[News] Ecuador 5 Dead as Anti-Gov't Protests Enter 2nd Week - Among the dead was Indigenous leader Inocencio Tucumbi

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ecuador-5-Dead-as-Anti-Govt-Protests-Enter-2nd-Week-20191010-0004.html 



  Ecuador 5 Dead as Anti-Gov't Protests Enter 2nd Week

10 October 2019
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Protests against IMF austerity reached their eighth day in Ecuador, as 
civil society groups denounced the increased police violence, with 
the country's Public Defender office confirming that five people have 
been killed so far. As of Thursday morning, roadblocks by protesters 
remain in key areas such as Carapungo, the northern exit out of Quito, 
while Indigenous protesters are concentrated in the center of the city, 
near the National Assembly.

Some civil society organizations 
<https://twitter.com/redoscecu/status/1182258540326670337> say the 
figure could be up to seven. CONAIE, an Indigenous group involved in the 
protest, says they will publish a report in the coming days giving full 
figures of those killed and injured. This follows the death of Inocencio 
Tucumbi, an Indigenous leader in Cotopaxi.

Civil society groups are also reporting that over 800 are currently 
detained, including 13 journalists. Furthermore, at least 500 are 
reported injured.

There were also attacks on Wednesday night against a humanitarian center 
near Salesiana University. The area provided refuge and shelter for 
Indigenous marchers, which during the night police attacked the area 
with tear gas. Ecuador’s Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo has since 
apologized for the attack.

    Quito: National Police launches tear gas at the Salesian Polytechnic
    University, which has served as a shelter "humanitarian reception
    centers" for Indigenous people who are in Quito for the protests,
    from out-of-town. @teleSURenglish
    <https://twitter.com/telesurenglish?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>pic.twitter.com/gF9DfsQq8V
    <https://t.co/gF9DfsQq8V>

    — Camila (@camilateleSUR) October 10, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1182103794525638658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>


The police crackdown has received widespread condemnation. The 'Madres 
de la Plaza de Mayo', a leading human rights group in Argentina, formed 
by mothers whose children disappeared during the dictatorship, posted a 
video 
<https://twitter.com/EcuadorRC/status/1182019274422009856> Wednesday 
denouncing the repression, saying, "In the name of the mothers of the 
world: stop repressing! The peoples are determined not to let us 
be defeated".

"This government is clinically dead, it has no way out...they are trying 
to control the situation with the most brutal repression of which there 
is memory," former leftist President Rafael Correa said hitting out at 
the police brutality, speaking to an Argentinian radio station.

Political figures sympathetic to protesters have also been targeted. The 
governor of the Pichincha region Paola Pabon, from Correa's Citizen's 
Revolution party was told by the interior minister that she will have to 
'face justice', to which Pabon said 
<http://www.pichinchauniversal.com.ec/no-le-tengo-miedo-a-su-regimen-de-represion-y-persecucion-responde-paola-pabon-a-maria-paula-romo/>, 
"I am not afraid of your regime, nor your repression or persecution".

Protests show little sign of abating as Indigenous groups deny 
government claims that there are negotiations ongoing to bring the 
uprising to an end. Protesters maintain their opposition to the 
government's austerity package that followed a multi-billion dollar loan 
from the IMF.

Indigenous organizations revealed Thursday that they had arrested eight 
police officers in Quito as they called on the aut5hroities to half 
repression tactics against anti-government protesters, who have been 
peaceful in the most part.

-- 
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