Ecuador on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in five provinces after 10 days of protests by indigenous groups against a proposed free-trade agreement with the US.
President Alfredo Palacio placed the areas under military control and restricted freedom of movement, association and expression for an indefinite period, Interior Minister Felipe Vega said.
"A state of emergency has been declared in the provinces of Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Imbabura, Canar and the cantons of Tabacunda and Cayambe, in Pichincha" province surrounding Quito, the official decree said.
"Public security forces will set conditions with the goal of protecting citizens and property, both public and private," Vega said.
"The president took this decision after exhausting all other options for dialogue," Vega said.
Lockdown
The state of emergency forbids public gatherings and marches and sets curfews.
Troops earlier this week reinforced security along major highways leading into the capital.
"I call on the indigenous peoples to stop their activities," Vega said.
Native groups opposed to the proposed trade deal have clashed with government troops and blocked roads for 10 days.
The protests were the latest test for Palacio, a cardiologist with little political backing who says he will not halt the trade negotiations. A strike this month by workers at state firm Petroecuador trimmed crude output.
The government hardened its position after failed talks with the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador, who demand a plebiscite on the free-trade agreement.
The groups marched on Quito to demand the plebiscite as well as the ejection of Oxy, a US oil company, for violation of Ecuadoran law.
Local chambers of commerce organized counter demonstrations in favor of the free-trade deal.
Ecuadorean and US officials will meet in Washington today for the trade talks.
Ecuador's Andean neighbors, Colombia and Peru, have already signed deals with the US.
Roughly a quarter of Ecuador's population are indigenous people who for centuries have been geographically, politically and economically isolated.
The protesters fear the trade pact will damage their livelihoods and way of life. Since protests began nine days ago, indigenous leaders have threatened to take their fight to the capital but so far only small groups have reached Quito.
More demonstrations
"We are going to continue with the protests," Gilberto Talahua, an indigenous leader and organizer, said after the emergency announcement.
Palacio, who came to office 10 months ago after Congress fired his predecessor, has faced a series of strikes and protests from provinces seeking more financing from the state before presidential elections in October.
After centuries of discrimination by an elite, Indigenous groups organized to help overthrow president Jamil Mahuad in 2000. The movement has lost some momentum due to infighting, but is still a powerful voice.
Government officials said they were probing participation of foreign nongovernmental organizations in the demonstrations.
Indigenous leaders deny charges that their protests are funded by foreign governments or groups.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS