistical nature led him to overstate his personal significance in this political process.52 At an April 2, 2009, assembly, CONAIE made its position clear in a resolution that stated that “Correa’s government was born from the right, governs with the right, and will continue to do so until the end of his time in office.” It condemned the government for creating organizations parallel to CONAIE, and stated that it would evict anyone from its ranks who took positions in his government or worked with Correa’s electoral campaign. The sanction would be due to “their lack of respect for our organizational process.” In particular, CONAIE targeted Correa’s extractive policies, and especially large-scale mining and petroleum-exploration efforts “because they go against nature and Indigenous peoples, they violate the constitution, and they threaten the governance of the sumak kawsay.” They asked Indigenous communities not to welcome government officials with their

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traditional symbols because of the officials’ lack of respect for “our cultures and ancestral knowledge.”53 All of this contributed to increasingly tense relations between Correa and social movements. Correa’s failure to respond well to criticism and his condemnation of what he termed as “infantile” Indigenous activists and environmentalists further strained relations. Even the more conservative FEINE criticized Correa for his failure to incorporate broader participation in his government.54 Correa’s actions left popular movements as fractured and weak as they ever had been.

WATER WARS Social movement challenges to Correa’s government culminated in protests on September 27, 2009, against alleged water privatization plans. CONAIE charged that a proposed water bill in Congress would allow transnational mining corporations to appropriate water reserves in violation of the 2008 constitution, which outlawed the privatization of water. The water bill was part of what they interpreted as broader governmental moves to privatize the country’s natural resources, with a particular focus on oil extraction and large-scale mining projects that were located largely on Indigenous lands. For social movement activists, this apparent turn in government policy was particularly bitter because during the constitutional debates, assembly president Alberto Acosta had pointed to its defense of water resources as a primary reason to vote in favor of the text.55 Correa retorted that charges of water privatization were based on lies, and that his proposal had no such intent. He contended that Indigenous movements were trying to destabilize his government, and that together with the MPD (which was simultaneously leading a teachers’ strike) had become “useful idiots” for the extreme right. Furthermore, Correa claimed that desperate leaders who had lost their privileges were manipulating Indigenous communities for their own nefarious purposes. He accused intransigent radical groups of playing into the hands of conservative interests and undermining the positive gains that his citizens’ revolution promised the country.56 The September protests included marches and demonstrations as well as blocking roads with rocks, tree trunks, and burning tires. Not many people turned out for the demonstrations in the highlands and on the coast, and CONAIE suspended the protests one day later when the government promised to talk about Indigenous objections. The promised talks, however, ran into logistical difficulties and delays. Instead of meeting with CONAIE, in an attempt to divide Indigenous movements Correa wanted to hold discussions with the competing organizations FENOCIN, FEINE, and FEI. “The dialogue doesn’t go anywhere,” Pachakutik deputy Lourdes Tibán complained. “I don’t believe in them anymore.” FEINE’s director William Chena concurred

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that “the government is trying to turn the indigenous organizations against each other.” Correa’s actions seemed specifically designed to further weaken Ecuador’s already divided Indigenous movements.57 Meanwhile, CONFENIAE continued the protests against water privatization in the Amazon, and broadened their demands to include long-standing concerns with mining activity. The demonstrations grew more intense as the Shuar and Achuar blocked highways with barbed wire. According to a press release from Amazon Watch, on September 30, “law enforcement backed by a helicopter, opened fire on demonstrators armed only with ceremonial spears.” Seemingly in an echo of protests in June at Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon that left dozens dead, the Ecuadorian demonstration also grew deadly with the shooting of Shuar schoolteacher Bosco Wisum. The repression also left dozens injured. In response, CONFENIAE demanded that Correa travel to the region to meet with local leaders. Wisum’s death shocked Correa, who called for the violence to stop. He now offered to meet with the leaders, albeit at the presidential palace in Quito rather than in the Amazon.58 The death of a teacher also gained the sympathy of the UNE, further solidifying social movements against Correa. In an open letter, CONFENIAE president Tito Puanchir stated that the federation “denounces and holds responsible the government of Rafael Correa Delgado” for “the grave violation of fundamental human rights of Indigenous peoples and nationalities.” He proceeded to denounce that “the dictator President Correa declared a civil war against the original nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon.”59 Puanchir, who had previously served as vice president of CONAIE under Leonidas Iza, had only taken over the helm of the pan-Amazonian federation in May after a period of division within the organization. The conflict stemmed in part from the fact that several historic leaders, including Antonio Vargas, Héctor Villamil, and José Quenamá, had accepted roles in Gutiérrez’s government in 2004 after Pachakutik had withdrawn its support. These men’s decisions to join the government had led to deep ruptures among base communities.60 Now, however, Puanchir was determined to rebuild the organization to its previous strength. In a July press release, Puanchir condemned Correa’s “arrogant and dictatorial policies,” including ignoring Ecuador’s commitments as a signatory of the ILO Convention 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Particularly objectionable was Correa’s Decree 1780, which granted Catholic missionaries the right to enter Indigenous communities for the purposes of evangelization, development, and assimilation of people into the dominant culture.61 Puanchir’s fiery rhetoric and leadership of the water and mining protests was part of the process of rebuilding CONFENIAE. A week after Wisum’s death, several thousand people marched on Quito to put pressure on the government. This time CONAIE gained support and

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encouragement from FEINE and FENOCIN. Correa met with about 150 Indigenous leaders at the presidential palace and agreed to reconsider the laws. The interactions in the dialogue, broadcast live on radio and television, remained tense. CONAIE president Marlon Santi asked for respect for Indigenous peoples, requesting that the government no longer refer to them as crazy. “Who is that idiot?” Correa asked twice, saying he would dismiss the official who was so disrespectful of fellow citizens. “You, Mr. President,” Santi replied. Finally, however, the talks resulted in a six-point accord that included a government agreement to work with CONAIE on changes to water and mining laws, to review the presidential decree that had revoked DINEIB’s autonomy, and to form a joint commission to investigate the clashes in the Amazon that had left Wisum dead. Former Correa ally and now staunch critic Alberto Acosta greeted these talks as a positive development as they showed the president as willing to meet with opponents and listen to criticism.62 These apparent advances in relations between the government and militant Indigenous movements were short lived. On December 17, 2010, Ecuador’s national communications commission threatened to close the Shuar radio station Voice of Arutam for allegedly having incited violence in the recent protests. Salesian priests who had set up the station in 1972 as part of a bilingual education program contested that the “station has never been subversive,” and argued that individuals who may have made such statements should be investigated rather than holding the entire station responsible. Supporters argued that the closure was politically motivated because the station had become a strong voice in favor of Shuar identity, and a key communications component in organizing resistance to mining in the Amazon. In the face of this outcry the government backed down on its decision, but it also announced that it might proceed with prosecutions against individual Shuar leaders for the violence.63 In January 2010, Correa also backpedaled on a proposal to leave petroleum reserves in the ground in the Yasuní National Park in exchange for international funding for development programs. Experts estimated that the Ishpingo Tiputini Tambococha, or ITT, oil fields could generate seven billion dollars a year. Several European countries had agreed to provide half that amount for ten years to support health care, education, and other social programs. Correa complained, however, that the proposal would come at a cost to Ecuador’s sovereignty, and announced plans to commence drilling operations in the park. In response, foreign minister Fander Falconi, one of Correa’s closest allies, resigned his position. “He didn’t only lose a foreign minister,” Acosta said. “Correa lost one of the best advocates for the movement’s ideology.”64 In a surprise move, in August 2010 Ecuador signed the agreement to leave the oil in the ground. Correa’s absence at the signing ceremony demonstrated his continuing ambivalent commitment to the project.65

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In February 2010 after months of dialogue, CONAIE announced a breakdown in talks with the government due to the latter’s lack of political will and respect for Indigenous peoples. Already in December 2010, Ecuarunari had declared that given Correa’s “lack of responsibility and political will,” they would “withdraw from the talks between CONAIE and the government” and begin to mobilize street protests against the mining and water legislation. “The talks have been a show,” Ecuarunari’s new president Delfín Tenesaca declared after a federation congress in the northern canton of Cayambe. He complained that Correa had engaged in the talks only as part of “a strategy to gain time in which to apply his policies.”66 Now CONAIE announced that it would join its highland affiliate in a progressive escalation of protests against Correa’s neoliberal and colonialist policies. Correa responded that he would not let social movements hold his government hostage. Government supporters claimed that the threatened protests were a way for the federation to gain support for its position from the grass roots, many of which still backed Correa. Nevertheless, in April and May 2010, massive protests once again flashed across the country. They came as the legislature prepared for a final debate on proposed water and mining legislation, even though the deadline for the legislation as stipulated in the constitution had long since passed. Opponents condemned Correa for following a neoliberal, extractivist model that violated the tenets of the sumak kawsay. Indigenous organizations felt particularly betrayed by Correa’s proceeding with the water legislation because the constitution’s protection of water rights was one of the main reasons that they had pushed their members to vote in favor of the document. Correa continued to insist that the proposed legislation prohibited the privatization of water, but rather was needed to regulate water supplies. Opponents, in contrast, claimed that the law gave privileged access to mining companies, bottling firms, and large landholders engaged in the export of agricultural commodities such as cut flowers and bananas, all of which required access to huge amounts of water. Indigenous AP delegate Pedro de la Cruz argued that the constitution prioritized human consumption and food sovereignty over productive activities. Furthermore, in order to gain support from Nebot and the conservative PSC, the legislation allowed for the continuation of a water concession in Guayaquil with former Bechtel subsidiary Interagua. Activists contended that the concession was tantamount to privatization. Both CONAIE and FENOCIN presented alternative draft texts for a water law that would incorporate the needs and voices of all of the country’s inhabitants, but the government-controlled legislature failed to take up their proposals. Militants wanted to establish a plurinational council to administer the country’s water resources; this was a proposal that Correa categorically rejected. After excelling at dividing Indigenous movements, Correa’s water and mining legislation facilitated their convergence. After spending years in

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alliance, FENOCIN president Luis Andrango announced FENOCIN’s break with the goverment and warned against ramming the bill through Congress. FEINE president Manuel Chugchilán similarly condemned the government for its failure to incorporate Indigenous concerns into the legislation. On May 6, both federations joined their former rival CONAIE in the coordinated National Mobilization in Defense of Water, Life and Food Sovereignty. Activists staged protests that blockaded the Congress building and roads across the country. In response, police fired tear gas, made arrests, beat protesters, and (following a now-familiar problem of the criminalization of social protests) charged dissidents with terrorism and sabotage. Unified campaigns, however, resulted in a major concession as assembly president Fernando Cordero unilaterally agreed to delay approval of the water law for half a year pending a referendum in Indigenous communities. Even after Cordero’s announcement, Correa continued to accuse Indigenous leaders of engaging in an “absurd fundamentalism,” and charged them of using water issues to reclaim power that they had lost at the ballot box. Activists expressed concern that the government would not take their concerns into account, that Cordero’s referendum was only designed to gain support for the legislation, and that if not properly run, a vote would divide rural communities. Rather than a simple “yes” or “no” plebiscite on water issues, activists pushed for a full and genuine consultation that would include a full analysis of the law. Nevertheless, the delay in the implementation of the legislation was a victory for Indigenous organizations as it illustrated that the government would have to work with them to gain a consensus from social movements for its policies. Despite Correa’s overt attempts to turn different organizations against one another and community members against their leaders, militants pointed to one of the most important triumphs of the protests as the reunification of Indigenous movements.67 As the water issue began to settle down temporarily, protests once again flared at Junín, where community members had twice defeated attempts to mine on their land. When a study indicated that copper deposits in the area might be much larger than previously believed, Correa once again attempted to reactivate a transnational mining project on the ecologically fragile territory. Community leader Carlos Zorrilla strongly criticized an economy based on extractive enterprises. The country had squandered its petroleum reserves, Zorrilla argued, but the country was no better off economically while the Amazon faced an environmental catastrophe. The country had better and more sustainable ways of building its economy, and returning to a failed model of resource extraction represented “a failure of the ability to envision another type of development.” Rather, “the government will emphasize the short-term economic benefit of mining over all other aspects of development.” But the reality was, Zorrilla emphasized,

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that Ecuador “simply does not need mining to sustain its economy.” Despite constitutional pledges to protect the environment, the government continued to use force to repress those who aspired to the sumak kawsay.68 Despite a seemingly sympathetic government in power, social movement activists still faced an uphill battle in their fight for a new and better world.

