The brutal repression of the teachers' protest in Ecudaor in December highlights the fact that the period of waiting on the part of the Ecuadorian masses is over. The movement of 2000 brought Lucio Gutierrez to power, but he has merely continued with IMF policies. Now Ecuador is poised for a new movement on a higher level, comparable to that of Bolivia.
This is an article written for Pierre Broué's magazine Cahier Leon Trotsky under the name of Michel Wattignies in answer to Luis Oviedo's
article. See the original in French: Début de la deuxième
révolution bolivienne
The national enlarged meeting of the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB)
gathered in Cochabamba on January 22, and decided to call for an indefinite
general strike with road blockades in twenty days time if Mesa’s
government does not concede the demands of the October insurrection and
continues with its announced austerity measures. The COB meeting “ended
with the decision to take power, by closing down Parliament." This
decision marks the end of the truce given by the worker and peasant leaders
to Carlos Mesa’s government.