[Lasa] Accusations that Weaken Us All: A response to Eva Golinger’s Attack on the CONAIE

[William Waters]

Greetings to all. 

Thank you Marc for sending this out. Very curious. Eva Gollinger may be a 
respected lawyer but I, in my infinite ignorance, have never heard of her.  I 
see from her article that she is, in fact in Caracas, not Ecuador.  It interests 
me that she uses the same red herrings regularly employed in the US press: 
namely, discussing the situation in Ecuador by throwing in Venezuela and 
Bolivia.  


The list of organizations that receive USAID-NED funding is also curious. One, 
CODENPE, is actually a government agency, and its current head is Angel Medina, 
who is also co-founder of a small NGO also named: Fundacion Q'ellkaj, which has 
less than 10 regular members, mostly young indigenous researchers interested in 
political participation. (The only exception is an aging gringo sociologist: 
me.)  The Fundacion is engaged in such controversial activities as monitoring 
elections. Nice web site: www.qellkaj.org   The assertion that either of these 
entities had any role before, during, or after the events is ludicrous.  


I posted several statements during the events of September 30.  With a few days 
of perspective, I now think that the best answer to many of the questions that 
have been raised is: it is hard to know at this point. 


Was this a golpe?  Many observers, including Luis Verdesoto, have stated that 
the events lacked key ingredients of golpes, particulary the plan and intent to 
replace governing officials (especially the president) with others.  Was Correa 
kidnapped, or simply indisposed? Probably depends on the definition.  What was 
his thinking when he went to the police barracks in the morning? According to 
him, it was to talk to the police there and give them the information he 
believed they lacked.  True? Hard to say at this time.  


Was there any influence from the US? The vice-chancellor, Kinnto Lucas, says 
yes. The fact that the US embassy in the past had provided equipment (especially 
computers) to the anti-narcotics police units in the past is well known here, 
controversial for some, but entirely in line with the embassy's northern tier 
security strategy.

It is interesting to note, but hardly surprising that Lucio Gutierrez has stated 
that this was an auto coup, largely staged by the government.  Correa's break 
with CONAIE is well known, and among others, Lourdes Tiban, a member of the 
Assembly, has made statements very similar to those of Gutierriez.  I do not 
believe that CONAIE played any important role in the events of September 30.

At this point, the state of emergency has been renewed in Quito but has little 
practical effect on daily lives.  The situation in the Assembly is evolving, 
much as it has for the past two years. Some police have been arrested and others 
have been reassigned.  


The answers to many of the questions raised will be answered in the next couple 
of weeks, but there will be little agreement on their relative significance. 
Existing schims have been exacerbated, and the middle ground, if there is such a 
thing, is uncertain.  In the meantime, Eva Gollinger could probably profit by 
throwing a broader net in collecting information.

Will Waters







________________________________
From: Marc Becker <marc at yachana.org>
To: lasa at ecuatorianistas.org
Sent: Tue, October 12, 2010 10:03:11 AM
Subject: [Lasa] Accusations that Weaken Us All: A response to Eva Golinger’s 
Attack on the CONAIE

Accusations that Weaken Us All: A response to Eva Golinger’s Attack on the 
CONAIE

From the Ecuador Solidarity Network (ecuadorsolidaritynetwork at gmail.com
<mailto:ecuadorsolidaritynetwork at gmail.com>)
<mailto:ecuadorsolidaritynetwork at gmail.com>

On September 30, as Ecuadorians lived through a police uprising that seemed to 
put the leadership of President Rafael Correa in jeopardy, people from around 
the world tuned into Twitter to garner information about what was happening on 
the ground.

Respected lawyer and author Eva Golinger sent out tweets in rapid-fire, 
informing readers from around the world with news from her sources in Ecuador. 
But as soon as translated statements from Ecuadorian Indigenous groups hit the 
ether, Golinger tweeted <http://twitter.com/evagolinger/status/26018130924>:

"Be careful, there are folks in CONAIE funded by US agencies that sway the 
organization to certain positions..."

Her tweet was in response to the English translation of a statement by the 
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), one of the most 
powerful social movements in Latin America. In their statement 
<http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/4741>, the CONAIE was anti-coup, but 
they also pointed to the fact that Correa himself had helped create the 
conditions for an uprising. The statement pointed out that the Correa 
administration has attacked and delegitimized social movements in Ecuador. It 
also criticized the "authoritarian character" of the government.

Golinger later wrote an article called Behind the Coup in Ecuador 
<http://machetera.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/behind-the-coup in-ecuador/>, which 
was widely circulated online. In it, she repeats her accusation that CONAIE has 
funds at its disposal from the National Endowment for Democracy that would 
somehow provoke the organization into destabilizing the government of Ecuador:

"Not all groups and organizations in opposition to Correa’s policies are 
imperial agents. But a sector among them does exist which receives financing and 
guidelines in order to provoke destabilizing situations in the country that go 
beyond the natural expressions of criticism and opposition to a government... 
Organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and Pro-Justicia 
[Citizen Participation and Pro-Justice], as well as members and sectors of 
CODENPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador 
[Indigenous Enterprise Corporation of Ecuador] and Fundación Qellkaj [Qellkaj 
Foundation] have had USAID and NED funds at their disposal."

