Ecuador’s president survived an impeachment vote on Tuesday, as negotiations to end more than two weeks of cost-of-living protests by indigenous groups were suspended following the death of a soldier.
The opposition-led Ecuadoran Congress had sought to remove Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso over “the serious political crisis and internal commotion” caused by the protests.
However, the motion garnered only 80 of the 92 votes needed, according to results read aloud by the parliament’s secretary, Alvaro Salazar, in a virtual session broadcast on social media.
Photo: AFP
“In spite of the coup attempts, today the country’s institutions prevailed,” Lasso said after the vote. “It is evident who works for the political mafias. Meanwhile, we continue to work for Ecuador.”
Earlier in the day, Lasso had accused indigenous protest leader Leonidas Iza of self-serving politics, saying: “We will not negotiate with those who hold Ecuador hostage.”
Iza’s powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), in turn, accused the government of “authoritarianism,” and said Lasso would bear the consequences for “his hawkish policy.”
On Tuesday morning, the military said a soldier died and five police and seven soldiers were injured in an attack on a tanker truck escort in the country’s east.
It said a group armed with “spears and guns” attacked uniformed personnel protecting an early-morning convoy of tankers headed for the so-called ITT block of oil fields in Orellana Province, where more than 1 billion barrels are stored.
Ecuadoran Minister of the Interior Patricio Carillo in a Twitter post expressed condolences to the family of fallen soldier Jose Chimarro, and described the attackers as “violent demonstrators.”
A second day of talks with indigenous representatives scheduled for Tuesday morning failed to get under way as negotiators from the government did not show up.
Mediator Virgilio Saquicela, president of the Ecuadoran National Assembly, announced that the government was “not present,” as it was “conducting an analysis” of the early-morning events.
Iza referred to a “brutal attack,” but said there was no proof protesters were responsible.
“The country has witnessed all the efforts we have made to establish a fruitful and sincere dialogue,” Lasso, a former banker who took office just over a year ago, said earlier in the day. “But we will not sit down again to dialogue with Leonidas Iza, who only defends his political interests and not those of his base.”
“Only when there are legitimate representatives of all the peoples and nationalities of Ecuador, who seek real solutions and are open to real and frank dialogue, will we return to the table of dialogue,” Lasso added.
Tuesday’s fatality came on top of five demonstrators dead, and hundreds of civilians and security personnel wounded in clashes between the security forces and protesters blockading key roads and disrupting supply lines.
About 150 people have been arrested, observers said.
Crude oil is the South American country’s main export, but production has been halved from about 520,000 barrels per day prior to the protests, the government said.
Operations at more than 1,100 wells have been affected.
An estimated 14,000 protesters are taking part in a nationwide show of discontent against rising hardship in an economy dealt a serious blow by the COVID-19 pandemic.
CONAIE, which called the protest, is credited with unseating three presidents between 1997 and 2005.
Indigenous people make up more than 1 million of the South American nation’s 17.7 million people. Most of the demonstrators’ ire is concentrated in the capital, Quito, where about 10,000 people are gathered, most of them from other parts of the country.
Other than fuel price cuts, the protesters want jobs, food price controls, and more public spending on healthcare and education.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS