The leader of the indigenous sectors, Leonidas Iza, announced that a day of protests will begin on June 13, which will continue indefinitely until the authorities respond to its nine requirements
By
Yalilé LoaizaFrom Quito
The president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), Leonidas Iza (c), in a file photograph. EFE/Santiago Fernández
Simultaneously with the act of reporting to the Nation presented by President Guillermo Lasso for his first year in office, several indigenous, peasant and civil society organizations presented a parallel report on the state of the country. The act was used to announce the protest measures called for June 13.
In response to this, the Minister of Government, Francisco Jiménez , announced that it will open causes to dialogue and avoid mobilizations.
The president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Leonidas Iza , announced that a day of protests and mobilizations will begin in the early hours of June 13, which will continue indefinitelyuntil the authorities respond to its nine requirements: freeze gasoline prices; increase the budget for public education; subsidize agricultural producers; prevent labor flexibility; prohibit mineral exploitation in indigenous territories; prohibit the privatization of public companies; respect the collective rights of indigenous peoples and nationalities; and contain insecurity both on the streets and in the country’s prisons.
Iza also assured that the decision to go out to protest does not correspond only to CONAIE, but that other organizations such as the National Confederation of Peasant Organizations, Indigenous and Black have already joined. (FENOCIN), the Council of Evangelical Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of Ecuador (FEINE), the Confederation of Peoples of the Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) and the Peasant Coordinator Eloy Alfaro.
In addition, according to Iza, small community-based groups will also attend the protests and she invited other social groups such as banana growers, rice growers, dairy farmers and transporters to join in promoting these de facto measures.
Government Minister Francisco Jiménez said at the conclusion of President Lasso’s report to the Nation that the protesters have their right to complain because they are free to discuss what they think is wrong. He added that the discrepancies serve as an exercise to identify what can be improved and that this does not exclude dialogue as a mechanism for understanding.
The Secretary of State has been willing to open the door to dialogue and affirmed that the doors of the government and those of his ministry are open to communicate with the leaders who announced the protests.
At the House of Culture in Quito< /b>, in an event entitled “Report to the Nation from the reality of peoples and nationalities, a look at 200 years of independence”, CONAIE raised various issues related to the political situation in the country, on the measures that the regime of the President Lasso and about the demands made that will be taken to the streets. The meeting was also held with the intention of rejecting the report to the Nation offered by President Lasso before the National Assembly of Ecuador.
According to the president of CONAIE, the announced national mobilization would begin in the localities and will include all kinds of demands. The leader assured that he will no longer tolerate the government because the state is benefiting “the large economic groups” and harangued in favor of the democratization of the economy, of the means of production in favor of those who support the country’s economy.
In addition to the social leaders present at the act, there were also nine of the 27 legislators of Pachakutik, the party indigenista that is the second most important political force in the Ecuadorian legislature.
The presentation of the alternate report on the State of the Nation was held in one of the halls of the House of Culture just 800 meters from the National Assembly where President Guillermo Lasso, at the same time, presented his report in a solemn act led by Guadalupe Llori, also a Pachakutik assembly member and president of the legislative body .