CAPITALISM In a June 2009 interview with Amy Goodman on the news program Democracy Now, Correa strongly condemned capitalism as leading to greater inequality and increased poverty. He denounced capitalism “as a vulgar instrument for capital accumulation” that destroyed nation-states through outsourcing, labor intermediation, and other mechanisms of exploitation. Latin America was a victim of a crisis that it had not provoked, he said. Furthermore, the crisis of global capitalism had been created by factors that were “the very essence of the system: exacerbated individualism, deregulation, competition and so on.”69 As an economist, Correa provided a clear, compelling, and damning critique of capitalism. Many leftist observers responded well to Correa’s rhetoric and economic policies. In June 2009, Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval of the liberal Washington, D.C., think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released a report that was largely laudatory of Correa’s economic performance during his first two and a half years in government. They pointed to economic growth, reductions in unemployment and poverty, increased government spending on health care, and other social programs as indications of a positive direction in Correa’s policies. Furthermore, they applauded Correa on his expansionary fiscal policy that led to a decrease in inflation and a significant reduction in Ecuador’s debt load. The most significant economic problems facing the president were due to factors beyond his control, most significantly the drop in oil prices, the global economic downturn, and the imposed limitations on his monetary policy due to the dollarization of the Ecuadorian economy. Nevertheless, they concluded that even with limited monetary policy tools, Correa was implementing beneficiary trade and investment policies that were leading to economic growth.70 Even in the context of positive economic news, Weisbrot and Sandoval acknowledged that Correa’s policies had a more beneficial impact in cities than on rural areas, where poverty rates were much higher. And, indeed, much of Correa’s support came from urban professionals. While urban poverty rates fell significantly, they hardly moved in rural areas, and even less so in Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities where poverty rates were disproportionately higher.71 Indigenous communities had received little of

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the benefit of Correa’s policies, and consequently—and logically—lowered their level of support for his government. On the other hand, the promises and realities of poor urban dwellers, including those in the slums of the coastal city of Guayaquil, to move up into the middle class explained his strong performance in those areas. After long holding off Chávez’s urging to join ALBA, Correa finally consented to sign on to the international alliance on June 24, 2009. It was never entirely clear why Correa had long resisted pressure to join, nor was it necessarily apparent why he agreed to do so at this point. At one point, he half jokingly told Chávez that he would join ALBA when Venezuela returned to the Andean Community, a regional trade bloc of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru from which Chávez withdrew in 2006 after member countries signed free trade pacts with the United States.72 Some intimated that after winning reelection, Correa felt as if he had sufficient domestic support to radicalize his citizens’ revolution. Alternatively, he perhaps made this move in order to solidify his support from the left, particularly from those who questioned his opposition to neoliberal economic policies. An alternative interpretation suggested that lacking majority control in Congress, he was reaching out to regional allies in case he needed their support to push forward a more radical agenda.73 Only four days after Correa joined the alliance, a military-backed coup removed Honduras president and fellow ALBA member Manuel Zelaya from office. The coup would seem to underscore the importance of international allies in the context of a polarized domestic environment. Nevertheless, Correa, unlike Zelaya, faced a challenge from leftists who accused him of moving rightward; furthermore, the Ecuadorian military gave no signs of moving against his government. In any case, joining ALBA was consistent with the new constitution that Acosta said had “opened the door to regional integration.”74 Upon welcoming Ecuador and several Caribbean countries to the alliance, Chávez announced that the acronym ALBA would now stand for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas rather than Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. With the Washington Consensus in complete collapse and nine countries now in ALBA, Chávez was leading what was no longer so much an alternative as the dominant discourse in Latin America. Correa declared that “ALBA is a political project based on solidarity, integration, and being the owners of our own destiny.”75 He pointed to new mechanisms such as the Bank of the South in order to “keep our money here in the region instead of sending it to the First World to finance the developed countries.”76 Increasingly, ALBA was positioned to replace international organizations such as the United Nations or the Organization of American States, which had long been accused of serving imperial interests. When justifying his decision to join ALBA, Correa pointed to a need for a counterweight to provide alternative points of view in these international bodies.77

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Despite Correa’s earlier vocal opposition to dollarization, once in office he made it clear that he would not reverse this policy.78 Most economists believed that it would be too disruptive to return to a weak national currency; the only alternative would be to move forward with a regional currency, a type of South American euro. At an ALBA summit in October 2009, member countries agreed to proceed with a new virtual regional currency in order to recover their monetary and financial sovereignty. Dubbed the Sistema Unificado de Compensación de Pagos Recíprocos (SUCRE, Unified Regional Compensation System), it was named after South American independence leader José Antonio de Sucre, although it also carried the name of the old Ecuadorian currency. In a deliberate and conscious move away from dollarization on a regional level, the new sucre was to be used to facilitate commercial exchanges between member countries.79 Indigenous intellectuals and their close allies, such as Pablo Dávalos, argue that once one looks beyond the rhetoric of socialism of the twenty-first century, regional integration, and the Bolivarian dream of a united Latin America, the reality on the ground often looks quite different. Yes, the government had intervened in the economy, most notably in important areas such as health and education. But the basic economic model remained capitalist in its orientation. Not only did Correa continue to rely on extractive enterprises to advance Ecuador, but he also used the repressive power of the state to attack anyone who dared to challenge his policies, including his attempts to charge dissidents as terrorists. Although AP managed to liquidate the previous political system and emerged with a leftist discourse, Dávalos argues that “in reality it represented a continuation of neoliberalism under other forms.” This is clear in its themes of decentralization, autonomy, competition, and privatization. Correa continued to follow traditional clientelistic and populist policies far removed from what could be reasonably seen as radical or as a Socialist reconstruction of society. Dávalos concludes that in no sense was Correa a leftist, nor could his government be identified as progressive. Rather, he “represents a reinvention of the right allied with extractive and transnational enterprises.”80 For those on the left, Correa appeared to be a manager rather than a challenger of capitalism. Dissidents also criticized Correa for proceeding with a free trade agreement with the European Union. Correa justified his discussions with the EU as being based on political dialogue, cooperation, and trade, and emphasized that Ecuador was pushing the idea of fair rather than free trade designed to build economic development. “We’re not negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union,” Correa claimed, despite appearances to the contrary.81 “Enough already of a country constructed by specialists,” Acosta exclaimed. “We have to decide collectively how to handle the wealth of the country,” he said. It was a right and responsibility for everyone. The goal of the Constituent Assembly was to construct a democratic society

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through democratic means. “If the path is not democratic,” Acosta argued, “the result will not be democracy.” The new constitution held open the possibility of building a new citizens’ power, but Correa threatened this process by concentrating too much power in his own hands.82 After Correa’s victory in the 2009 election, Luis Fernando Sarango, rector of the Amawtay Wasi Indigenous University, criticized the president’s talk of radicalizing his programs. “What socialism of the twenty-first century?” Sarango asked. “What about a true socialism, because we have seen almost nothing of that of the twenty-first century.” Instead, Sarango proposed “a profound change in structures that permits the construction of a plurinational state with equality, whether it is called socialism or not.”83 Other Indigenous activists presented similar critiques. “From the point of view of the social movements and the Indigenous movement in particular,” CONAIE president Marlon Santi declared, “Correa’s socialism is not socialism at all. . . . He waves the flag of socialism, but he does other things.”84 For these Indigenous activists, Correa was not sufficiently radical. While electoral victories represented major personal triumphs for Correa, they left social movements feeling marginalized from the political changes sweeping the country. Even though Correa denied that he was engaging in a cult of personality, from the perspective of social movements the consolidation of power in the hands of a strong and seemingly egotistical executive meant that they would lose access to the spaces necessary to press their own agendas.85 Correa’s leftist opponents complained that his approach privileged liberal, individualistic politics, and that decision-making processes in the AP were highly centralized and even authoritarian. As Susan Spronk notes, Correa “acted in a more strategic, although highly ‘top-down,’ fashion” than Morales’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia. While this approach may be more successful, Spronk cautions that “any spaces opened by the new constitution are unlikely to foment true structural change unless they build upon the energy of organized forms of popular participation, that is, of social movements.”86 Correa made it clear that he would not be held accountable to the corporatist nature of social movement demands. Those who won elections had the right to rule, Correa declared, rather than those who could mobilize large street protests that had repeatedly pulled down governments.

NOTES Portions of this chapter are drawn from “Ecuador: Left Turn?” Against the Current 142 (September/October 2009): 19–22, and “Social Movements and the Government of Rafael Correa: Confrontation or Cooperation?” in Latin America’s Social Movements in the Face of the Region’s Progressive Governments, ed. Gary Prevost,

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Carlos Oliva Campos, and Harry E. Vanden (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming). 1. Consejo Nacional Electoral, República del Ecuador, “Resultados preliminares elecciones 2009, primera vuelta,” at app.cne.gov.ec/resultados2009. 2. Rafael Correa, “Interview with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa,” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) (June 18, 2009). 3. Correa, “Interview with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa.” 4. Mario Unda, “Entre la crisis y las elecciones: La derechización del gobierno y el peligro de derechización de la izquierda radical,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 124 (July 2009): 20. 5. “Election Date Set for April,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-08-46 (November 20, 2008): 8. 6. “Ecuarunari no apoyará ninguna candidatura presidencial,” Hoy, April 1, 2009. 7. Mario Unda, “Hacia la segunda fase de la ‘Revolución Ciudadana’: Reflexiones después de las elecciones del 26 de abril,” Yachaykuna 11 (June 2009): 53–54. 8. José Antonio Lucero, “Representing ‘Real Indians’: The Challenges of Indigenous Authenticity and Strategic Constructivism in Ecuador and Bolivia,” Latin American Research Review 41, no. 2 (2006): 34, 48. 9. Rickard Lalander, “Los indígenas y la Revolución Ciudadana. Rupturas y alianzas en Cotacachi y Otavalo,” Ecuador Debate 77 (August 2009): 203. 10. John D. Cameron, “Hacía la Alcaldía: The Municipalization of Peasant Politics in the Andes,” Latin American Perspectives 36, no. 4 (167) (July 2009): 65. Also see John Cameron, Struggles for Local Democracy in the Andes (Boulder, CO: FirstForumPress, 2010). 11. “Salvador Quishpe Prefecto—Zamora Chinchipe,” June 16, 2009, at salvadorprefectozch.blogspot.com; Salvador Quishpe, “Los recursos naturales y la minería,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 126 (September 2009): 16–23. 12. Lalander, “Los indígenas y la Revolución Ciudadana,” 204. 13. Lalander, “Los indígenas y la Revolución Ciudadana,” 211. 14. “Correa’s Victory Starts to Curdle,” Andean Group Report RA-09-05 (May 2009): 10–11. 15. “Teachers Beaten, Indigenous Pacified but Corruption Looms,” Andean Group Report RA-09-10 (October 2009): 15. 16. “Correa Heaps Pressure on Teachers and Banks,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-22 (June 4, 2009): 9; “The Teachers’ Strike,” Andean Group Report RA-09-09 (September 2009): 9. 17. “Movimiento PAIS selló alianza con asambleístas de derecha,” Ecuadorlibre, July 31, 2009, at ecualibre.blogspot.com/2009/07/movimiento-pais-sello-alianza -con.html. 18. Gloria Chicaiza, “La minera en un país de biodiversidad: Cultural y natural,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 118 (January 2009): 27. 19. Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas (CAOI), “Firmes en nuestra defensa: Indígenas ecuatorianos deslindan con el gobierno de su país,” Boletín Informativo de la Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas 3, no. 9 (May 2009): 17.

