Ecuador: Indigenous organizations are concerned about the lack of results after establishing dialogue tables with the government.
According to the leader Leônidas Iza, the problems continue with the price of fuel, the financial situation, and the control of prices for the basic food basket.
RNA - The leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), Leônidas Iza, asserted on Wednesday that there is "enormous concern" about the lack of visible results following the implementation of dialogue tables with the government of Guillermo Lasso, which ended a national strike that lasted 18 days.
He explained that although five negotiation sessions were opened on July 13th, no progress was made on issues related to fuel, the financial situation, and price controls on some of the basic food basket products. These issues are included in the ten-item proposal on economic issues and rights that was presented to the government.
According to the head of Conaie, the indigenous organizations attended the dialogue sessions for 45 days with "willingness, criteria and proposals," but he expressed concern that the government had used the dialogue "solely and exclusively as a process to dissuade the struggle."
For Iza, the dialogue tables cannot solve the country's difficulties, but they are at the "level of solving the deeper problems" that Ecuadorians took to the streets to protest.
Topics for discussion
The topics of the technical roundtables (whose deadline for deliberation is 90 days from their holding on July 13) are the allocation of subsidies, public and private banks, productive development, employment and labor rights, energy and natural resources, collective rights and higher education, protection of national investments, price controls, access to health and security.
The agreement between CONAIE and the government, signed on June 30 with the mediation of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, brought an end to 18 days of demonstrations that plunged the country into a political and social crisis, leaving six dead, 152 detained, more than 300 injured, and 76 human rights violations.
The demonstrations led by Conaie, along with 53 other groups, are due to the high price of basic necessities, the precarious state of public hospitals, fuel prices, the lack of credit to promote production, the attention given to the agricultural sector, and the privatization of public companies, among other issues.