Ten days of protests against the Government of Lenín Moreno have turned Quito into a battlefield where mobilizations summon multiple sectors of Ecuadorian society. Sputnik spoke with the anonymous protagonists to tell how the protest is lived from inside the burning city.
Quito has become a battlefield: barricades, fires, crowds, runs, gases, wounded, dead. The scenery reached its peak on October 12 when President Lenin Moreno announced that the curfew, effective from day 9, would be from three in the afternoon instead of eight at night.
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At the time of its announcement, the main avenues leading to the National Assembly, the epicenter of the demonstrations, gathered thousands of people in the midst of smoke. They were not only indigenous but from many social sectors: young people, professionals, workers, students, women, solidarity people, angry, fed up, with a deep discontent with the Government.
October 12 was when it was clear that more sectors were approached to mobilization. Raquel Tovar, for example, dental technique, explained being "supporting my people, my homeland, it gives me a lot of pain to see how they are being killed, what they are doing with the natives, they have no compassion, heart."
As they were present many people, in a process of confluence to the call to make Lenin Moreno back down with the economic measures that face, like his person, a broad popular rejection.
"This is an injustice that they do, killing men, women, just because they are fighting for our rights ... we are the people who fight, I am proud of my indigenous people because I feel indigenous too," said one lady when she returned from a barricade
Solidarity between the people of Quito and the indigenous movement manifested itself in many ways. One of them was the permanent work of volunteer medical brigades, as well as the constant comings and goings of trucks with food and supplies, often homemade - like cloths wet with lemon - to cope with the effect of tear gas.
Another image of the encounter between different sectors came with the mobilizations that began from different popular neighborhoods of the capital that gradually added to the central point of the confrontation. They were seen passing columns with flags of Ecuador and the same repeated slogan: "outside Moreno outside".
Protests in Quito, Ecuador
The Government opted for several tactics in this situation. He tried to generate fear with the announcement of the curfew, then with the massive repression that followed, and finally with the deployment of military men in the streets. The objective was to isolate the indigenous movement to corner an empty city because of the prohibition of being on the street."We are people who are protesting a common good, a good for all, we do not want to be poorer than we already are, the poor people who can buy bread will no longer even be able to eat, and that is the town that is claiming that, if people do not get up today, this government will continue to fill their pockets of money, "said a young man, one of many who have starred in these days.
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The objective of politically isolating the indigenous movement was prevented by the cacerolazo that crossed the city of Quito and in several parts of the country during the night. Thus it was again ratified that Lenin Moreno does not face a protest from the indigenous people, but is facing a crisis of legitimacy as a result of his decisions and his violence that did not stop escalating in the ten days of protest.
Within that framework, the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference and the United Nations announced that this October 13 will be the first dialogue meeting between the indigenous movement, that is, the actor with the greatest capacity for mobilization and street radicalism, and the Government.
Having managed to sit down to the Government to dialogue cost killed, wounded, detained, a wave of repression in a scenario that had not been seen in the country for many years. Quito, a city that has been transformed into a battlefield, could have a truce if an agreement is reached. Otherwise, it will continue its spiral of mobilization in front of a government willing to increase repression to maintain the economic measures rejected by a majority of the Ecuadorian people.
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