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20. Alberto Acosta, “Siempre más democracia, nunca menos. A manera de prólogo,” in El Buen Vivir: Una vía para el desarrollo, ed. Alberto Acosta and Esperanza Martínez (Quito: Abya Yala, 2009), 27–28. 21. Alberto Acosta, “El buen vivir, una oportunidad por construir,” Ecuador Debate 75 (December 2008): 45–46. 22. Suzana Sawyer, Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador, American Encounters/Global Interactions (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004). 23. Glen David Kuecker, “Fighting for the Forests: Grassroots Resistance to Mining in Northern Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives 34, no. 2 (March 2007): 94–107. 24. Kevin Koenig, “Ecuador’s Oil Change: An Exporter’s Historic Proposal,” Multinational Monitor 28, no. 4 (September/October 2007): 10–14; Ginés Haro Pastor and Georgina Donati, Yasuní Green Gold: The Amazon Fight to Keep Oil Underground (Oxford: New Internationalist, 2008); Esperanza Martínez, Yasuní: El tortuoso camino de Kioto a Quito (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009). 25. Raúl Zibechi, “Ecuador: The Logic of Development Clashes with Movements,” in IRC Americas Program (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, March 17, 2009). 26. Fundación Regional de Asesoría en Derechos Humanos (INREDH), “Asamblea concede amnistía para los defensores de los derechos humanos,” March 14, 2008. Also see Milagros Aguirre, Dayuma: ¡Nunca más! (Quito: CICAME, 2008). 27. “Correa Redefines Meaning of Full Powers,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-07-49 (December 13, 2007): 4. 28. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Plurinacionalidad, territorios y democracia: Los límites del debate,” Yachaykuna 8 (April 2008): 8. 29. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “The Good with the Bad,” Latinamerica Press 40, no. 1 (January 23, 2008): 4. 30. “La presencia de Pachakutik disminuye,” El Comercio, October 30, 2007, 6. 31. See, for example, Pablo Dávalos, “Dayuma y la sonrisa de cheshire,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 9, no. 105 (December 2007): 7–15; Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Represión preventiva en Dayuma: Finalmente . . . Ecuador es el Yunque?” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 106 (January 2008): 2–6; Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “Ecuador: En emergencia permanente,” Boletín ICCIRimay 10, no. 107 (February 2008): 2–6; Pablo Dávalos, “Dayuma en el corazón,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 10, no. 107 (February 2008): 8–23. 32. Paul Dosh and Nicole Kligerman, “Correa vs. Social Movements: Showdown in Ecuador,” NACLA Report on the Americas 42, no. 5 (September/October 2009): 24; Jennifer Moore, “Swinging from the Right: Correa and Social Movements in Ecuador,” Upside Down World, May 13, 2009. 33. Alberto Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2008), 107. 34. Anthony Bebbington, “The New Extraction: Rewriting the Political Ecology of the Andes?” NACLA Report on the Americas 42, no. 5 (September/October 2009): 19. 35. “La CONAIE toma distancia con el Gobierno,” Ayni Solidaridad 2, no. 16 (June 2008): 8; “La ley fijará la consulta previa,” El Comercio, June 5, 2008. 36. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “CONAIE responsabiliza al gobierno de los problemas sociales generados por las empresas min-

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eras,” Quito, September 24, 2008, at www.conaie.org/es/ge_comunicados/20080924 .html. 37. Dosh and Kligerman, “Correa vs. Social Movements,” 24. 38. “Correa at Loggerheads with Indigenous Groups,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-08-20 (May 22, 2008): 4. 39. Dosh and Kligerman, “Correa vs. Social Movements,” 23. 40. “Indígenas no dejarán ingresar a las mineras,” Hoy, January 28, 2009. 41. Pablo Ortiz-T., “Ecuador,” in The Indigenous World 2010, ed. Cæcilie Mikkelsen (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs [IWGIA], 2010), 172. 42. “Correa Attempts to Define Modern Socialism,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-02 (January 15, 2009): 3; Daniel Denvir, “Ecuador Anti-mining Blockades Met with Repression, National Mobilization Called for January 20,” Upside Down World, January 9, 2009; Sara Latorre and Alejandra Santillana, “Capitalismo estatal o convergencias populares,” Íconos 34 (May 2009): 13–18. 43. Raúl Zibechi, “Ecuador: The Logic of Development Clashes with Movements,” IRC Americas Program (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, 2009). 44. Rafael Correa, “Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Global Capitalism,” Democracy Now (June 29, 2009), at www.democracynow.org/2009/6/29/ecuadoran _president_rafael_correa_on_global. 45. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “Pueblos Indígenas del Ecuador rechazan declaraciones del presidente Correa, quien acusó al Movimiento Indígena de ser desestabilizador de la democracia en el país,” Quito, January 18, 2009, at www.conaie.org/es/ge_comunicados/20090119.html. 46. Ecuarunari, Ley de aguas para el buen vivir (Quito: Ecuarunari, 2008). 47. Lucero, Struggles of Voice, 145. 48. Mónica Chuji, “El cierre del CODENPE: Otro ejemplo del racismo y autoritarismo del presidente Correa,” Llacta (January 27, 2009), at www.llacta.org/ notic/2009/not0127a.htm. 49. Dosh and Kligerman, “Correa vs. Social Movements,” 24; Carmen Martínez Novo and Carlos de la Torre, “Racial Discrimination and Citizenship in Ecuador’s Educational System,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 5, no. 1 (March 2010): 20. 50. Jennifer Moore, “Swinging from the Right: Correa and Social Movements in Ecuador,” Upside Down World (May 13, 2009). 51. Raúl Zibechi, “Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Deepens,” Americas Program Report (Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, October 26, 2009); Jennifer Moore, “CONAIE and Correa Begin Dialogue,” Upside Down World, October 7, 2009. 52. Ortiz-T., “Ecuador,” in The Indigenous World 2010, 170–71. 53. Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), “Resoluciones de la asamblea ampliada CONAIE 2 de abril del 2009,” at www.conaie. org/es/ge_comunicados/20090402.html; CAOI, “Firmes en nuestra defensa,” 17. 54. Kintto Lucas, “Indigenous Groups Protest Government Policies,” January 22, 2009, at www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45513. 55. Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente, 263.

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56. “Correa’s Get-Tough Stance Founders on One Fatality,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-39 (October 1, 2009): 6. 57. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Indigenous Movement Continues to Weaken,” Latinamerica Press (October 23, 2009); Luis Fernando Sarango, “Crónica de un día triste, sin embargo histórico,” Boletín Digital Universidad Intercultural Amawtay Wasi 13 (October 2009): 2. 58. Amazon Watch, “Indigenous Blockades Escalate after Police Violently Attack Protest in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Amazon Watch (October 1, 2009), at amazon watch.org/newsroom/view_news.php?id=1933. On the Peruvian massacre, see Gerardo Rénique, “Law of the Jungle in Peru: Indigenous Amazonian Uprising against Neoliberalism,” Socialism and Democracy 23, no. 3 (November 2009): 117–35. 59. Tito Puanchir, “Open Letter from the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon to Ecuador and the World,” Amazon Watch (October 1, 2009), at www.amazonwatch.org/newsroom/view_news.php?id=1929. 60. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Amazon Indigenous Groups Unite,” Latinamerica Press (July 15, 2009). 61. Tito Puanchir, “CONFENIAE prepara acciones de defensa de sus derechos territoriales de las nacionalidades,” Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (CONFENIAE) Boletín de Prensa no. 2, Unión Base, Puyo, July 8, 2009. 62. Zibechi, “Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Deepens”; Jennifer Moore, “CONAIE and Correa Begin Dialogue,” Upside Down World, October 7, 2009; “Indigenous Groups Across the Region Flex their Muscles,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-40 (October 8, 2009): 1–2. 63. Jennifer Moore, “Indigenous Radio Station Spared Closure,” Upside Down World, January 29, 2010; Jennifer Moore, “Politics Closes Indigenous Shuar Radio,” Upside Down World, January 20, 2010. 64. Luis Ángel Saavedra, “Pioneering Alternative Development Program at Risk,” Latinamerica Press (January 27, 2010). 65. Gonzalo Ortiz, “Ecuador Signs Deal Not to Drill in Amazon Nature Reserve,” August 4, 2010, at ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52378. 66. “El cierre de Arutam marca otro distanciamiento CONAIE-Gobierno,” El Comercio, December 27, 2009, A3. 67. Ecuarunari, “Con la frente en alto hemos ganado una batalla, pero la lucha continua . . . hasta cambiar el modelo neoliberal estractivista, por un Estado Plurinacional,” Quito, May 15, 2010, at www.ecuarunari.org/portal/Derecho%20a%20 Resistencia; “Deadlock over Ecuador’s Water Reform,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-10-20 (May 20, 2010): 16. 68. Carlos Zorrilla, “Correa Looks to Reopen Unpopular Mining Project in Junin,” Upside Down World, May 20, 2010. 69. Correa, “Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Global Capitalism.” 70. Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, Update on the Ecuadorian Economy (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research [CEPR], June 2009), at www .cepr.net/documents/publications/ecuador-update-2009-06.pdf. 71. Weisbrot and Sandoval, Update on the Ecuadorian Economy, 15. 72. Heinz Dieterich, “Diálogo con el Presidente Rafael Correa,” in Ecuador y America Latina: El socialismo del Siglo XXI, ed. Rafael Correa (Quito: APDH, 2007), 51.

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73. “Correa’s Codelco Accord Risks Upsetting Shuar,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-23 (June 11, 2009): 4. 74. Acosta, “Siempre más democracia, nunca menos,” 23. 75. “Alba Expands to Include Ecuador and Caribbean States,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-26 (July 2, 2009): 16. 76. Correa, “Interview with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa.” 77. Correa, “Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Global Capitalism.” 78. Acosta, Bitácora Constituyente, 174. 79. “Alba Moves on Regional Currency,” Andean Group Report RA-09-10 (October 2009): 16. 80. Pablo Dávalos, “Alianza País o la reinvención de la derecha,” Agencia Latinoamericana de Información (ALAI), April 3, 2009. 81. Correa, “Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Global Capitalism.” 82. Acosta, “Siempre más democracia, nunca menos,” 29. 83. Luis Fernando Sarango, “Triunfo histórico, dialogo y radicalización de la revolución,” Boletín Digital Universidad Intercultural Amawtay Wasi 12 (May 2009): 2. 84. Moore, “Swinging from the Right.” 85. Kintto Lucas, Rafael Correa: Un extraño en Carondelet (Quito: Planeta, 2007), 232. 86. Susan Spronk, “Mapping Regional Tensions in Correa’s Ecuador and Evo’s Bolivia,” Relay 23 (July/September 2008): 41, 43.

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Forajidos or outlaws celebrate the overthrow of president Lucio Gutiérrez in April 2005 (Patricio Realpe/ANPE)

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9 Social Movements and Electoral Politics

In January 2009, Correa joined his fellow leftist South American presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay at a meeting with representatives of Vía Campesina, the international network of rural movements, at the World Social Forum (WSF) in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Belém. The appearance of government officials at a meeting of civil society that had begun a decade earlier as an explicit rejection of electoral politics illustrated just how much the relationship between social movements and leftist parties had shifted. Of the five leaders, Correa was the president with the weakest links to civil society. Lula and Morales were labor leaders before becoming president. Lugo was a priest who, influenced by liberation theology, worked in rural communities. Chávez rose through the ranks of the military and used that experience to cultivate his popular support. In contrast, Correa came from the academic world, but he seemed to be the most eager of the five presidents to employ populist discourse in order to identify himself as being with “the people.” Correa spoke favorably of Indigenous movements and condemned the history of exclusion that AfroEcuadorians had faced. Of the five presidents at the forum, Correa presented the deepest and most serious analysis of the current economic crisis. He began his talk with a challenge to neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. “We’re living a magic moment, one of new leaders and governments,” he said. Correa noted that capitalism is commonly associated with efficiency, whereas socialism emphasizes justice. Even so, Correa argued, socialism is both more just and more efficient than capitalism. Latin American countries needed national development plans in order to advance, and Ecuador’s new constitution was 199

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part of that process. He appealed for support for Indigenous cultural projects, the Pachamama (mother earth), and repeated the now-common call for the sumak kawsay, to live well, not better. We need to be responsible for the environment, Correa said, and to conserve resources for the next generation. Capitalism is in crisis, Correa argued, and Latin America is in search of a new model, one that will bring dignity to Latin American peoples. “We are in times of change,” Correa concluded. “An alternative model already exists, and it is the socialism of the twenty-first century.”1 Much of his rhetoric echoed the dominant leftist discourse at the forum that fundamentally shifted sentiments away from neoliberal policies. Ecuador’s radicalized Indigenous movements celebrated the leftist governments of Chávez and Morales in neighboring Venezuela and Bolivia, but challenged the inclusion of Correa as truly a part of those movements against political and economic exclusion and toward social justice. Critics wondered whether Correa’s reference to the sumak kawsay made the concept nothing more than “another discursive tool and co-opted term” that now had “little significance for real intercultural, interepistemic, and plurinational transformation.”2 Rather, as Salvador Quishpe observed, it was in danger of becoming an empty term that even transnational corporations used.3 Similarly, Correa wanted to leave constitutional recognition of plurinationalism on a purely symbolic level while activists argued it required concrete applications, including representation in government agencies. CONAIE sent a letter to the WSF asking organizers to exclude Correa as a persona non grata, as someone foreign to social movement struggles. At the closing of the Indigenous tent three days after the presidential presentations, longtime leader Blanca Chancoso denounced the “nightmare” that the Indigenous were living with Correa, who was undertaking resource extraction “at all costs.” She asked the forum to join her in condemning Correa for violating the rights of rural communities. Perhaps the only other current Latin American president broadly identified with the left who would have received more vigorous denunciations at the forum was Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, who had engaged in pitched battles with women’s movements. While Correa positioned himself as part of the new Latin American left, he had alienated many social movement leaders whose decades of activism had made a twenty-first-century socialism possible. While Correa may have been part of a rising pink tide in Latin America, social movements with Indigenous militants in the lead proffered a vision of a much more radical left that offered fundamental structural challenges to empire, neoliberalism, and capitalism. While both Correa and competing Indigenous movements opposed imperialism and capitalism, social movements reached much further than the president in supporting the oppressed and exploited classes, not merely through redistributive mechanisms, but also by encouraging popular capacity to self-organize, to

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enhance their collective social power from below. Organized social movements often found themselves in positions significantly more radical than those that Correa was willing to embrace. This contributed to a long and growing struggle between Correa and social movements, and pointed to important underlying issues. What was the role for state power in leftist political projects? Are political projects better achieved through street mobilizations or electoral participation? What obstacles existed in building a counterhegemonic movement? What should the resulting revolution look like? Were Correa’s left populist proposals designed to bring stability to the country? Would they cater to the needs and desires of popular movements that had placed him in power? Were they merely ploys to maintain himself in power? All these questions and concerns echoed through social movements as they struggled to regain the initiative that they had held before engaging directly with electoral organizing strategies.

MANY LEFTS On August 10, 2009, the bicentennial of Ecuador’s first declaration of independence from Spain, Correa was inaugurated for a second term as president. Correa had gained broad popular support through a combination of nationalist rhetoric and increased social spending on education and health care. His meteoric rise to power and consolidation of political control over this systemically unstable country were truly remarkable. He was the first president in Ecuador to win a sequential term in office.4 His rise to power came in the context of the complete collapse of the old political establishment. His inaugural speech mixed populist calls for higher wages with revolutionary rhetoric of promoting human capital over financial capital. “Two hundred years ago we won political independence,” Correa said, “but we have still not won independence from tremendously unjust structures that have crushed our people.” He promised a “new and definitive independence” through the radicalization of his citizens’ revolution. Correa championed his victory as the second liberation of Ecuador.5 While many international observers and solidarity activists either bemoaned or cheered Correa’s triumph as part of Latin America’s move to the left, many social movement activists in Ecuador were much less convinced that the actions of his government would benefit them. Despite Correa’s claims that under his administration the long dark night of neoliberalism was finally over, Indigenous peoples condemned him for continuing the same policies as his predecessors, particularly through large-scale mineral extractive enterprises including petroleum in the ecologically delicate eastern Amazonian basin. In contrast to the 1980s that activists saw as a “gained decade” for Indigenous movements, ICCI now pointed to the

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1990s as a “lost decade” for the Ecuadorian left.6 Correa’s populist posturing appeared to be part of a long Latin American tradition of appealing to the left to get elected, but then once in office implementing policies that favored the traditional oligarchy in order to retain control over the government. Even the business-friendly Latin American Weekly Report questioned how radical his reforms really were. “More investment in health, education and anti-poverty programmes, certainly,” they wrote after his inauguration. “But these could simply be defined as social-democratic policies.” His proposed reform of state structures “appears to be more about style of government than anything else,” they concluded.7 Equally surprising as Correa’s rapid rise to power was the rapid collapse of social movements. Since the 1990 Indigenous uprising that challenged elite exclusionary power structures, Ecuador had been positioned as a leading model for how to organize a grassroots social movement. Already in 2003, former president Lucio Gutiérrez managed to cripple the movement that was largely responsible for bringing him to power. Correa moved much more quickly to usurp the leadership of social movements, removing a force that could challenge his hold on power. Notably, Ecuador had failed to produce national-level political leaders who were capable of realizing cross-class and cross-ethnic appeal similar to what Evo Morales had achieved in Bolivia. Indigenous movements declined from being a leading actor that defined the direction of Ecuadorian politics to a marginal and bit player. Correa refused to take responsibility for playing a role in the crumbling of these movements. Rather, he blamed the collapse on Pachakutik’s strategic mistake of allying with Gutiérrez, who crippled organizations with his clientelistic policies, and the movement’s strong ethnicist turn that led to a rejection of building alliances that could lead to a stronger and broader movement.8 In Correa’s eager desire to monopolize political control, he appeared to be negating a strong opportunity for social movements to open up spaces that would allow for a fundamental restructuring of Ecuador’s historically exclusionary political system. “It is not that the old masters have become resigned to losing their prerogatives and privileges,” Boron cautions, “but rather that they have realised that their eventual opponents have laid down their arms and can no longer hurt the old order.”9 Gutiérrez and previous populist leaders in Ecuador had counted on the masses to lay down their arms, and the ultimate question for Correa was whether he was following exactly the same strategy. Was Correa justifiably included as part of a leftward tilt in Latin America, or was his inclusion in this pantheon just a result of hopeful thinking? On the one hand, analysts talked of Latin America’s “many lefts,” ranging through the left-populist Peronism in Argentina with first Néstor Kirchner and then his wife, Cristina Fernández, Chile’s neoliberal socialism with Michelle Bachelet, Uruguay’s middle-class social democracy with Tabaré

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Vázquez and José Mujica, Fernando Lugo’s liberation theology in Paraguay, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s trade unionism in Brazil, guerrilla Socialists with Daniel Ortega and Mauricio Funes in Nicaragua and El Salvador, Bolivia’s Indigenous socialism with Evo Morales, Venezuela’s state-centered socialism of Hugo Chávez, and that of Raúl and Fidel Castro in Cuba.10 As Michael Shifter, the vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, notes, Latin America “is swinging in many different directions at the same time.” Correa’s policies “reflected less the embrace of leftism than a desire for a new kind of politics.”11 Although he talked openly of embracing a socialism for the twenty-first century, Correa made no move to nationalize industries. Instead, following Chávez’s lead, Correa sought to build his popularity on the basis of “petro populism,” in which he used income from oil exports to fund social programs. But the fall of oil prices threatened to put those programs at risk. At the same time, a rising inflation rate jeopardized some of his government’s accomplishments. Building his government on policies of economic development without expressing proper concern for the environment and people’s rights cost him support while it gained him the label of “pragmatic” from the business class. Despite attempts to mimic Chávez’s strategies, Correa’s policies were not nearly as radical as those of his Venezuelan counterpart. Of the many lefts that ruled over Latin America, Correa represented a moderate and ambiguous position closer to that of Lula in Brazil or the Concertación in Chile rather than Chávez’s radical populism or Morales’s Indigenous socialism. The danger for popular movements was a populist threat, with Correa exploiting the language of the left but fundamentally ruling from the right. It was in this context that a mobilized and engaged social movement, which in Ecuador’s case historically meant an Indigenous movement, remained important as a check on a personalistic and populist government. If Correa followed through on any of the hopeful promises of his government, it would be due to this pressure from below and to the left. On the other hand, Correa did implement a sufficient number of his policy proposals to assure his continued popular support. In December 2008, Correa defaulted on more than $3 billion in foreign bonds, calling the foreign debt illegal and illegitimate because the bonds had been contracted by military regimes. Many people rallied to his defense, saying that he was defending the country’s sovereignty. In addition to tripling spending on education and health care, Correa increased subsidies for single mothers and small farmers. These steps played very well with Ecuador’s impoverished majority. For ten years, social movements had repeatedly pressed for the termination of the United States’ lease on the Manta air base. In response, Correa announced that he would not renew the ten-year lease when it expired in 2009. Delegates wrote this provision directly into the 2008 constitution

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with the declaration in Article 5 that “Ecuador is a land of peace” and it will not permit the establishment of foreign military bases in its territory.12 Correa followed through with his campaign promises not to renew the lease, and on September 18, 2009, the United States formally withdrew from the base. Foreign minister Fander Falconi championed the exit of U.S. forces as a “triumph for national sovereignty,” and called for a termination of international relations “based on subordination.” In part, his comments were targeted at Colombia’s conservative government of Álvaro Uribe, who had responded to Ecuador’s eviction of the troops by signing an agreement to deploy U.S. forces on seven military bases in his country. Together with Ecuador, the leftist governments in Venezuela and Bolivia denounced Uribe’s action as part of a U.S. move to reassert its political and economic hegemony over the region. Even with the military forces withdrawn from Manta, the Correa government championed its drug interdiction efforts and pledged to continue its collaboration with the United States.13 Despite appearances, Correa’s break from imperial control was not entirely complete. Correa continued to enjoy an unusually large amount of popular support in a region that recently had greeted its presidents with a high degree of goodwill only to have the populace quickly turn on leaders who inevitably ruled against its class interests. Chávez (and, to a certain extent, Morales in Bolivia) bucked this trend by retaining strong popular support through their connections with social movements despite oligarchical attempts to undermine their governments. Correa was a charismatic leader, but in the Ecuadorian setting charisma alone did not assure longevity or political stability. José María Velasco Ibarra, Ecuador’s classic caudillo and populist, was president five times, but was removed four times when he failed to follow through on his promises to the poor. More recently, Abdalá Bucaram was the most charismatic leader, but he remained in power for only seven months after winning the 1996 elections. Repeatedly throughout Ecuador’s long twentieth century, the country seemed to be on the verge of deep political change, but then would slip back into oligarchical control under the guidance of a charismatic populist leader. Correa said that it would take eighty years for his citizens’ revolution to change the country. Leftist leaders needed the support of social movements in order to make lasting changes of that scale. In sacrificing these alliances in order to solidify his control on power, Correa appeared to be playing a dangerous game of consolidating short-term gains at the potential risk of the long-term failure of his Socialist policies. In quickly moving Ecuador from being one of South America’s most unstable countries to maintaining a strong hold over executive power, Correa appeared to have been able to mimic Chávez’s governing style. Whose interests this power served, and particularly whether it would be used to improve the lives of historically marginalized peoples, was an open question that remained to be answered.

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HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD Some on the anarchist left argue that Pachakutik pursued a fundamentally flawed strategy in pursuing electoral paths to power. Perhaps most famously, in Change the World without Taking Power John Holloway proposes that the world cannot be changed through taking control over state structures. Instead, the revolutionary challenge facing the twenty-first century is to change the world without taking power.14 Similarly, Petras and Veltmeyer argue that “electoral politics is a game that the popular movement cannot win, governed as it is by rules designed by and that favor the dominant class, and that compel the movement to settle for very limited change and the illusion of power.” It is only a trap designed to demobilize revolutionary movements. “Every single advance of the popular movement,” they write, “has been through a strategy of mass mobilizations.” Petras and Veltmeyer advise avoiding “electoral politics, the path preferred by the ‘political class’ because it is predicated on limited political reforms.” They condemn Pachakutik for their “serious political mistake to seek state power from within the system.”15 Debates between focusing on building social movements or engaging in electoral politics have long run through the left, and to a certain point reflect polemics between anarchists and Communists over the usefulness of state structures in making revolutionary social changes. Ultimately, Sousa Santos argues, these ongoing disputes over whether the state is relevant and therefore should be the object of social struggle are asking an unproductive question.16 In engaging these issues, Indigenous movements in Ecuador are hardly different from leftist activists elsewhere. Raby states that this “insistence on direct, unmediated popular protagonism is admirable” but ultimately evades “questions of representation, leadership, organisation and structure which are crucial to the success of any alternative movement.” The result, Raby argues, is a “romantic but ultimately defeatist approach,” and she terms Holloway’s attitude as “the ultimate theoretical formulation of negativism.” She argues that while history has shown “that revolutionary state power has all too often lost its popular democratic foundations,” it is a mistake to assume that it is not possible to construct “a non-capitalist power structure based on social justice.” The problem is not an “emphasis on popular autonomy and protagonism,” but a “refusal to consider the need for organisation and leadership.” Indeed, Raby contends, to rely only on social movement strategies and to fail to engage state power condemns “people to an endless cycle of circumscribed struggles, frustration and disillusionment.”17 Katz confronts the Holloway thesis even more directly: “Not even the most basic democratic changes that we currently see in Latin America are conceivable without the state,” Katz writes. “This instrument is necessary to implement social reforms, create

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constituent assemblies, and nationalize basic resources.”18 Chávez’s Venezuela became the primary example of how harnessing the instruments of state power could lead to successful and deep-seated revolutionary changes.19 Building on the Venezuelan example, George Ciccariello-Maher contends that the debate whether to change the world with or without taking power asks the wrong question. Rather, we need to look at whether forces attempt to perpetuate or dissolve existing exploitative state structures.20 For Correa’s opponents on the Indigenous left, the current government did not provide sufficient challenges to such systems of oppression. In contrast to Holloway, other observers were much more open to electoral paths to change. “Citizenship, voting, and electoral rights are not just instruments of bourgeois manipulation,” Katz argues. “They are also popular conquests achieved against dictatorships, which under certain conditions allow one to take a stand against the right.” Katz adds a cautionary note: “The left must avoid institutional co-optation without turning its back on the electoral process,” he contends. “Electoral participation can be made compatible with the promotion of people’s power.”21 Raby asks, “Since experience has shown that the violent seizure of state power does not necessarily guarantee popular power and Socialism, what is the real difference between reform and revolution?” Raby then ponders whether “it may be possible, and often more feasible, to take power by stages.” This process may be fraught with difficulties, tensions, and confrontations, but it is possible to follow this path to realize deep, fundamental, and permanent revolutionary changes.22 Indigenous-movement positioning in the face of Correa’s government not only underscored the movement’s approach to power, but it also illustrated the problematic and complicated nature of social movement engagements with state power. Marta Harnecker argues that mobilized people need to be at the center of political transformations. She writes “that no real change will be achieved without a well organized and politicized popular sector that exerts pressures to advance the process and that is capable of learning from errors and deviations.”23 Petras, in contrast, remained critical of electoral paths to political change. “Direct action class-based sociopolitical movements have been the only political forces capable of resisting, reversing or overthrowing neoliberal regimes and policies,” he writes. “There is no evidence that any electoral regime in which the national bourgeoisie plays an essential role has challenged neoliberalism.”24 Many activists shared Petras’s concerns. In Bolivia, social movement leader Oscar Olivera worried that electoral politics could demobilize the masses, and he refused an invitation to join Morales’s government. “If Evo fails,” Olivera noted, “it will be a failure for the social movements. The gains of six years of struggles will be lost.”25 As if to illustrate his point, joining the Gutiérrez government seriously weakened Ecuador’s Indigenous

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movements. Seemingly they would have been better off had they followed Olivera, who believed that true transformations come from organizing and mobilizing people at the grass roots. But there are limits to what social movements can concretely achieve. Holloway concludes his book Change the World without Taking Power with the question, “How then do we change the world without taking power?” and his answer: “We do not know.”26 It is easy to criticize one path, but perhaps irresponsible to do so without laying out concrete and viable alternatives.

ELECTORAL PATHS TO POWER With armed struggle largely off the table as a viable option for revolutionary changes, most popular movements in Latin America turned to electoral paths to power. Fifteen years after the founding of Pachakutik, the decision by leaders of one of the Americas’ best-organized social movements to enter electoral politics remained contentious, controversial, and ultimately divisive. Ruiz Hernández and Burguete Cal y Mayor conclude that engaging in the electoral process “frequently and almost always ends in disaster and in the decline of the leaders.”27 Rarely do electoral efforts result in satisfactory outcomes for social movements. By no means was following this path clearly the best decision, but in the absence of concrete alternatives neither was it immediately obvious what other courses of action Indigenous militants could or should have taken. Indigenous communities demanded a seat at the table of political negotiations, and holding such a seat required entering a realm known for its corruption, dirty dealings, and trade-offs. Had they not entered electoral politics, they would have had difficulty expressing their voices on a national stage. Debates continued to rage within Indigenous movements over what was the proper path to follow. Luis Maldonado, former minister of social welfare and candidate for prefect of Imbabura, declared that one of Pachakutik’s key mistakes was being too preoccupied with political ideologies, and not engaged enough in the construction of alternative powers. In contrast, former CONAIE president and presidential candidate Luis Macas argued that Indigenous movements had been weakened because they were too willing to compromise on their ideological positions in order to gain positions in government. While he characterized it as “absolutely necessary” to engage in both social movement and political realms, the movements had achieved more outside of power than they had realized as part of a government.28 Macas called the political strategy of electoral participation a mistake because of the problems and disruptions it created within Indigenous movements, and because it left organizations open to infiltrators and allowed the government to co-opt activists. We cannot continue to

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expect that electing politicians will result in the creation of a plurinational state, Macas argued. “Only the full exercise of our political project in the communities” would lead to a realization of that objective.29 The conundrum of the inherent tensions between social movement organizing and electoral politics was not unique to Ecuador or to Indigenous movements in that country, but Pachakutik does provide one example of how activists have struggled, and continue to struggle, over the best way to achieve social justice. Academics tend to counterpoise political parties against civil society, but grassroots activists often move organically from one strategy to another (armed struggles, electoral campaigns, labor strikes, street mobilizations) without making clear distinctions in what they see as a singular struggle for social justice. Sousa Santos argues that building a new and strong left requires “organizational forms that are inclusive, internally complex, heterogeneous and flexible.”30 While social movements sometimes tend more toward autonomy (as with the Zapatistas in Mexico) and other times more toward formal political participation (as when the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra [MST, Landless Workers Movement] allied with the PT to help elect Lula to the presidency of Brazil), activists are often unwilling to deny themselves access to any tools that might help them realize their goals. Indigenous movements in Ecuador no longer viewed electoral and extraconstitutional paths to power as mutually exclusive. They largely agreed with Katz that “in the face of the false dilemma of accepting or ignoring the rules of constitutionalism, there is a third viable path: to combine direct action with electoral participation.”31 This perspective was similar to what emerged in the United States in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008, with Progressives referencing a story of Franklin Roosevelt telling labor leaders in 1932 that he agreed with their agenda, but that he needed their organized pressure and presence to make him implement it. Activists in Bolivia supported Morales’s presidential campaign even while holding him at a distance. Considering their different strategies and goals, a certain amount of tension between social movements and electoral campaigns was not only inevitable but perhaps also healthy. Electoral politics can provide a variety of outcomes including victory (as with the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela in 1998), defeat (the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1990), fraud (which led to the M-19 guerrillas in Colombia in 1970), or co-optation (often the experience of populism in Latin America). The example of Pachakutik, however, provides a more complicated but also perhaps more accurate depiction of the outcome of engaging formal political processes. All social organizing strategies require certain compromises and trade-offs, and electoral politics are, of course, no exception. As Karl Marx famously noted, elections are often little more than

