International Journal of Sociology

ISSN: 0020-7659 (Print) 1557-9336 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mijs20

Eleven days in October 2019 – the indigenous

movement in the recent mobilizations in Ecuador

Philipp Altmann

To cite this article: Philipp Altmann (2020): Eleven days in October 2019 – the indigenous
movement in the recent mobilizations in Ecuador, International Journal of Sociology, DOI:
10.1080/00207659.2020.1752498

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207659.2020.1752498

Published online: 20 Apr 2020.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/00207659.2020.1752498

Eleven days in October 2019 – the indigenous movement

in the recent mobilizations in Ecuador
Philipp Altmann
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito,
Pichincha, Ecuador

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Since the 1990s, the indigenous movement has been the most active Indigenous peoples;
social movement in Ecuador. However, the years after 2000 were neoliberalism; protest;
marked by rather small and punctual mobilizations, instead of big organization
national uprisings. This changed with the national strike of October
2019 that was partially led by a rejuvenated indigenous movement
with new leaders and a renewed discourse that build a broad alli-
ance of diverse social actors and could, yet again, communicate clear
demands to state and government.

Introduction
Social movements cannot be reduced to their performance during protests. There is
much more to them: the maintenance of organizational structures and collective memo-
ries, the development of a shared discourse with clear demands, attraction and educa-
tion of members and leaders. Especially indigenous movements present themselves as
icebergs with much happening out of the sight of external actors or researchers.
Protests do present themselves in this context not as main action of social movements,
but rather as moments of visibilization. A social movement does not need to protest –
but when it does, some of the subterranean work done before is brought to light.
The national strike of October 2019 in Ecuador1 was just such a moment for the
indigenous movement. The dominance of the 1990s almost forgotten during the long
crisis of the 2000s and 2010s, the work of reorganization from the bases had obviously
been fruitful. The indigenous movement could mobilize a considerable number of its
members and led the main actions during those eleven days. They constantly communi-
cated their demands, connecting to the struggles and discourse developed in ear-
lier years.

The national strike of October 2019 in Ecuador

On September 27th, Ecuador’s Vice-president Otto Sonnenholzner announced economic
measures that would be difficult for many and mean a “major sacrifice” and asked the

CONTACT Philipp Altmann philippaltmann@gmx.de Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad

Central del Ecuador, Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador.
ß 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 P. ALTMANN

citizenship for understanding.2 This happened in the context of an important credit by

the International Monetary Fund (IMF), part of an agreement that dates to March 2019,
after almost a decade without credits by the IMF. This is part of what many describe as
neoliberal turn of the government, connected to the reduction of personal and spending
in the public service. On October 2nd, President Lenin Moreno issued decree 883, enter-
ing action October 3rd. This decree eliminates the subsidiaries of gasoline and diesel, ele-
vating the consumer price between 50% to over 100%3. Other economic measures
included a reduction of salaries for contracted workers in the public service. The reaction
was immediate: October 3rd was marked by roadblockings by transport workers, including
taxi drivers and truckers. Already at this point, wider civil society, especially worker
unions4, university students and social movements, started to protest what they called
neoliberal measures. This same day, the state of emergency was declared. And this same
day, the indigenous movement declared its participation in the protests.
While the first protest of the transport sector ended quickly with compensatory meas-
ures, the protest of the other actors continued and was, around Monday, 7th, slowly
strengthened by indigenous peoples arriving in Quito. Wednesday, 9th, was declared
national indigenous strike, and meant a moment of massive action in most of the
Highland and Amazonian provinces of Ecuador. From then on until Sunday, 13th, the
protests continued on a high level. During Sunday evening, representatives of the indi-
genous movement and of the government held a dialog that was transmitted live in TV
leading to the suspension of decree 883 and the compromise to elaborate a renewed
and improved version of it. With that, the protests ended.
Those eleven days were shocking in many ways.
While Ecuador is used to protests, the degree of violence seen was different from ear-
lier mobilizations. Several state buildings were destroyed by protesters, police violence
was related to the death of eleven people (amongst them, Inocencio Tucumbi, Marco
Otto, Ra ul Chilpe, Jose Daniel Chaluisa, Vega Caizaguano, Silvia Mera Navarrete,
Edison Mosquera and Edgar  Yucailla), and to 1.340 wounded as denounced by
st5
CONAIE on October 21 . Those eleven days witnessed indiscriminated police violence
that included unaimed shooting of gas canisters into the crowd and led to
many injuries.
They were marked by misinformation and fake news on many levels. While the
mainstream media in TV and press highlighted acts of violence and destruction by the
protesters and invisibilized their demands and police violence, the social media became
the main means of information – however, occasionally disrupted by falsifications.
Between October 3rd and October 31st, the organizations of the indigenous movement
issued a total of about 36 press releases, communiques, manifestos, and other communi-
cations to the general public6. Of those 36 documents, 21 were used to correct misinfor-
mation, explain misunderstandings, or denounce intentional falsifications – and not to
communicate demands. In times of post-truth, intentional lies and distortions of actual
events destroy any hope for a polity defined by mutual respect, the debate over the best
argument, and a shared view of what society could be (Altmann and Peters 2018).
October 2019 in Ecuador was another step in the polarization of the population accord-
ing to their access to information: the young, educated, critical, looked for other means
to stay informed, like Wambra Radio or the temporal project Zangano Press, amongst
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 3

