QUITO (awp/afp) – Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso received a small delegation of indigenous representatives on Friday to try to defuse protests against fuel prices that have paralyzed several access points to Quito for five days.
The conservative head of state, in power for a year, received a hundred natives of the province of Cotopaxi (south) living in the capital.
“What must be done is dialogue (…) violence cannot be the way to resolve the problems”, declared President Lasso when receiving the delegation. “This is the way within the framework of the rule of law, respect for the law, the Constitution, to solve the problems that have accumulated over decades in Ecuador,” he added.
“Without dialogue, there is no possible future. You can count on the full support of organizations that want constructive change,” added Orlando Tipán, head of the Unoric organization, to the press at the end. of the meeting at the Presidential Palace.
“We don’t want bloodshed, more vandalism, more violence. Ecuador is a country of peace,” said the secretary of the same organization, César Pérez, referring to the clashes between demonstrators and police in the last days.
Ten soldiers and eight police officers were injured, according to the authorities, and 29 demonstrators were arrested. The indigenous movement deplores 14 wounded in its ranks.
Leonidas Iza, the leader of the powerful indigenous organization Conaie (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), behind the protests, said on Friday that there was “no dialogue” underway with the executive.
La Conaie assures that it will continue the mobilization until the government accepts a list of ten demands, including the reduction of fuel prices, the regulation of the price of agricultural products and the renegotiation of the debts of four million rural families towards the banks. .
The organization had already led the violent demonstrations of 2019 (11 dead) and participated in the uprisings that overthrew three presidents between 1997 and 2005.
Indigenous peoples make up at least one million of the 17.7 million Ecuadorians.
Faced with road blockages, growers and exporters of fresh flowers, one of the country’s main export products, lamented on Twitter that “production is being lost, flowers are rotting”.
The Ministry of Production estimates that the blockages resulted in losses of $50 million.
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