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a mechanism for people to select every couple of years those members of the dominant class who will rule over them. But what other viable mechanisms at the dawn of the twenty-first century existed for social movements to gain power? Most activists were not content to remain permanently in opposition. They had a vision they wanted to become a reality, and making this happen required engaging the political process. Never implementing an agenda becomes a sterile exercise that can paralyze a social movement. Sousa Santos points to the paradox that social movements face. Confronting the ecological and financial collapse of capitalism that threatened the obliteration of life on this planet, activists faced an urgent need to act immediately to head off this crisis. On the other hand, Sousa Santos argues that “the transformations that we need are of a long-term nature”—they have to do with altering fundamental structures of civilization. At first this appears to be part of a long debate on the left between reform and revolution. But, Sousa Santos contends, strategies such as the electoral process that typically have been seen as reformist now, as can be seen in Venezuela, have produced “profound, almost revolutionary, changes,” while political ruptures that would typically be perceived as revolutionary end up only proposing tepid reforms.32 It is as if social movements face the challenge of Socialist president Salvador Allende in Chile in the early 1970s to “make haste—slowly,” that poverty and inequality require immediate action but the solution requires much longer-term and deeper changes. Ecuarunari’s president, Humberto Cholango, articulated a position that merged the interests of social movements with electoral politics in a unified struggle against the oligarchy and neoliberal system. Voting was simply one more way to continue fighting “for the construction of a plurinational state and a more just intercultural society.” Whether on the streets or in the voting booth, the demands were the same: nationalization of petroleum resources, a Constituent Assembly, and no free trade pacts. Acknowledging criticisms that writing constitutions is historically a way for elites to consolidate their control, Cholango demanded broad democratic participation of Indigenous peoples and other popular movements in the assembly. Civil society pressure would assure that a new constitution responded to the needs of the people.33 Correa’s relations with social movements pointed to the complications, limitations, and deep tensions inherent in pursuing revolutionary changes within a constitutional framework. Indigenous militants feared that Correa would co-opt and monopolize their initiatives as other populist leaders had done before him. Rather than as a revolutionary like Chávez, Correa appeared to radicalized social movements as a reformer who represented a continuity of the problems that Ecuador had historically faced. “A regime that limits and at the same time consolidates the power of the oppressors entails a great challenge for the left,” Katz argues, “especially when

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this structure is seen by the majority as the natural modus operandi of any modern society.” New constitutional frameworks changed the context in which the left operated, and required rethinking strategies. Katz concludes, “The battle within the current system is not simple because the current institutionalism renews bourgeois domination in multiple disguises.”34 How to best engage these institutions continued to be a challenge for Indigenous movements in Ecuador, and social movements in general. The dance between street politics and electoral participation always remained a complicated undertaking, as did ongoing discussions over how, when, and whether to build alliances with a popular populist leader who did not always have their concerns at heart. Radicalized Indigenous movements, however, did remain determined on one point. They were not willing to concede their demands for far-reaching structural changes in exchange for tokenistic recognition or representation. State structures continued to play an important role in the implementation of neoliberal economic policies, and popular movements needed to challenge these structures whether as part of civil society, a political party, or an armed struggle. The case of Indigenous movements (as well as the broader left in Ecuador and around the world) would seem to underscore the argument that it is not possible to change the world without taking power, but neither is taking power all that it takes to change the world. As a social movement, CONAIE could disrupt the exercise of state power, but in entering government Pachakutik failed to change neoliberal economic policies. As neither a success nor a failure, the example of Pachakutik underscores the reality that there is no one best or correct path to struggle for social justice. In wrestling with these issues, Indigenous peoples in Ecuador are hardly different from activists everywhere. What works in one time and place may be entirely wrong elsewhere. Rather than implementing dogmatic or simplistic solutions, we need to engage in continual conversations and critiques as we search for more effective strategies. As the Zapatistas in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, demanded, the world we want is one in which many different worlds fit.

NOTES 1. Marc Becker, “The World Social Forum Returns to Brazil,” Upside Down World, February 5, 2009. 2. Catherine Walsh, “Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional Arrangements and (De)colonial Entanglements,” Development 53, no. 1 (March 2010): 20. 3. Salvador Quishpe, “Los recursos naturales y la minería,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 126 (September 2009): 19. 4. Other presidents have served multiple terms in office, most notably José María Velasco Ibarra, who served five terms between 1934 and 1972, although he was able

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to complete only one of those (his third, 1952–1956). The closest to gaining reelection was Juan José Flores, who served two terms—from 1839 to 1843 and from 1843 to 1845—although these were separated by a two-and-a-half-month stint as interim president for which he had not been duly elected. See Mark J. Van Aken, King of the Night: Juan José Flores and Ecuador, 1824–1864 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 5. ”Correa Sworn In for Second Term,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-32 (August 13, 2009): 3. 6. Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (ICCI), “El triunfo de Correa,” Boletín ICCI-Rimay 11, no. 122 (May 2009): 7. See Galo Ramón, Actores de una década ganada: Tribus, comunidades y campesinos en la modernidad (Quito: COMUNIDEC, 1992). 7. “Correa Sworn In for Second Term,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-32 (August 13, 2009): 3. 8. Heinz Dieterich, “Diálogo con el Presidente Rafael Correa,” in Ecuador y America Latina: El socialismo del Siglo XXI, ed. Rafael Correa (Quito: APDH, 2007), 62. 9. Atilio A. Boron, “Promises and Challenges: The Latin American Left at the Start of the Twenty-First Century,” in The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn, ed. Patrick S. Barrett, Daniel Chavez, and César A. Rodríguez Garavito (London: Pluto, 2008), 254. 10. Greg Grandin, “Why Stop at Two?” London Review of Books, October 22, 2009. 11. Alexei Barrionuevo, “Chilean Vote Is Another Sign of Latin America’s Fading Political Polarization,” New York Times, January 20, 2010. 12. República del Ecuador, “Constitución de 2008.” 13. “Last US Forces Abandon Manta Military Base in Ecuador,” MercoPress, September 19, 2009; “Anti-drug Accord Sealed with US,” Latin American Weekly Report WR-09-37 (September 17, 2009): 4–5. 14. John Holloway, Change the World without Taking Power (London: Pluto, 2002), 19–20. 15. James F. Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador (London: Pluto, 2005), 137, 174, 216. 16. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Depolarised Pluralities: A Left with a Future,” in Barrett, Chavez, and Garavito, New Latin American Left, 265. 17. D. L. Raby, Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today (London: Pluto, 2006), 3, 57, 228. 18. Claudio Katz, “Socialist Strategies in Latin America,” Monthly Review 59, no. 4 (September 2007): 41. 19. Greg Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government (London: Verso, 2007). 20. George Ciccariello-Maher, “Dual Power in the Venezuelan Revolution,” Monthly Review 59, no. 4 (September 2007): 54. 21. Katz, “Socialist Strategies in Latin America,” 39, 25. 22. Raby, Democracy and Revolution, 75. 23. Marta Harnecker, “On Leftist Strategy,” Science & Society 69, no. 2 (April 2005): 149. 24. James Petras, “Latin American Strategies: Class-Based Direct Action Versus Populist Electoral Politics,” Science & Society 69, no. 2 (April 2005): 154.

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Index

Italicized page numbers indicate illustrations. abortion, 138, 153 Acción Ecológica, 178, 180 Achuar, 4, 7, 35 Acosta, Alberto, 134–35, 137, 171–72, 186; constitutional reform, 129, 138, 141–42, 158, 191–92; and Correa, 114, 150, 183; environment, 152, 176–77, 179, 184; Indigenous languages, 147; plurinationalism, 15, 144, 146; race and economy, 29 Acosta, Jorge, 128 Afro-Ecuadorians, 5, 17, 149, 189–90 agrarian reform. See landownership and agrarian reform Alarcón, Fabián, 55, 57 ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y El Caribe), 117, 190–91 Albó, Xavier, 2, 13, 26–27 Alfaro, Eloy, 134 Allende, Salvador, 169, 209 Almeida, José, 28–29, 83 Almeyra, Guillermo, 132 Alvarado, Luis, 149 Amauta Jatari, 77–78, 97n5

Amauta Yuyay, 93 Amazon Watch, 185 Americas Social Forum (Guatemala, 2008), 172 anarchist left, 205 Andean Group Report, 68, 118 Andean Parliament, 82 Anderson, Benedict, 3 Andoa, 4 Andolina, Robert, 29 Andrango, Alberto, 50, 52, 174 AP (Alianza País), 113, 127, 131–36, 141–43, 147, 150, 159, 172–75, 191–92 archaeological site control, 30 Arguinaga, Marcela, 180 armed struggle, 207 Arregui, Antonio, 153 Arteaga, Rosalía, 55 Asamblea Plurinacional Legislativa, 139 Atahualpa, 107 autonomy and self-government, 7, 15, 33–35 Avilés, José, 87 Awa, 4, 20n32

237

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Index

Bachelet, Michelle, 115, 202 Baku, Kofi, xiii Banting, Keith G., 29 Barrera, Augusto, 107 Bauer, Daniel, 4 Bebbington, Anthony, 179 Beck, Scott, 82, 111, 132 bilingual intercultural education, 6, 9, 30, 182, 186 Black, Chad, 10, 13 Blanksten, George, 48 Bolivarian Revolution (Venezuela), 116, 208 Borja, Rodrigo, 30, 32, 34–35, 80 Boron, Atilio, 89, 202 Bretón Solo de Zaldívar, Victor, 28 Brysk, Alison, 3 Bucaram, Abdalá, xi, 53–57, 84, 92, 94, 128, 204 Burbano de Lara, Felipe, 85, 88, 103 Burguete Cal y Mayor, Aracely, 45, 79, 207 Cabascango, José María, 54, 59 Cabascango, Julio, 34 Cameron, John, 173 caminata (1992), 35–37 Cammack, Paul, 56 Campana, Patricio, 90 CAN (Coordinadora Agraria Nacional), 37 Cárdenas, Víctor Hugo, 59 Carpio Benalcázar, Patricio, 27 Carter Center, 157 Castro, Fidel, 117, 203 Castro, Raúl, 203 Catholic Church: as conservative opposition, 153, 170; and Indigenous organizing, 5–7, 11, 16–17, 69, 186; and uprisings, 33–34, 73 CEDOC (Central Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Clasistas), 13 CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research), 189 “Ceremony of Hope” (Quito, 2003), 83 Chachi, 4, 20n32

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Chancoso, Blanca, 24, 27, 49, 85–86, 200

Change the World without Taking Power (Holloway), 205, 207 Chávez, Édison, 128 Chávez, Hugo, 80, 104, 126; environment and economic development, 179; populism, 56–57, 177, 203–4; reform or revolution, 115, 209; regional alliances, 190–91, 199; use of state structures, 113, 116, 127, 177, 206 Chena, William, 184–85 Chibuleos, 5 Chicaiza, Gloria, 176 Chiriboga, Galo, 180 Cholango, Humberto, 90; constitutional reform, 121, 130, 132, 136, 155, 158; and Correa, 105, 112; elections, 107, 110, 172, 209; environment, 181–82; and Gutiérrez, 86; Indigenous language rights, 147; plurinationalism, 145–46 Choquehuanca, David, 27 Chugchilán, Manuel, 188 Chuji, Mónica, 133, 138, 150; constitutional reform, 139–40, 156; Indigenous language rights, 147; mining bill, 180; opposes Correa, 172, 182; plurinationalism, 145 Ciccariello-Maher, George, 115–16, 206 citizens’ revolution, 112 Ciudadanos por un Nuevo País (Citizens for a New Country), 54 class and ethnicity, 7–8, 10–11, 17, 20n29, 28–30, 32–33, 59–60, 70 clientelism, 14, 52, 71, 82, 85, 96, 173; of Correa, 112, 183, 191; of Gutiérrez, 94, 105, 178, 202; of NGOs and development projects, 30, 111 CLOC (Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo), 17 CMS (Coordinadora de Movimientos Sociales), 46, 73 CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral), 152