others. The old, un-educated, conventional, stuck to TV and the major newspapers7.
Their view of what actually happened diverges in a way that is hard or impossible to
reconcile. October in Ecuador meant a clash of two worlds in their fight for what can
be considered to be true. Maybe, this just shows clearly the bolsonarofication or trumpi-
fication of politics underway since a few years ago.
The protests showed the persisting racism in a considerable part of Ecuadorian soci-
ety, as well as the lack of implementation of the Plurinational State that Ecuador should
be, according to its constitution. State representatives doubted the very existence of
indigenous territories in Ecuador or accused them of separatism, the State view on those
territories as freely available natural resources became obvious. Territorial self-determin-
ation is not accepted by the state as such. Important politicians engaged in an openly
racist discourse against the indigenous peoples. This had a clear impact on the discus-
sions in the society at large, reflected in social media, everyday discussions, and news-
paper articles.
They were the first massive and successful mobilization of the indigenous movement8
in a long time. While there were many mobilisations since the early 2000s, until
October 2019, they could not reach the same impact as they had in the 1990s. The abil-
ity of the governments during that time to divide the movement and to block broader
alliances led to the idea of a crisis of the indigenous movement in Ecuador (for
instance: Martınez Novo 2009). The separation between the national leadership and the
local bases of the movement is related to a lack of communication – the national lead-
ers were not able to sufficiently mobilize the local and regional organizations. This is
something the movement has been working on since its first important crisis in 2000
(Inuca 2017). With success, it seems – the movement was able to bring more than
20.000 indigenous protesters to the national indigenous strike on October 9th, and even
more in the following days. Especially the indigenous territories saw important mobili-
zations. The indigenous movement was a central actor in the protests, indigenous lead-
ers above all, Jaime Vargas president of the largest organization, and Leonidas Iza,
president of a provincial organization of Cotopaxi- were present in the media and indi-
genous organizations showed their ability to mobilize and to communicate coher-
ent demands.

The indigenous movement in the protests of October

The indigenous mobilization of October was led by CONAIE (Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), the largest national organization with its three
regional members ECUARUNARI (Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador), CONAICE
(Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Coast) and CONFENIAE
(Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon), with in total
above one million members. FENOCIN (National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous
and Black Organizations) and FEINE (Council of Evangelic Indigenous Peoples and
Organizations of Ecuador) also participated, while other organizations did not partici-
pate or had no major impact. Those organizations have roots in the 1970s, both in the
socially engaged Churches and leftist parties, and define the indigenous movement in
Ecuador since the 1980s (Altmann 2017). CONAIE tends toward a more ethnic
4 P. ALTMANN

