Oil as an excuse.

Located in South America, between Peru and Colombia (for those in need of a geographical context), Ecuador is a country with copious natural resources and ethnic diversity. Ecuador has also been recognized the past decade for being the pioneer country of the neo-socialist governments with the past president, Rafael Correa. Correa´s government that ended in 2017 was deeply aligned with the governments of Maduro in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Kirschner in Argentina and other left-wing governments of the past decade. Yet, the new government of Moreno brought an apparent new air to the country. Despite of being from the same political party, Moreno promised to end with the corruption and human rights violations that he affirmed, existed in the past government he was part of.

With approximately two years left of Moreno´s presidency, the country has found itself static. Moreno indeed created a more open to dialogue government but has not take very prominent actions in his government...Until this week.

On Tuesday president Moreno announced austerity measures for the country. They involved removing the oil subsides. As expected, transportists were not content with this at all. The oil subsidy in Ecuador has been present literally since democracy came back to the country in the 70s. Thus, Ecuadorian citizens never saw oil prices in its real nature, but saw the low oil price as normal in the market.

On Wednesday, all the transportation strike begun. The main streets in Quito were blocked and buses and taxis were not operating. Violence rose in some areas of the country. In the second largest city of the country, Guayaquil local markets and stores were being assaulted and the few transportists operating were confronted by those who were striking. As a consequence, the president established the country as in a “State of Exception.” Classes were suspended at a national level and some student groups also were on the streets protesting against the new economic measures. On Thursday public transportation was still not operating but most of the streets were being opened again. Nevertheless, at the end of the week, transportists announced the end of their strike aiming to reach an agreement with the government.

Yet, indigenous groups announced on Friday their mobilization to the main cities in Ecuador as a form of protest for the new governmental measures. On Monday, transportation operated for the first hours of the day as the main streets were now being closed by the indigenous mobilization. Due to the mass indigenous mobilization, the state involved military presence on the streets, most companies closed, violence increased and the government officially moved to Guayaquil as the indigenous concentration is bigger in Quito.

At the moment, the government set a Curfew time and national independence festivities of Guayaquil that were going to take place this Friday have been suspended. Due to the strikes, the government estimates millions of losses in the market, including the damages done by the strikes in the main cities of Ecuador. The idea of a coup d`Etat attempt has been constantly mentioned by the people but experts don`t consider it as possible or palpable. The government`s pronouncements have only been demanding peace, the main entrances to Quito and Guayaquil have been blocked, all type of public transportation have been suspended and the government has established a curfew time.

Some civilians are as well on the streets on pacific demonstrations demanding for peace and Moreno is in the spotlight of the entire country waiting for him to give declarations on the actual situation of the country