Indians, Oil, and Politics: A Recent History of Ecuador"It is indispensable that Ecuador has peace, but to have peace you need freedom and to have freedom you need justice. And the Indian population needs justice."-President Gustavo Noboa, January 23, 2000 For five centuries, the Indians had very little voice in Ecuador. Now they are major protagonists who seek more acceptable terms in which to coexist in a society with two vastly different world views and cultures-that of Indians and that of the descendants of Europeans. Their recent political uprising has become the most powerful and influential indigenous movement in Latin America. They have inspired other Indian movements throughout the continent. Author Allen Gerlach details the origins and evolution of the Indian rebellion, focusing on the key period of the last thirty years. In the process, he also presents a concise political history of Ecuador. Gerlach infuses his text with an abundant supply of quotations from participants in the rise in ethnic politics, bringing Ecuador's history and the Indians' opposition to the country's government to life. In addition, Indians, Oil, and Politics serves as a case study on what happens to a nation when its economy is based solely on one commodity-in this instance, oil. The discovery of oil in the Amazon in 1967 was a major factor in Ecuador's modernization and also sparked the Indians' fight for their rights. Oil wealth wreaked havoc on the environment and cultures of the native people of the Amazon, and it did not end old traditions of political fragmentation and corruption.Gerlach explains that the Indians fought back by forming federations to advance their interests and by joining forces with similar structures molded in the highlands of Ecuador. Together they created the country's first truly national indigenous organization in 1986-CONAIE (The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador)-and by 2000 their movement was a major force to be reckoned with, one which increasingly influenced state policy. This book shows how the Indians he |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 15 | |
| 33 | |
| 51 | |
| 81 | |
Jamil Mahuad | 115 |
Levantamiento Indigena | 163 |
Gustavo Noboa | 205 |
Conclusion | 235 |
Notes | 249 |
Bibliography | 263 |
Index | 271 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abdalá Bucaram Abya Yala Alarcón Álvarez Amazon Antonio Vargas Armed Forces Arteaga bank Borja budget called Carlos Mendoza Carlos Solórzano century claimed Cloth ISBN Cofán Colombia Comercio Quito CONAIE CONAIE's Congress constitution corruption country's coup cultural decades deputies derrocó a Mahuad Diario La Hora dollar economic Ecuador ECUADOR Quito Ecuadorean ECUARUNARI elected Febres Cordero foreign debt Gallardo Golpe groups Guayaquil Gustavo Noboa highlands Hora Quito Huaorani Indian movement INDÍGENAS indigenous inflation Jamil Mahuad January 21 Joint Command José junior officers Junta labor land later Latin America leaders Levantamiento loans Lucio Gutiérrez Luis Macas major ment military million minister Moncayo Nebot organization Paper ISBN parties percent Peru Plan Colombia policies political population President Noboa presidential protests province Quishpe reform resign Reuters revenue Rosalía Arteaga Sandoval sector Shuar social Solórzano sucre taxes tion Universo Guayaquil vice president Vistazo Quito vote
Popular passages
Page 19 - Indians are] naturally lazy and vicious, melancholic, cowardly, and in general a lying, shiftless people. Their marriages are not a sacrament but a sacrilege. They are idolatrous, libidinous, and commit sodomy. Their chief desire is to eat, drink, worship heathen idols, and commit bestial obscenities.
Page 19 - God created these simple people without evil and without guile. They are most obedient and faithful to their natural lords and to the Christians whom they serve. They are most submissive, patient, peaceful and virtuous. Nor are they quarrelsome, rancorous, querulous or vengeful. Moreover, they are more delicate than princes and die easily from work or illness. They neither possess...
Page xvii - ... take for their banners noble ideals which are based on obedience to animal instincts of a simply vegetable life."" Thus, Velasco Ibarra did not reject dictatorship as such : Evil is not essentially in dictatorship, and good is not necessarily in democracy. Evil lies in attempting oppression with a perverse or vain intent. Good lies in making effective the rights of man and of the citizen and in the creation of institutions which guarantee them. . . . If there is no juridical institution [to do...
Page 19 - ... equally degenerated from their wisdom in making laws, and their regular observance of them. It is no easy task to exhibit a true picture of the customs and inclinations of the Indians, and precisely display their genius and real turn of mind; for if considered as part of the human species, the narrow limits of their understanding seem to clash with the dignity of the soul; and such is their stupidity, that in certain particulars one can scarce forbear entertaining an idea that they are really...
Page 19 - Deformed Persons among the Native Indians.] IT is remarkable that though no deformed persons are ever seen among the natives in their wild state, ULLOA says of those about Quito, " more natural defects are to be observed among them than in the other classes of the human species : some are remarkably short, some idiots, dumb and blind, and others deficient in some of their limbs.
Page vii - Every thought you now have and every act and intention owes its complexion to the acts of your dead and living brothers. Everything we know and are is through men. We have no revelation but through man. Every sentiment that warms your gizzard, every brave act that ever made your pulse bound and your nostril open to a confident breath was a man's act. However mean a man may be, man is the best we know; and your loathing...
Page 27 - ... and civilization, therefore, but from considerations of interest merely, had a stop been put to this time-honored barbarity. In this connection it becomes necessary to explain the system of Indian servitude prevailing on the haciendas of the interior. The Indian farm laborers — and it is only the Indians and Negroes who work on farms, and by the sweat of their brows maintain the white population by whom they are oppressed — are called gananes, or concertados, or peones. Their wages do not...
Page 43 - ... particularly the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) — provide technical assistance and capacity for policy analysis, diagnosis, and dialogue from a national or regional perspective. The financial organizations — the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the...
Page 27 - ... must be baptized, and no credit is given by the curates, who inflexibly adhere to the cash system ; a festival takes place in the neighborhood for which a little money is required : the land-owner therefore advances the money or furnishes the necessary articles, and he does so willingly, because it is his interest to keep the Indian in debt. An account is kept of all these transactions ; but the poor ganan, to whom the art of reading or writing is a mystery, is at the mercy of the mayordomo or...
Page 34 - The oil bonanza lasted a decade and a half as prices skyrocketed. In 1972 the cost per barrel for Ecuadorean crude stood at $2.50, and the next year it came close to doubling at $4.20. By 1974 the charge soared severalfold to $13.70. It climbed to $23.50 in 1979 and reached its summit in 1980 at $35.26 following the Iranian revolution and conflict in the Middle East.