Indigenous movement in Ecuador

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The indigenous movement in Ecuador (Spanish Movimiento Indígena ) describes the common political and social articulation of opinions and demands and the pursuit of interests of indigenous peoples and nationalities in Ecuador . The indigenous movement of Ecuador is considered to be the best organized indigenous movement in Latin America.

Origin and development

Agricultural labor movements

The indigenous movement in Ecuador originated in the 1920s. During this time, there were the first efforts, initiated by white-mestizo intellectuals, to improve the living conditions of (also) indigenous hacienda workers.

The first supraregional indigenous organization Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios (FEI), which was constituted in 1944, fought in conjunction with the Communist Party until the 1970s for a land reform and the associated transfer of land to small farmers and cooperatively cultivated farms. However, the problems of the indigenous population were reduced to the problem of small farmers. The indigenous peoples were not represented at the political level.

Foundation of ECUARUNARI and Shuar centers

In the 1960s - often with the support of representatives of progressive circles in the Catholic Church - organizations were founded at the local level, which acted primarily as representatives of interests in the land reform process. However, the land reform of 1964 did not bring about the hoped-for improvement in the living conditions of the hacienda workers or the indigenous population. The local organizations connected more and more at the regional level, so that in June 1972 the umbrella organization ECUARUNARI ( Kichwa Ecuador Runakunapak rikcharimuy , dt. The awakening of the Ecuadorian indigenous people ) for the members of the Kichwa peoples of the Andean highlands was created. In the Andean region - also under pressure from the indigenous organizations grouped in the Ecuarunari - a second land reform took place in 1973, which, however, again failed to meet the objectives.

In the meantime, the Shuar had also formed an association in the Amazon basin , which, as the “Bund der Shuar Centers” in 1964, linked the associations that had arisen at local level in the form of an umbrella organization.

Parallel to the land reforms, there was a massive expansion of the rural school system on the part of the Ecuadorian state and various indigenous groups. The state pursued the goal of "integrating" or de-identifying the indigenous population groups; the indigenous groups saw an opportunity to improve their living conditions. At the top of the ECUARUNARI in particular were indigenous men and women who had achieved a relatively high level of education and had to realize that real integration was hardly possible due to racial discrimination. It became their goal to rethink society and to preserve their own indigenous identity.

Formation of national umbrella organizations

The process of organizational formation continued, the interdependence on regional and national level increased. ECUARUNARI set up a joint national coordination office with the umbrella organizations of the indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin ( CONFENIAE ) and in the coastal region ( COICE ) in Quito , which was named Consejo Nacional de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONACNIE, dt. National Council of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador ) . This National Council was replaced in 1986 by the CONAIE ( Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador ). It is the first national organization in Ecuador to have developed its own political alternative and which was created without direct political or church influence.

The Federación Ecuatoriana de Indígenas Evangélicos ( FEINE ) was founded as early as 1980 on the initiative of Protestant churches . The Federación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (FENOC) emerged from the union-oriented agricultural workers' organizations in the mid-1960s , which in 1987 expanded its name to include "- Indígenas" to FENOC-I and since 1999 has become the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas Indígenas y Negras ( FENOCIN ) is called. The FEI , founded in 1944, still exists.

Increasing political self-confidence

One of the first great successes of the indigenous movement on a political level was the passing of a law on intercultural bilingual education in rural schools in 1989 , which CONAIE was commissioned to organize and implement (the original demand applied to all schools).

Since the uprising in 1990, with which the CONAIE increasingly moved into the public eye, the indigenous movement has repeatedly supported and promoted national uprisings, through which many rights and concessions have been enforced to this day in the following areas, among others: legalization of land and Land, preservation of the common land (if any), in the coastal region: entitlement to communal territories, political participation, the blockade of economic adjustment measures and neoliberal reform laws and the fight against corruption.

In order to be able to exert greater direct influence on national politics, with a view to the presidential and parliamentary elections of May 1996, the circle of CONAIE became the Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik - Nuevo País (short: Pachakutik , officially: MUPP-NP) founded. The National Congress had previously passed a law that allowed social movements beyond the parties to participate in elections. In this context it was also important that illiterate people have also been eligible to vote since 1979.

