Early one morning in my sleepy Amazonian village, I had just finished breakfast and was heading back to my house. At the local corner store, where the television is always on, I saw a group of people gathered. Curious to find out more, I decided to sit down with them.
On the screen flashed the images of a mob of people, crowed together on a set of stairs. At the bottom was a group of police officers, blocking their passage. As I watched it became clear what was happening, the mob was some of Ecuador’s elected Senators, being barred from entering the national congress.
Not quite understanding what was going on, I asked those around me what was happening. I was given the following version of the events of the last month:
The events leading up to this confrontation began last week, but were all part of the general political mayhem that is currently Ecuador. On Februray 13th, after much haggling and deal making, Ecuador´s Senate approved a referendum which would ask Ecuadorians whether they wanted to elect a constituent assembly. This elected group would decide what reforms were necessary to end political instability in Ecuador, and hopefully free Ecuador from its entrenched political powers.
After approving the referendum, the senators had 15 days to retract their decision or change their minds. This period passed, and it was assumed that the referendum would go forward. Life, especially political life, is never so simple in Ecuador. After the revision period, 57 Senators voted in favour of a motion against the referendum. Ecuador´s Supreme Elector Tribunal(SET), interpreted the motion as contradictory to the law, and dismissed the Senators from Congress. Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, agreed with their decision.
Knowing what I did already about the situation, this seemed like quite a plausible sequence of events. Further research, however, revealed some holes in the story being presented to me by those in my community. I don’t think this was purposefully done by those I spoke to, but probably reflects the way information travels in a community that has little access to it.
The fact that the resolution on the referendum was passed is true, and yes it was a contentious issue. On the day of the vote 58 senators were present in Congress; 57 voted in favour, and one lone senator voted against. Those in opposition did not even bother to attend the vote.
The current politically divisive issue, however, stems from a direct conflict between Congress and the SET. In an undoubtedly blatant political move, Congress passed a motion against the President of the SET asking that he be removed. The SET resented this attack on its power, and so disbanded the senators who voted in favour of this motion.
As one newspaper editorial pointed out though, the SET seems to have overstepped its power with their decree. The law they are using to back them up applies to government bureaucrats making political statements during election times. Certainly elected Senators are in a completely different situation, and should be free to pass resolutions, even if they are critical of others. In the current political chaos, however, facts like this are easily forgotten in the mayhem.
During this entire situation, President Correa has quietly supported the SET, but has done his best to stay as much out of the issue as possible. Instead he has focused on his message of political reform through the constituent assembly. The current debacle definitely seems to give him support. The clash between congress and the SET is further proof that the system needs to be reformed, and urgently.
Back on television the group of eight senators and their supporters made every effort to yell, scream, and plead with the police officers to allow them to enter. Reporters standing nearby handed them microphones so they could express their views publicly. It seemed as well as if they were constantly on cell phones, rallying as much support as they could. “Democracy yes!, dictatorship no!,” they chanted. On the ground, the tension brewed.
In an effort to calm down the confrontation, one of the chiefs of police came forward to address the crowd, and answer questions from reporters. “Who gave you your orders? Did the President tell you to do this?” one reporter asked him through the fray. He responded that his orders came from the police, implying that they were within the law, and not politically motivated.
The two groups seemed to be at a standstill, when suddenly there was a breakthrough. The Senators and their supporters joined arms and rushed towards the doors of the congress. The group of police officers blocking them had suddenly disappeared! The group was only pushed back when they clashed with police in riot gear standing near the doorways.
After the rush to the doors had been repelled, it seemed that cooler heads prevailed. In some negotiation that must have taken place off camera, the barred Senators were told they would be able to enter the Congress. They continued their raucous protest, chanting and yelling as they entered the building.
Despite the apparent cool down, all could not be diffused for long. All of a sudden, with out any apparent warning, one of the barred Senators who had entered the Congress was found lying almost unconscious on the floor. What had happened, and so quickly too!? His supporters rushed around him, yelling that the police had attacked him. Police officers nearby quickly denied anything and said he had fallen.
In my village, the reaction was unimpressed acceptance mixed with disgust. These people have lived Ecuador’s long history of political instability and for them this was just another case of politicians wasting their time and money. For them they had the more immediate concerns of tending their farms and making sure there was food to eat. Who could be bothered with these political shenanigans?
Regardless of the origin of his injury, the man seemed to be in extreme pain and was unable to move. Paramedics were rushed in and the man was evacuated on a stretcher with head and neck support. He was conscious, however, as I saw him speak a few soft words to one of his supporters as he was taken away.
Later on the President of the congress attempted to cool the tensions by having the chief of police state in front of a crowd of seated media what had transpired. Surrounded on all sides by microphones and cameras he calmly asked the officer to explain what had happened, and then for one of the barred Senators to speak.
The officer responded by restating, in a very controlled manner, that the man had fallen down a set of stairs and his injuries had nothing to do with the police. The barred Senator immediately cut him off yelling that he was lying, and that police were responsible for his injuries. After one minute of calm the congress again descended into anarchy.
The final shot I saw before the station returned to its regular programming was a man speaking to the camera with a huge patch over his eye. This was actually the Senator representing the state and village where I’m living and brought the gravity of the violence even closer to home. It was later confirmed that his injuries came from a demonstrator outside congress and not from the police.
From this event I can draw the following conclusions. The town I am in suffers from an extreme lack of information from the media. Even though it has constant electricity and several public and private televisions, national news, and to a lesser extent international news, rarely filters into the community, or does so in bits and pieces. I am usually the only person in the town who has the time, and the money, to buy a newspaper on a fairly regular basis. The only time I’ve heard any mention of Canada while here was during a 10 second newsflash announcing a major highway accident in Cobourg.
I’ve also seen how events on the national political scene, play out in a small and somewhat disconnected village. While these people with their lives sometimes hanging in the balance, politicians play political games to gain more power. They have ideas and dreams of how their government can help them, but they are sick of waiting for that help to arrive.
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