This is an unofficial translation. The original document in Spanish is at: https://tinyurl.com/CONFENIAE-2019-Oct9 

CONFENIAE PRESS RELEASE:

Popular power versus the government of the bankers and big business

9 October 2019 – Puyo, Pastaza, Ecuador

After seven days, the national shut down takes on the character of a great indigenous uprising, the second in the history of Ecuador, following the historic deeds of 1990. With more than 20,000 representatives of the peoples and nationalities demonstrating in the city of Quito, 10,000 in the Amazon region and similar numbers in the Andean provinces, the indigenous movement reclaims its role coordinating the demands of the maginalized and empoverished sectors of Ecuador in opposition to the interests of the bankers and big business represented by this disgovernment.

The Amazon in quite familiar with the political moment in the country. Following CONAIE's guidance, we have consolidated and strengthened the direct actions in the 6 Amazonian provinces, with a balance of 3 government headquarters taken in Puyo, Tena and Macas, where more than 7,000 people have initiated popular assemblies and decreed manifestos that reclaim the platform of struggle against the economic Big Package implanted by Lenín Moreno and in defense of our territories in the face of oil, mining and hidroelectric extractivism.

In the region that generates the economic wealth of this country, the people have closed oil wells, pumping stations and roads accessing the camps and hydrocarbon extraction platforms in Napo, Orellana and Sucumbios. The actions do not stop and, to the contrary, the spirit of the people is rising and their decision remains firm until the voice of the people is heard.

In response to the powerful action of CONAIE, the President of the Republic and the Minister of the Interior have decided to sow terror and order a criminal repression against the people with a balance of nearly 500 people detained, many injured, and 2 dead according to CONAIE's count. Lacking another way out, high-level government figures such as the Vicepresident and various ministers have chosen to disinform the country and lie about alleged dialogues and agreements with indigenous leadership, who, to the contrary, remain firm in the streets and in the trenches of this struggle in the territories. The immediate response from the indigenous movement is clear: there are no agreements nor dialogue until the repeal of Decree 883 which imposes the Big Package on Ecuadorians.

“We will not dialogue with a government that has ceded to the pressure of the International Monetary Fund that sells our territory to the extractive transnationals,” affirmed Marlon Vargas, President of the CONFENIAE, speaking to the Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa nationalities and others who yesterday took the provincial capital of Pastaza. Here, as in Napo, the people repudiated the provincial governors and proclaimed representatives of the people in an exercise of popular power.

“The demonstrations continue” is the rallying cry of the leadership, and they will continue as long as necessary, because we stand for the interests of a whole population exhausted from so much abuse.

CONFENIAE COMMUNICATION