In the 1996 elections, Pachakutik received eight of the 80 seats in the Ecuadorian National Congress , four of which were occupied by indigenous peoples, including Luis Macas , who was one of twelve nationally elected MPs who served four years instead of two. In the parliamentary elections of 1998 seven out of 121 seats were won, eleven out of 100 in 2002 and six of the 100 seats in the last election in 2006 .

The 1998 Constitution

Of great importance was the adoption of a new constitution in 1998, as in Article 1 of Ecuador "social constitutional state, sovereign, uniform, independent, democratic, plurikulturell and multiethnic" is defined and a number of rights for indigenous peoples and ethnic minority Afroecuadorianer be held .

Also in 1998, Ecuador ratified the " Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries " (ILO 169 of 1989). In this context, a state authority, the "Council for the Development of the Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador" (Spanish Consejo de Desarrollo de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos del Ecuador , CODENPE ) was set up, which deals specifically with the concerns of the indigenous peoples in the political Practice and administration.

Political crisis 1997-2006

Between 1997 and 2006, Ecuador saw the overthrow of three democratically elected governments. The political crisis that emerged in this did not leave the indigenous movement unaffected and it was not uninvolved in it. Indigenous organizations participated in the events within and outside of parliament. In 2000, the CONAIE supported the street protests against the government of Jamil Mahuad , which ultimately resulted in a military coup, at the end of which Vice President Gustavo Noboa succeeded Mahuad, while the coup plotters (among them the later President Lucio Gutiérrez in the lead ) were imprisoned but soon pardoned . Noboa appointed Luis Maldonado, who is active in the indigenous movement, as Minister of Social Welfare. He was the first member of an indigenous ethnic group to head a ministry that was not exclusively responsible for affairs of the indigenous population. Maldonado's participation in government was hotly debated within the movement, among other things because he had not consulted the CONAIE bodies before accepting the appeal.

Pachakutik helped the former coup leader Gutiérrez to win the presidential election in 2002 in an alliance with his party. Pachakutik provided the Foreign Minister ( Nina Pacari ) and the Minister of Agriculture ( Luis Macas ) in the Gutiérrez government . However, when it became apparent that the president was embarking on an economic policy course that contradicted the party's basic program and the agreements made prior to the formation of the government, the pachakutik left the government. On the part of the base in particular, there was manifest resistance to the president. Demands were made to withdraw from politics and take the argument to the streets. In December 2003, CONAIE and other indigenous associations called for the president to resign. Shortly afterwards, ECUARUNARI chairman Humberto Cholango was taken into police custody for several hours because of statements critical of the president. On April 1, 2004, CONAIE chairman Leonidas Iza and his family were victims of a firearm attack that injured Iza's brother, wife and son. CONAIE officials put the bombers in connection with the government, but this has never been proven. The opposition of the indigenous movement increased, which contributed to the eventual overthrow of Gutiérrez. The deputies of the Pachakutik voted in a special session for the removal of the president. For the 2006 presidential elections, Pachakutik nominated Luis Macas, his own indigenous presidential candidate, for the first time.

Today there are repeated demonstrations with the participation of the indigenous movement, in particular with regard to the planned FTAA / ALCA free trade area or free trade agreements (Spanish: Tratado de Libre Comercio, TLC ) between Ecuador and the USA.

Organizations

The indigenous population of Ecuador has lived for many centuries, mainly in rural village communities, which have been preserved as part of the colonial economic system and have hardly been changed by the establishment of the Republic of Ecuador. According to a law on community organization and operation of 1937, these communities were often recognized as "comunas". These communities still form the backbone of indigenous organizations at all levels today. There are an estimated 2,500 indigenous organizations in Ecuador today, which have been increasingly networked at canton, provincial and national level since the 1980s.

Around 75% of all organizations are organized in the CONAIE , while the rest of the evangelical FEINE or trade union organizations such as FENOCIN , FEI and FENACLE ( Federación Nacional de Campesinos Libres del Ecuador , German National Association of Free Farmers of Ecuador ) belong.

As the largest and most important of the aforementioned umbrella organizations, CONAIE has more than three million members in its member organizations. Under its umbrella are three regional umbrella organizations, which are organized according to the three major regions of the country: in the highlands ECUARUNARI , on the coast the COICE ( Coordinadora de Organizaciones de la Costa Ecuatoriana ) and in the Amazon basin the CONFENIAE ( Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana) ). Since the Andes region makes up the largest part of the indigenous population, ECUARUNARI is the largest among the units in the CONAIE.

Among other things, CONAIE offers legal advice and is in dialogue with the government as well as private and public institutions. It formulates political and economic policy goals, plans development programs and also offers smaller training and further education in administrative tasks. In addition, she runs a program for bilingual , intercultural education together with the Ministry of Education . In particular, the CONAIE, with its high mobilization potential, repeatedly uses demonstrations as a means to achieve its goals in order to reach a broad public.

There are close ties between CONAIE and the Movimiento de Unidad Pluricultural Pachakutik - Nuevo País party , which took part in elections and which emerged from CONAIE in 1995 and which now represents indigenous and social interests in parliament. Although their leaders from Pachakutik refuse to be called a "party" to this day in order to distinguish themselves from the traditional party system, Pachakutik now forms part of the legislature and is also popular among the non-indigenous population. In addition to the Pachakutik, there is also a political arm of FEINE, Amauta Jatari . In 2002, he named the former CONAIE President Antonio Vargas for the first time as an indigenous presidential candidate who, however, received less than 1% of the votes without broad support in the indigenous movement.

aims

The indigenous organizations pursue diverse goals, both regionally and nationwide, mostly on a political and social level. The most important common goals include the creation of a plurinational state and an intercultural society (among other things by anchoring multilingual-intercultural education in schools), the official recognition of land rights and indigenous languages ​​and cultures, the protection of natural resources, improved political participation, more autonomy and self-determination as well as the constitutionally guaranteed recognition of the indigenous legal systems in practice.

In addition, the CONAIE changed from a representative of predominantly ethnic interests to a representative of the entire poor population. As general goals in the sense of the representation of all socially disadvantaged population groups, a course correction of the social and economic policy rejected as “ neoliberal ” in the form of privatizations and the dismantling of state services is demanded, as attested by the current and previous governments. The common struggle against interventions by external actors ( IMF , USA) in Ecuadorian politics and against US politics towards the Andean region (see, among other things, War on Drugs and Plan Colombia ) also creates identity .

literature

  • Jorge E. Uquillas, Martien Van Niewkoop: Social Capital as a Factor in Indigenous Peoples Development in Ecuador . The World Bank, Latin American and Caribbean Region, Sustainable Development Working Paper No. August 15, 2003; online here .
  • Fernando García Serrano: De movimiento social a partido político: el caso del Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik-Ecuador (lecture text, São Paulo 2005); online here (PDF) .
  • Allen Gerlach: Indians, oil and politics. A recent history of Ecuador . Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2002, ISBN 978-0842051088 .
  • Magnus Lembke: In the land of oligarchs. Ethno-Politics and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Indigenous-Peasant Movements of Guatemala and Ecuador . Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2006.
  • Theodore Jr. Mcdonald: Ecuador's Indian Movement: Pawn in a short game or agent in state reconfiguration? . In: David Maybury-Lewis (ed.): The politics of ethnicity. Indigenous peoples in Latin American States . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002, ISBN 0674009649 .
  • Melina Selverston-Scher: Ethnopolitics in Ecuador. Indigenous Rights and the strengthening of democracy . Corral Gables: North-South Center Press at the University of Miami, 2001, ISBN 978-1574540918 .
  • Zeljko Crncic: The Indigenous Movement of Ecuador (CONAIE): Strategies for using framing and political opportunity structures . Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3643115973 .
  • Philipp Altmann: The indigenous movement in Ecuador. Discourse and Decoloniality . Bielefeld: transcript, 2013, ISBN 978-3837625707 .

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