platform, FENOCIN understands itself as a worker union, and FEINE is an organization

of Evangelic ecclesiastic organizations. All of them are defined by a bottom-up-structure
of several levels of smaller organizations (Bret on 2003:219–20), decision-making is
therefore collective and does depend on the ability of leaders to mobilize the bases. This
produces a dynamic that can be hard to grasp and seems spontaneous: local and
regional organizations do not hesitate to pronounce themselves publicly and organize
their participation in the national actions autonomously. Conflicts can arise and are
sometimes played out publicly. The renewed ability of the national leadership of the
movement to mobilize their bases was a main reason for the relative success of the pro-
tests in October.
In the 1990s, this dynamic worked out so well that the indigenous movement turned
into an international reference of mobilization and political action. In 1990 and 1994, it
was able to paralyze a big part of the country in national indigenous uprisings. In 1992,
a march from the Amazon demanded territorial autonomy for the indigenous national-
ities living there. Those three protests articulated the discourse around core demands of
the movement: plurinationality and territorial autonomy for indigenous nationalities. In
1997 and 1999, the indigenous movement participated in the ousting of presidents and,
in 2000, even formed for part of a short-lived triumvirate. The years after the participa-
tion in the government of Lucio Gutierrez in 2003 were marked by a decline of activ-
ities of the movement.
Since the 1970s, the indigenous movement has developed a coherent discourse
around certain main concepts. They understand themselves as indigenous nationalities
that are able and have the right to manage themselves in a regime of territorial auton-
omy. This does not imply a separation from the Ecuadorian state, but rather its re-def-
inition as plurinational (Altmann 2016b). A plurinational state would be therefore a re-
organization of state structures that allow for far-reaching legal, political, cultural, eco-
nomic, etc. autonomies in the indigenous territories, without dissolving as a state. Good
Life or Sumak Kawsay is a radicalization of these main ideas as it fills the demand for
territorial autonomy with concrete and local content (Hidalgo Capitan, Guillen Garcıa,
and Deleg Guazha 2014). It surely is the most successful concept in terms of diffusion
and allows to transcend the Western opposition between culture and nature (Altmann
2016a). While the constitution of 2008 does declare Ecuador a plurinational and inter-
cultural state that follows the principles of Good Life, no major efforts were undertaken
to implement these concepts.
In the context of the mobilization, the fight against decree 883 and the general rejec-
tion of neoliberal adjustment were the main demands – coherent with the tradition of
the movement and the concrete reality in the communities that were heavily affected by
the sudden increase in gasoline and diesel. At the same time, this platform allowed for
a wide alliance with the most diverse actors. Yet, at different points of the protest, the
indigenous movement introduced other demands. Since October 7th, CONAIE denoun-
ces the human right violations, since October 10th, CONAIE asks for the resignation of
Marıa Paula Romo, minister of the interior, and Oswaldo Jarrın, minister of defense.
But those concrete demands are connected to their general discourse. For instance, in
the declaration of the fight agenda of the peoples of the Amazon, published on October
7th, CONAIE and CONFENIAE clarify that in “an intercultural and plurinational state,
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 5