Golinger, however, provides no evidence to back up her statements and the 
evidence that has been made public in this regard, shows only that some 
individuals associated with some of the groups she names have had some kind of 
association with USAID and the NED at some point in the past.

But the CONAIE is not a US puppet and such allegations only serve to detract 
from real concerns that indigenous and non-indigenous organizations have been 
raising about legal reforms that President Correa has been pushing for during 
the last couple of years since the country's new constitution was passed in 
September 2008. Disputes between the CONAIE and Correa have arisen around real 
differences, for example, over the country's economic development model, the 
establishment of a plurinational state, pre-existing conflicts between local 
communities and Canadian-financed mining projects, oil industry expansion, as 
well as efforts to bring autonomous indigenous institutions under the control of 
the state.

All of these disputes have been exacerbated and complicated by repeated insults 
made directly by Correa against groups such as the CONAIE, most often during his 
weekly national radio addresses. Other attempts to delegitimize social 
organizations include serious criminal charges against their leadership.

Golinger presumptuously assumes the role of arbiter in defining what constitutes 
"natural expressions of criticism and opposition to  a government." In their 
September 30th statement, the CONAIE clearly outlined how their resistance to 
the government of Rafael Correa is part of their historical struggle to defend 
their rights and lands, and to work toward the construction of a Plurinational 
State. Indigenous
peoples have been involved in five centuries of struggle, which has
taken place in the courts and in the halls of congress as well as in the streets 
and on the land. Any attempts by outsiders to take agency away from the peoples 
and communities leading these struggles should be
criticized.

In the week following eptember 30th, debate has emerged over whether or not what 
took place was an actual coup attempt. While such questions are being raised 
from diverse sides of the political spectrum, from the perspective of social 
organizations that have been persistently attacked by Correa over the last few 
years, they worry that such a
characterization could be leveraged to the benefit Correa and the
further passage of new laws without substantial debate, rather that as
an opportunity to rebuild relationships and strengthen Ecuadorian democracy.

This is a complex and delicate situation and one that could be explored in much 
more detail. But it cannot simply be assumed - without wanting to ignore how 
elements of the right and their imperial backers might seek to take advantage of 
situations like these – that because groups are protesting against Correa that 
they are working on the empire's behalf. These kinds of accusations weaken us 
all, as they attempt to undermine years of brave and powerful organizing for 
freedom and justice by indigenous and non-indigenous people in Ecuador.


*The Alleged Coup d’Etat, Democracy, and the Indigenous Organizations*

By Marlon Santi

President, CONAIE

We, the Federation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE, in its 
Spanish initials) and the Pachakutik Bloc, in response to the events of 
September 30, 2010, and the claims made in recent days about the alleged  
support by USAID-NED to indigenous organizations, standing firmly on our 
historic process of bringing about a true Plurinational State, announce:


The struggle of the peoples and nationalities is not an individual one, rather, 
it corresponds to the collective dream of constructing a diverse country, 
inclusive of the diverse popular and social organized sectors that seek a real 
change to end the old neoliberal, exploitative structures and the decolonization 
of the institutions of the State. We seek a plurinational democracy, respectful 
of the rights of individuals, of collective organizations and of nature.

We energetically announce that there never was any attempted coup d’etat, much 
less a kidnapping, but an event that responded to the uncertain political 
management of the government that causes popular discontent through permanent 
aggression, discrimination and violations of human rights consecrated in the 
Constitution.

We do not recognize this dictatorial “democracy” because of its lack of freedom 
of speech, the kidnapping of all the powers of the state by the executive branch 
in its political system of one government, that does not generate spaces to 
debate the projects, and laws elaborated from the indigenous movement and other 
social sectors.

We categorically refute claims that the CONAIE, the Pachakutik Political 
Movement, the peoples and nationalities have any relationship at all with the 
organism known as USAID, previously NED, not today nor ever. To the contrary, we 
know that this organization finances the “social programs” of this government 
like the forest partnership and that, yes, is condemnable.

We demand the constitutional suspension of the National Congress for its failure 
to comply with the constitutional mandate that it legislate much less audit as 
it is well known that all laws are approved by the president’s legal minister.

We condemn the usurpation of press freedom when on September 30 all media not 
allied with the government was forced to broadcast government news in “cadena 
nacional,” a means by which all access to informationis controlled and 
manipulated with a version of the facts that does not inform about the real 
dimensions of the situation on that day in the country.

Quito, Ecuador, October 6, 2010

Government of the Peoples and Nationalities,

Marlon Santi

President, CONAIE


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