Ecuador - June 24, 2022

There have been up today 13 days of combats by the exploited in Quito and throughout the country, with a Revolutionary General Strike that confronts Lasso and his labor flexibility plan, and the looting by the transnationals that has left hunger and unemployment for the people...

The masses have already defined it in the streets:

OUT LASSO, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BANKERS AND THE CAPITALISTS!
OUT WITH THE IMF AND THE TRANSNATIONALS!

Let the Revolutionary General Strike continue until the government, the regime and its caste of murderous army officers fall!

Dissolution and disarming of the murderous police and the Army officer caste!
Let's set up the committees of common soldiers and the worker and peasant militias coordinated from the Front Lines in the streets!

Let us expropriate the oil companies, agricultural transnationals and landowners, without compensation and under workers' control, to conquer the land for the poor peasants! 

 It is necessary to set up the power of those from below:

ALL THE POWER TO THE FUT AND THE CONAIE!

For a provisional government of workers and poor peasants supported by the worker and peasant militia and the workers', peasants' and indigenous organizations in struggle!
National Congress in Quito of Workers, Poor Peasants and Combative Students, with rank-and-file delegates!
The worker and peasant leaderships must break all negotiations and conciliation with the government and the murderous bosses!
The workers, the poor peasants and all the exploited with their National Strike have already decided: LASSO OUT!  Let them all go away, not even one must stay here!

It's already been 13 days that the exploited in Ecuador, with an enormous revolutionary struggle, have been facing the IMF plans, which President Lasso strictly complies with, under orders of U.S. imperialism. In a country with a dollarized economy and under the direct control of the IMF, this plan has led 39% of the exploited to a situation of extreme poverty; to this the rise in the price of a gallon of Diesel has been added, from 1 dollar to 1.90 dollars and from 1.75 dollars to 2.55 dollars the price of gasoline, leading to an immediate rise in the prices of transportation and the family basket that has already made life unbearable for the masses. Moreover, a health crisis due to COVID-19 is carrying on, with health services destroyed, hospitals depleted and the exploited dying like animals in the streets.

The country is in deep economic crisis, marked by the recession and the government’s emptying of the state treasury for the repayment of the foreign debt of 19 billion dollars to the IMF. The IMF plan attacks brutally the petty farming producer and the poor peasants, while the government has applied a set of measures of labour flexibility, attacking the working class, making the unemployment indexes to sky-rocket. The IMF plan, as part of collecting the foreign debt, wants to keep all the resources of the country and to advance with the privatization and foreign investments in communications, mining and oil industry, thus deepening the crisis of the public health system while paving the way to privatizing the education.
This situation unleashed the uprisings in Ecuador. Since June 13, a National Strike started, called mainly by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). It submitted to the government 10 points of minimum demands, like reducing prices of petrol, food prices control, more budget for health and education, among others. Besides that, other 300 organizations of agricultural workers and students joined these demonstrations all across the country.
The first day of these protests, CONAIE’s leader Leonidas Iza was arrested by the police, which caused a response of the protestors who condemned the action. So Iza had to be freed two days later. The exploited answered setting up barricades of the agricultural workers and peasants. As the government refused to pay attention to this, they decided to go and fight in Quito.

This tough struggle of the masses is an anti-imperialist struggle, confronting this government that continues the attack of Lenin Moreno of applying the IMF plans, as in 2019 he could not finish doing so due to the mass revolutionary uprising.
The National Strike, which today is endorsed by more than 300 organizations in Ecuador, was further radicalized in its 8th day, as Monday 20th night the peasants of CONAIE reached Quito and, in support, the militant youth took over the facilities of the universities, as the Central University of Ecuador (UCE), to receive the peasants. Also, from the Worker Unified Front (FUT), the working class took to the streets marching in support of this huge struggle. Seeing the tenacity of the exploited, the Lasso government did not hesitate in responding with the militarization of 3 regions of the country, such as Pichincha, Cotopaxi and Imbabura, where the use of lethal force was authorized besides restricting the right to information, and there was a curfew imposed in Quito Metropolitan District, establishing a new state of exception in which freedom of meeting or association is banned. Later on, the state of exception was expanded to 3 other provinces: Tungurahua, Chimborazo and Pastaza.

There were heavy clashes with the police all over the country. On Tuesday June 21, there were two killed by the police crackdown, which enraged the population of Puyo (Ecuadorian Amazonia) that responded by burning the police unit and the Bank of Guayaquil (of which Lasso had been manager and president before becoming president). On Tuesday June 22 at night, the police fired several teargas bombs on the Central University of Ecuador (UCE), which was housing the peasants that had arrived to Quito. This caused new confrontations with the police, because despite being a “peace zone”, the government did not care and commanded the repression anyway. On June 23, other peasant was murdered by the repression after a canister of teargas hit his head, showing the truth despite what the government says about they not having anything to do with the dead and that the mobilized people are just vandals.

Now, in the 12th day of the National Strike, the leadership of CONAIE and Pachakutik (second parliamentarian force in Ecuador) tried to push for a “dialogue” with the Lasso government, demanding him to meet the 10 points demanded. That is to say, while the exploited on the streets were demanding the fall of the government, the trade union and peasants leaderships of Stalinism and its MP’s, once again tried to save the life of the Ecuadorian government and regime, calling to a negotiation over the workers and peasants blood; until now the casualties have been 5 dead due to the police repression, 143 protestors wounded, 112 arrested and 8 disappeared.

Unfortunately, these same leaderships of workers and peasants of FUT and CONAIE, led by the Communist Party and the whole Stalinism, had saved Lenin Moreno government. If the demands of the Ecuadorian exploited had not been met is because their 2019 revolutionary fight was diverted. The struggle made Lenin Moreno run away and forced to partially cancel the attacks. The workers and peasants didn’t take power in their hands or get the resolution of their demands because the leaderships of CONAIE and FUT returned the power to Lenin Moreno. After the electoral trap, the Lasso government came.
Now, the Lasso government hasn't hesitated in massacring the revolted people and tries to impose the IMF plan by means of a bloodbath. Nevertheless, protests are on the rise and each time more protestors arrive to Quito, where the self-defense committees are already established as “first lines” in each barricade combat. In each one of the confrontations, the police and the army were overrun by the people. It is urgent for the privates that refused to repress the people to return beside the people. We need to call the privates to disobey the murderous officers and refuse to repress their fathers, neighbours, sisters, aunts, children, to set up their Privates' Committees and elect their leaders, to end with the pro-imperialist officers, defenders of capitalists. Before it’s too late: Disarm the officers cast of the Armed Forces and set up the worker and peasant militia and the privates' committees!

Yesterday, after the massacres, there was a call to a National Assembly of the trade union organizations in struggle. Different delegations came from across the country. Pachakutik MPs also came and they were booed, because they said they were to submit a bill to the parliament for the Lasso government to be removed. The rank and file in the assembly responded with the cry “Out Lasso Now!”

However, the government is resolute to prevent any rising of armed self-organization organs of the masses in struggle. Therefore, it responded announcing through all media of the nation that a “coup” was being organized and ordered the repression in the Culture House (where the National Assembly was taking place). There were children, elders, pregnant women, and still the police cleared the place by repressing the delegates, to prevent any worker and peasant organ from being set up, that could question the Lasso government and its murderous officers caste. In the face of this crisis, today there will be a parliamentary session to provide an “ordered” way out of this crisis so that another agent can come and apply the same planes of imperialism.
The activation of the presidential impeachment procedure had already been anticipated this Friday by a group of assembly members from Pachakutik, Conaie, and Correismo, whose head is the scoundrel former president Rafael Correa, a cowardly Bolivarian hiding in Brussels where he resides as a "political asylum seeker". Since 2017, not only has he been silent in the face of repression, assassinations and arrests, but he himself had been the one who strictly applied the plans of imperialism, as the whole “bolibourgeoisie” of the continent did and continue to do. Let's lay no trust in the bourgeoisie, its politicians and its institutions!                                                                    

Enough already!  Let's surround the police stations to free our prisoners:                                     

Immediate freedom for the more than 100 political prisoners!  Trial and punishment for the murderers of the people!  Appearance alive of all the disappeared, right now!                            

Dissolution of the repressive forces!  Let's disarm the murderous police and the caste of army officers and set up the committees of rank-and-file soldiers and worker and peasant militias coordinated from the front lines and the organizations in struggle!
 No mediation, no negotiation either with the executioners of the people or with their supporters!

The people have already spoken in the streets: LASSO OUT!  Let them all go away, not even one must stay here!                             

We have to raise the power of those from below: All the power to the FUT and the CONAIE! For a provisional government of workers and poor peasants supported by the worker and peasant militia and the workers', peasants' and indigenous organizations in struggle! WE CAN'T RETURN WITH EMPTY HANDS TO OUR REGIONS, CITIES, JOBS, FACTORIES AND UNIVERSITIES.  This already happened to us in 2019 with Lenin Moreno who made us lift the strike, but it was a scam full of promises that were hollow words.  Then, they only gave themselves time to now take everything from us, our salary, our conquests, and there is only hunger left.  Now we have to go for all of them.
The catastrophe is already here: For a Congress of delegates of workers, poor peasants, combative students and the common soldiers in Quito!  All the power to FUT and CONAIE to stand up the power of the exploited!  It is necessary to impose the rupture of the FUT and of all the workers' organizations with the bourgeoisie!  Let's return to the path of 2019, this time to lead it to victory against these treacherous leaderships that want to negotiate with the enemies that massacre and imprison us.                                                                                                                           

Only from that congress we will be able to fight for an Emergency Worker and Peasant Plan to give way to the crisis to have: Work and fair wages for all!  Enough of unemployment!  For one more shift in all companies so that all the unemployed go to work!  Public works plan based on taxes on large fortunes!                                                                                                                                                       

In order to have bread, and land for the peasant, the land must be expropriated without payment and under workers' control from the oligarchy and the Dole Co.!  Let's nationalize the land to give it to the poor peasants!  For a salary that covers the family basket!                                                        

The Armed Forces of the continent under the command of the Pentagon, try to spread worker and peasant blood to punish the working class and apply a recolonizing offensive plan in the US imperialism backyard. We cannot allow it!  Out gringos, out the IMF, out the Gringo military bases in Ecuador and the entire continent!
The struggle of the workers and peasants who rise up for their just demands in Ecuador show the way to all the exploited of the continent. We must fight throughout Latin America as in Ecuador!  A single struggle in all of Latin America against the attacks of hunger, unemployment, looting and submission by the IMF, imperialism and the slaveowner bosses!  Ecuador cannot continue fighting in isolation, if they defeat it, imperialism will have free hands to deepen its attacks throughout the continent!

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http://www.flti-ci.org/ecuador/2022/junio/decla-ecuador-junio2022.html