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Index CODENPE (Consejo de Desarrollo de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades del Ecuador), 182 Cofán, 4 COICE (Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana), 8–9, 20n32, 72, 87 Columbus, Christopher, 25 Communist International, 13 Communist Party (Ecuador), 14, 16– 17, 47–48, 69, 111, 113, 148 CONACNIE (Consejo Nacional de Coordinación de las Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador), 7–8, 72 Conaghan, Catherine, 112 CONAICE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Costa Ecuatoriana), 7–9, 20n32, 72, 87 CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador), 1, 4–5, 8–12, 17, 22n64, 23n80, 26, 71–72, 93; class and ethnicity, 10–11, 89; Constituent Assembly (2007–2008), 128, 136– 57; constitutional reform, 156–59; and Correa, 159, 183–84, 200; coup against Mahuad, 68–69; electoral action and social movements, 43– 46, 54–55, 67, 73, 82–83, 95–96, 110, 172; environment, 179–80; and Gutiérrez, 77–79, 86–87, 90–94; landownership and agrarian reform, 31, 37; natural resources, 168; other Indigenous federations, 182, 188; plurinational state, 14–15, 58, 96, 139–40, 142–46; PRODEPINE, 30; uprising of 1990, 1, 25, 30, 33; water rights and privatization, 184, 187–88 CONAMU (Consejo Nacional de Mujeres), on new constitution, 153 Concertación (Chile), 203 Conejo, Mario, 50, 71, 93, 108, 174 CONFENIAE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la

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Amazonía Ecuatoriana), 5–8, 87, 92, 185 CONPLADEIN (Consejo Nacional de Planificación de los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador), 182 Constituent Assembly: of 1998, 57–58; of 2007–2008, 113, 121, 127–39 Constitution: of 1830, 46; of 1906, 129; of 1998, 58–59; of 2008, 128, 132, 152–53, 155, 157–60, 204; Venezuela (1999), 113 Continental Encounter of Reflection and Exchange (2002), 79–80 Cordero, Fernando, 142, 175, 188 corporatism, 139–40, 192 “Correa, Indigenous Movements, and the Writing of a New Constitution in Ecuador” (Becker), xiii Correa, Rafael, xi–xii, 102, 103–4, 111– 16, 126, 169–75, 189, 199–200, 203; abortion, 119; as authoritarian, 114, 116, 130, 136, 150, 175–76, 192; and Catholic church, 153; constitutional reform, 127–32, 136, 157; economic policy, 86, 104, 117– 20, 203; egotism and intemperance, 114–15, 183; environment and extractive industries, 173, 176–84, 189–90, 200; and Gutiérrez, 86, 105; Indigenous languages, 147; and Indigenous movement, 104–6, 180, 184–85, 187–88, 200, 202; Manta U.S. air base, 119; neoliberalism, xii, 187, 191, 199; plurinational state, xi–xii, 182–83, 200; populism, 115, 118, 174, 203; regional and international relations, 190–92; socialism and capitalism, 104, 116– 17, 119–20, 189–92, 199–200, 202– 4; and social movements, xii, 104, 117, 135, 177–78, 199–201; sumak kawsay, xii; and teachers (UNE), 175; Washington Consensus, 104 CPCCS (Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social), 152–53

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240

Index

Crespi, Muriel, 48 Cruz, Pedro de la, 59–60, 133, 144, 147, 150, 187 Cuba, 10 Cuidv (Coordinadora por la Unidad de la Izquierda y Defensa de la Vida), 172 Curicama, Mariano, 51–52, 173 CUT (Central Unitaria del Trabajadores), 33 Cuvi, Oswaldo, 25 Dávalos, Pablo, 27, 70, 84–85, 88, 96, 183, 191 “Day of Mobilization for Life” (2009), 181 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN), 185 de la Rúa, Fernando (Argentina), 93 de la Torre, Carlos, 105, 112 Delgado, Diego, 171 Delgado, Eduardo, 154 Democracy Now, 189 Díaz Polanco, Héctor, 28 Dieterich, Heinz, 117 DINEIB (Dirección Nacional de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe), 182, 186 dollarization, 67–72, 83, 104, 119, 140, 189, 191 Dore, Elizabeth, 10 DP (Democracia Popular), 53, 67, 171 Durán Ballén, Sixto, 36–37 “Ecuador: Indigenous Struggles and the Ambiguities of State Power” (Becker), xiii “Ecuador: Left Turn?” (Becker), xiii Ecuarunari (Confederación de Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador), 5, 8, 107; constitutional reform, 132, 134, 154–55, 158; and Correa, 112; and Gutiérrez, 86; natural resources, 96, 182, 187; plurinationalism, 144 Edelman, Marc, 11 Ehlers, Freddy, 52–53, 67

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electoral action: debates over, xi–xii, 45–46, 48–51, 60, 96, 103–6, 205–8; and Indigenous people, 44, 47–48, 50–51, 82, 92–93, 96, 106, 111, 173; and social movements, 45, 49–50, 60, 92, 95–96, 106, 108–10, 136, 206–8 Ellner, Steve, 56–57 environment, 6–7, 9, 34–36, 138, 151– 52, 172, 176–89, 201–2 Epera, 4, 20n32 ethnicity. See class and ethnicity EU (European Union), 191 evangelical Christians, 17, 53, 111, 170 extractive industries, 173, 176–86, 188–89, 201–2 FADI (Frente Amplio de Izquierda), 14, 50 Falconi, Fander, 186, 204 Falconí, Franklin, 158 Febres Cordero, León, 32, 81, 88 FECIP (Federación de Centros Indígenas de Pastaza), 7. See also OPIP (Federación de Centros Indígenas de Pastaza) FEI (Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios), 16–17, 25, 184 FEINE (Federación Ecuatoriana de Indígenas Evangélicos), 168; constitutional reform, 157; and Correa, 184–86; and Gutiérrez, 94; and other Indigenous federations, 17, 72, 144, 182, 188; and Vargas, 77–78 FENOC (Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas), 14, 16–17, 25. See also FENOCIN (Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras); OPIP (Federación de Centros Indígenas de Pastaza) FENOC-I (Federación Nacional de Organizaciones CampesinosIndígenas), 17

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Index FENOCIN (Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras), 16–18; constitutional reform, 133, 157; and Correa, 186, 188; and Gutiérrez, 79, 86; natural resources, 168, 187–88; and other Indigenous federations, 72, 144, 182, 188 FEPOCAN (Federación Provincial de Organizaciones Campesinas de Napo), 6–7. See also FOIN (Federación de Organizaciones Indígenas del Napo) Fernández Cevallos, César, 89 FFE (Frente Futuro de Ecuador), 77–78 FICI (Federación Indígena y Campesina de Imbabura), 108 Filanbanco, 118 First Continental Conference on Five Hundred Years of Indigenous Resistance (Quito, 1990), 33–34 First Regional Conference of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (Puyo, 1980), 5 “Five Hundred Years of Indigenous Resistance” march (1992), 36 FOIN (Federación de Organizaciones Indígenas del Napo), 7 FONAKIN (Federación de Organizaciones Kichwas del Napo), 7 forajido uprising (2005), 78, 93–94, 119, 198 foreign debt, 141, 203 Forward Operating Location (FOL), 68. See also Manta U.S. air base Frente por el SÍ y el Cambio, 155 FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), 79–80, 87 Fujimori, Alberto, 83 Funes, Mauricio, 203 FUT (Frente Unitario de Trabajadores), 33 García, Fernando, 108–9 gay rights, 138, 153–54 gender, 150–51, 153–54

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Goodman, Amy, 189 Gott, Richard, 110 Gow, Rosalind, 3 Grandin, Greg, 11 Grefa, Valerio, 44, 52–54 Guacho, Alfonso, 17 Guamán, Jorge, 132 Guaraní, 4 Guatemal, Miguel, 30, 87, 89, 180 Guerrero, Andrés, 58 Gutiérrez, Gilmar, 111 Gutiérrez, Lucio, xi, 78–82, 88, 93–96, 111; and Bucaram, 84, 92, 94; clientelism, 105; constitutional reform, 128; and Correa, 170; coup against Mahuad (2000), 68–69; and Indigenous movement, 85–86, 91–93, 202; Indigenous vote, 111; Manta U.S. air base, 80, 83; neoliberalism and populism, 57, 79–80, 83–84, 89, 170 Hale, Charles, 28–29 Harnecker, Marta, 206 Hart-Landsberg, Martin, 104 Hernández, Ruiz, 79, 207 Hernández, Virgilio, 84, 107 Holloway, John, 205–7 Huaorani, 4, 9, 177 Hurtado, Oswaldo, 81 Ibarra, Alicia, 32–33 ICCI (Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas), 29–30, 119–20, 154, 178, 201–2 ID (Izquierda Democrática), 30, 128, 171 IERAC (Instituto Ecuatoriano de Reforma Agraria y Colonización), 31 ILO (International Labor Organization) Convention 169, 34, 185 Imbaquingo, Manuel, 8, 17 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 80, 89 INDA (Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agrario), 37

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Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements (Becker), xiii Indigenous, xivn Indigenous and Popular Parliament proposal, 44 Indigenous socialism (Bolivia), 203 indio permitido concept, 28–29 Inka Empire, 2–3 Interagua, 187 International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases (Quito, 2007), 119 Inti Raymi, 25 Isaías Group, 118 ITT (Ishpingo Tiputini Tambococha) oil fields, 186 Iza, Leonidas, 79, 87, 90 Jacobsen, Nils, 1–2 Jívaro, 4 Josefina missionaries, 6–7 Joseph, Figaro, 45 Júarez, Benito, 45 Jumandi revolt (1578), 35 Junta of National Salvation (2000), 68 Karakras, Ampam, 14 Karankis, 5 Katz, Claudio, 115, 118, 120, 205–6, 208–10 Kayambis, 5 Kenney, Kristey, 94 Kichwa, 4, 7, 35 Kirchner, Cristina Fernández, 202 Kirchner, Néstor, 202 Kisapinchas, 5 Klein, Naomi, 27 Kuecker, Glen David, 177 Kymlicka, Will, 29 labor union rights, 152 La Botz, Dan, 57 Laclau, Ernesto, 55–57, 115 La Clemencia hacienda, 31 Lalander, Rickard, 108, 173

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Index landownership and agrarian reform, 6–7, 9, 30–31, 34, 36–37, 138, 140–41; Bolivia, 119; Chile, 41n62 language, 9, 141, 146–49 language rights, 147 Latin American Weekly Report, 202 Laurie, Nina, 29 Law of Indigenous Nationalities proposal, 14 Ledesma, Xavier, 135–36 levantamiento (1990), 1, 25, 30–34, 37 Liberal Revolution (1895), 134 liberation theology, 5, 11 literacy, 46, 48, 62n25 Lluco, Miguel, 74, 84–85, 88, 152 Local Association of Jívaro Centers, 6 Lucas, Kintto, 52, 105–6 Lucero, José Antonio, xiii–14, 28, 69, 140, 173 Lugo, Fernando, 199, 203 Lula da Silva, Luiz Ignácio, 86, 115, 199, 203 M-19 guerrillas (Colombia), 208 Macas, Luis, 52, 67, 82, 84, 87, 93, 106; constitutional reform, 128–29; and Correa, 108, 159; electoral action and social movements, 49–50, 92, 106, 110, 136, 207–8; Indigenous representation, 140; landownership and agrarian reform, 31, 141; natural resources, 138; pachakutik, 2–3; pueblos and nationalities, 5; socialism for the twenty–first century, 118; sumak kawsay, 27; unity, 73; uprising of 1990, 31 Macdonald, Theodore, 68–69, 143 Mahuad, Jamil, xi, 57, 67–70, 119 Maldonado Ruiz, Luis, 49, 145, 207 Manangón, René, 53 Manta, 4, 20n32 Manta U.S. air base, 68, 71, 80, 83, 87, 119, 141, 203–4 Mapuche Party (Chile), 51 Mariátegui, José Carlos, 31, 117

