The Vatican Embassy in Quito was occupied this morning by a group of 50 people threatening to stay until the government listens to their demands over further IMF backed structural adjustment measures.
The representatives of the Campesino, WomenÆs, Environmental and Human Rights groups inside the Embassy are demanding that the measures included in the Trolleybus (Omnibus) Law, and the Law to Reform the Campesino Social Security, about to be presented to the Ecuadorian Congress, be stopped and that working groups be set up to discuss the implications of the legislation and other options.
According to Rodrigo Collaguazo, representative of the Organisation of Campesino Social Security Members, the Government intends to privatise the Social Security Scheme as part of the structural adjustment required by the International Monetary Fund. However, according to Collaguazo, the law has not been discussed with those who will be most negatively affected, the Campesinos, and is in fact unconstitutional, as it directly contradicts Article 59 of the newly approved Constitution (1998). The privatisation will move those with larger incomes to the private sector, leaving the poor to basically fend for themselves. According to the Campesino organisation the changeover plan will cost the state about $5,000 million, which it will have to borrow, adding to an already unpayable external debt, one of the major reasons for the present economic crisis in the country. «Its worth asking what would have happened if the government had succeeded in privatising the Social Security plan before the banking/corruption crisis hit» said Collaguazo «would the money now be in a Miami along with the corrupt bankers who robbed the country and then fled?».
The Environmentalists, who are supporting the campesinos in their fight, also have their own demands about the batch of structural adjustment legislation being proposed. According to the environmentalists, the new «Trolleybus» legislation proposes new norms for oil and mining activities in the country which are contrary to the international laws and conventions for the protection of the environment and the rights of Indigenous and Campesino people. The revisions proposed to the mining legislation will open up protected forests to mining, will not charge for any material extracted, and will designate the Ministry of Mines as the «protector» of the environment.
Aurora Donoso the President of Accion Ecologica stated that the changes in the law will allow the country’s natural resources to be looted in the name of economic stability and saving the banking system, while in fact doing nothing more than ensure that the country is devastated and that the great majority of people are worse off than before. «the law contains multiple elements for opening up the country to intensive resource exploitation» said Donoso «which threatens to destroy major ecosystems and put our food security, and the very survival of Ecuadorians at risk».
As if this weren’t enough, the proposed Trolleybus law opens up the possibility for state companies to be bought through the use of the country’s External Debt Bonds. Implying that Ecuadorians who took their money out of the country, in some cases illegally, and bought debt bonds, can now use their money to buy up the country at fire sale prices.