we exercise government over our territories”9. This is also the first time in this context
that the indigenous movement puts into question extractivism – they consider petrol
exploitation to be “the root of the problem we are facing today” and demand a “post-
petrol economic model”. However, they still reject the increase of the price of gasoline
as those measures “do not contribute to overcome extractivism, but rather feeds its
deepening”. After the protests, on October 21st, CONAIE send a letter with intent to
the IMF. Here, the general vision of the movement is made clearer. They reject the pol-
itics favored by the IMF as politics that “impose unto us an idea of development that
does not respond to our concrete necessities and seem to concentrate on resolving
problems that are not ours.” CONAIE denounces them as part of an “orthodox accom-
plice, sell-out, and anti-democratic economic politics that violate our rights and those of
Mother Earth.” Finally, on October 23rd, 10 days after the end of the protests and still
without a new decree or a fundamental political change, CONAIE called for a
“Parliament of the peoples that will build through a plurinational minga [Andean form
of collaborative work, P.A.] the proposal of a new economic model that guarantees
sumak kawsay and thus will not allow new austerity measures against the people”. The
Popular Parliament of the Peoples and Social Organizations started to work at the head-
quarters of CONAIE on October 25th and did present its proposal on October 31st. This
proposal works on the basis of the constitution and develops alternative means of
income in order to maintain the subsidiaries on gasoline and diesel and, at the same
time, prepare a post-petrol future.
This short overview of the communiques of the different organizations shows the
ability to connect to established demands of the indigenous movement, renewing them
in the context of the political fight of the moment. The elimination of the subsidiaries
is not understood -as some middle-class intellectuals do- as a contribution to fight cli-
mate change, but rather as neoliberal politics against the poor that does not further the
construction of a plurinational state that would be able to strive for a collective and
communitarian sumak kawsay. This means that the movement is yet again able to con-
nect to global discursive trends, the climate protests around Fridays for Future would be
the main example. Possibly, this can allow for transnational alliances in a near future.
At the same time, the concrete actions during the protests should be understood in the
context of a wide wave of social unrest in Latin America, mostly pronounced as anti-
neoliberal in Chile and Colombia – but also as anti-elite in Bolivia. Ecuador has been,
to some degree, the starting point of what could be a Latin American autumn, suffo-
cated by violent repression and betrayed by fake agreements.

Conclusions
It takes time to understand the role of concrete protests in the development of a social
movement. While the protest itself highlights the main organizations, leaders, and
demands of the movement, it has its own logic that can produce misleading impressions
– for instance, that the concrete protesters on the street are the movement or that there
is nothing behind them. The indigenous movement could show in the protests of
October 2019 that it has overcome its crisis and is yet again able to mobilize its bases,
present coherent demands, and even participate as equal in negotiations with the
6 P. ALTMANN

government. If this represents a new wave of protests of the movement, maybe even a
phase of strength like in the 1990s will depend on many factors.

Notes
1. There are already some reflections on it. For instance Hidalgo Flor (2019) and Luque,
Poveda Moreno, and Hernandez Zubizarreta (2020).
2. https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/vicepresidente-comprension-medidas-economicas-
reformas.html
3. https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/decreto-alza-gasolinas-diesel-subsidios.html
4. The FUT (Unitary Workers’ Front) maintained its participation during the whole protest.
5. See also the dates by the national ombudsman: https://www.dpe.gob.ec/
6. Thanks to Eduardo Alcıvar for his support. The material has been analysed with inductive
content analysis as outlined by Mayring (2000).
7. Following data by the Ecuadorian statistics office, in 2017, the use of internet drops in the
age groups above 45 to 44% and less, while the younger age groups range above 59%:
https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/documentos/web-inec/Estadisticas_Sociales/TIC/2017/
Tics%202017_270718.pdf. Data from 2010 suggest that the access to higher education drops
below 20% in the age groups over 35 and below 15% over 55: http://redatam.inec.gob.ec/
8. The indigenous movement is understood here as a social movement that consists of several
organizations with different sizes and interests (the so-called social movement organizations)
and external allies that can converge in moments of protest (McCarthy and Zald 1977).
While it is mainly composed of indigenous communities, there are also non-
indigenous members.
9. Al translations by the author.

Notes on contributor
Philipp Altmann, studies in sociology, cultural anthropology and Spanish philology at the
University of Trier and the Autonomous University Madrid (2001-2007). Finished his doctorate
in sociology at the Free University of Berlin in 2013 with a work on the decolonial aspects of the
discourse of the indigenous movement in Ecuador. Since March 2015, he is Profesor Titular for
Sociological Theory at the Universidad Central del Ecuador. Research interests are: indigenous
and social movements, decoloniality, identity, social exclusion, systems theory, political sociology,
sociology of science.

ORCID
Philipp Altmann http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5036-2988

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