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Index market-oriented policies, 30 Martínez, Esperanza, 144 Marx, Karl, 208–9 MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo, Bolivia), 51 Maugé, René, 48, 50 May Day march (1987), 10 May Revolution (1944), 48 medicine (Indigenous), 6, 9, 30 Meisch, Lynn, 31 Mendoza, Carlos, 68–69 mestizaje, 50–51 mestizos, 3 Michaels, Walter Benn, 28 MICH (Movimiento Indígena de Chimborazo), 120 Mijeski, Kenneth, 82, 111, 132 military, 69, 88 Minga Intercultural, 108, 174 Mining Mandate (2008), 179 mining. See extractive industries Moncayo, Paco, 67 montuvios (montubios), 4, 149 Moore, Barrington, Jr., 69 Morales, Evo, 51, 83, 115, 119, 170, 179, 192, 199, 202–4, 208 Moreano, Alejandro, 95–96 Moreno, Lenin, 146 “Movilización Por la Vida, La” (1994), 36–37 MPD (Movimiento Popular Democrático), 105, 111, 132–34, 173, 175, 184 MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Brazil), 208 Mujica, José, 203 Muller, Heinz, 68 multiculturalism, 28–29. See also plurinationalism Mundo Shuar (Shuar World), 6 MUPP (Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik). See Pachakutik Murillo, Marco, 73 Muyulema, Armando, xiii Mychalejko, Cyril, 111

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nationality, 3–5, 12–13 National Mobilization in Defense of Water, Life and Food Sovereignty (2010), 188 NativeWeb, xiii natural resources, 36, 138, 140–41, 168, 178, 181–82, 184–89. See also environment Naula, Manuel, 50–51 Navarro Jiménez, Guillermo, 73, 104–5 Nebot, Jaime, 53, 157, 171, 174, 187 neoliberalism, xi, 82, 89, 104, 154–55; in Bolivia, 29; Correa and, 112–13, 170, 172–73, 199; Gustavo Noboa and, 72–73; Indigenous opposition, xi, 9, 26–27, 37, 140–41; Mahuad and, 67, 72; and multiculturalism, 28–30 “new social movement” concept, 139 NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), 30, 119 Noboa, Álvaro, 67, 81, 109, 111, 170–71 Noboa, Gustavo, 68–69, 72–73 OAS (Organization of American States), 94, 190 Obama, Barack, 208 Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, 95 oil corporations, 6–7, 9, 87–88, 95 Olivera, Oscar, 206 ONIC (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia), 33 Opción, 143, 154 OPIP (Federación de Centros Indígenas de Pastaza), 7, 34–36, 178 Ordóñez, Diego, 128 Ortega, Daniel, 200, 203 Ospina, Pablo, 15, 120 Otavalos, 5 Paca, José, 86 Pacari, Nina, 59, 80, 84–85, 87–88 pachakutik, 1–3, 18n2 Pachakutik, xi, 43–46, 74, 88–89, 109, 132, 207; and AP, 173; Constituent

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244

Index

Assembly (1998), 58; constitutional reform, 128; and Correa, 111, 114; and Ehlers, 53–54; elections, 51–54, 59, 71, 79–83, 93, 103, 107, 110–11, 172–74; ethnicity, 107–8; and Gutiérrez, 78–84, 87; language rights, 147; and PSC, 92 “Pachakutik and Indigenous Political Party Politics in Ecuador” (Becker), xiii Pachamama (Mother Earth), 152 Palacio, Alfredo, 89, 94–95 Palacios, Paulina, 70 Pandam, Rafael, 44, 53–54 Paredes, Angel Modesto, 48 Paredes, Ricardo, 47, 148 Pastos, 5 Patiño, Ricardo, 114 Paz, Rodrigo, 35, 53, 83–84 PCE (Partido Comunista Ecuatoriano). See Communist Party (Ecuador) People’s Parliament (Parlamento de los Pueblos), 68, 71 Perbi, Akosua, xiii Peronism, 202 Petras, James F., 56, 92, 205–6 Petrobras, 94 “petro-populism,” 203 Pilamunga, Carlos, 135 Pilco, Sami Ayriwa, 44 plurinationalism, xi–xii, 6, 12–17, 30– 31, 34, 57–58, 87, 139–40, 142–46 populism, 55–57, 115, 118, 174, 177, 203–4 Pozo, Mauricio, 83–84, 86 PRE (Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano), 53, 128, 171 PRIAN (Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional), 81, 109, 111, 131, 171 PRODEPINE (Proyecto de Desarrollo para los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador), 29–30 Proyecto político (Political Project, CONAIE), 11, 15 PSC (Partido Social Cristiano), 82, 88, 92, 111, 131, 171

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PSE (Partido Socialista Ecuatoriano). See Socialist Party PS-FA (Partido Socialista-Frente Amplio), 111, 113 PSP (Partido Sociedad Patriótica), 79, 88, 128, 131, 174–75 PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores, Brazil), 208 Puanchir, Tito, 185 pueblo, 5 Puruhaes, 5 Quenamá, José, 185 Quilumbaqui, Susana, 2 Quimbo, José Manuel, 174 Quintero, Rafael, 13–14, 50 Quisapinchas, 5 Quishpe, Salvador, 81, 173–74, 200 Raby, D.L., 56, 205–6 Radcliffe, Sarah, 29 Ramón, Galo, 12, 16, 144 Ramos, Ivonne, 180 Realpe, Patricio, xiii RED (Red Ética y Democracia), 171– 72, 175 Reich, Otto, 89 Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia, 28–29 Robinson, William, 82 Roldós, Jaime, 171 Roldós, León, 80, 105, 109, 154 Roldós, Martha, 171–72 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 208 Ruiz Hernández, Margarito, 45 Rumiñahui, 25

sacha runa yachay, 27 Sacoto, César, 107 SAIIC (South American Indian Information Center), xivn1, 33 Salasaca, 5, 35 Salazar, Ernesto, 6 Salesian missionaries, 6, 186 Saltos, Napoleón, 73–74 Sánchez, Francisco, 92 Sandinistas (Nicaragua), 9, 208 Sandoval, Luis, 189–90

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Index Santana, Roberto, 20n29 Santi, Marlon, 27, 146–47, 182–83, 186, 192 Saraguros, 5 Sarango, Luis Fernando, 192 Sawyer, Suzana, 15, 32, 36 Schaefer, Timo, 108 Schodt, David, 48 Schroder, Barbara, 32 Schwarz, Bob, xiii, 238 Second Conference of Indian Nations and Organizations of South America (Tiwanaku, Bolivia, 1983), 48–49 Secoya, 4 Seventh Ministerial Summit of the FTAA (Quito, 2002), 79–80 Shifter, Michael, 203 Shiwiar, 4 Shuar, 4, 6–7, 35, 186 Shuar Federation (Federación de Centros Shuar), 6–7 Simbaña, Floresmilo, 28, 128 Siona, 4 Smith, Carol, 13 socialism, 17, 104, 116–20, 189–92, 199–200, 202–4 socialism for the twenty-first century, 116, 192, 203 Socialist Party, 14, 47, 53, 80, 111, 133, 143 “Social Movements and the Government of Rafael Correa: Confrontation or Cooperation?” (Becker), xiii “social neoliberalism” concept, 29 Solís, Doris, 84 Solo de Zaldívar, Víctor Bretón, 59 Solórzano, Carlos, 68–69 Sousa Santos, Boaventura de, 15, 58, 116, 144, 160, 205, 208–9 Spronk, Susan, 192 state transformation, 115–16, 205–6, 209–10 SUCRE (Sistema Unificado de Compensación de Pagos Recíprocos), 191 sumak allpa, 27

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sumak kawsay, 27, 38n11, 135, 176– 77, 200 Summer Institute of Linguistics, 30 Sun Festival, 25 sustainable development, 6, 181 Talahua, Gilberto, 87–90, 109, 128 Tankamash, Miguel, 9 Tapuy, Cristobal, 33 Tatamuez, Mesías, 53 Tawantinsuyu, 3–4 Tenesaca, Delfín, 120, 187 Third Congress of Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador (Santo Domingo de los Tsáchila, 2007), 137–38 Tibán, Lourdes, 84, 184 Tintají (Quito), 95 Tituaña, Auki, 51–52, 71, 77, 93, 106, 174 Tomabelas, 5 Torres, Luis Fernando, 131–32 Torres, Ramssés, 114 Torres, Rosa María, 84, 87 Tsáchila, 4, 20n32 TSE (Tribunal Supremo Electoral), 59, 95 Tupak Amaru, 2, 25, 107 Tupak Katari, 2, 93 UDC (Unión Demócrata Cristiana), 128 Ulcuango, Ricardo, 73, 81, 90, 105 Unda, Mario, 171 UNE (Union Nacional de Educadores), 175 Unidad Plurinacional (Plurinational Unity), 45 United Nations, 190 Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, 72–73 UNORCAC (Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi), 50, 52, 174 uprising of 1990, 1, 25, 30–34, 37 Uribe, Álvaro, 204 Ushigua, Gloria, 143

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246 Valle del Amanecer, 108 Van Cott, Donna Lee, 29, 51, 58–60, 116 Vargas, Antonio, 54, 77–78, 109, 185; corruption accusations, 35, 71–72, 87; coup against Mahuad (2000), 68–70; and Gutiérrez, 91, 94 Vázquez, Tabaré, 202–3 Velasco Ibarra, José María, 84, 105, 204, 210n4 Veltmeyer, Henry, 92, 205 Verdesoto, Luis, 58 Vía Campesina, 17, 199 Viatori, Maximilian, 143 Villamil, Héctor, 52, 185 Villarroel Yanchapaxi, José, 143 Viteri, Alfredo, 5, 109 Viteri, Leonardo, 152 Voice of Arutam, 186 voting rights and citizenship, 46–48, 51, 151, 173, 206 Walsh, Catherine, 5, 16, 38n11 Wankawilca, 4, 20n32

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Index Warankas, 5 Washington Consensus, 104, 190, 199 water rights and privatization, 36, 178, 181–82, 184–89 Weisbrot, Mark, 189–90 Whitten, Norman E., Jr., 2, 11, 83 wipala, 3, 66 Wisum, Bosco, 185–86 women and women’s rights, 35, 141, 153, 200 World Bank, 29, 89, 183 Wray, Norman, 160 WSF (World Social Forum, Brazil, 2005), 116, 200 WSF (World Social Forum, Brazil, 2009), 199 Yamberla, Carmen, 107, 118 Yasuní National Park, 177, 186 Zamosc, Leon, 10–11, 26, 31, 139 Zápara, 4, 7 Zelaya, Manuel, 126, 190 Zorrilla, Carlos, 188–89

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About the Author

Marc Becker teaches Latin American history at Truman State University. He is a cofounder of NativeWeb, the premier Internet site on Indigenous peoples, and of the Ethnicity, Race, and Indigenous Peoples (ERIP) and Ecuadorian Studies sections of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). His research focuses on constructions of race, class, and gender within popular movements in the South American Andes. He is the coeditor (with Kim Clark) of Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador (2007), and author of Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements (2008).

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