'It is indispensable that Ecuador has peace, but to have peace you need
freedom and to have freedom you need justice. And the Indian population
needs justice.'-President Gustavo Noboa, January 23, 2000
For five centuries, the Indians had very little voice in Ecuador. Now
they are major protagonists who seek more acceptable terms in which to
coexist in a society with two vastly different world views and
cultures-that of Indians and that of the descendants of Europeans. Their
recent political uprising has become the most powerful and influential
indigenous movement in Latin America. They have inspired other Indian
movements throughout the continent.
Author Allen Gerlach details the origins and evolution of the Indian
rebellion, focusing on the key period of the last thirty years. In the
process, he also presents a concise political history of Ecuador.
Gerlach infuses his text with an abundant supply of quotations from
participants in the rise in ethnic politics, bringing Ecuador's history
and the Indians' opposition to the country's government to life. In
addition, Indians, Oil, and Politics serves as a case study on what
happens to a nation when its economy is based solely on one commodity-in
this instance, oil. The discovery of oil in the Amazon in 1967 was a
major factor in Ecuador's modernization and also sparked the Indians'
fight for their rights. Oil wealth wreaked havoc on the environment and
cultures of the native people of the Amazon, and it did not end old
traditions of political fragmentation and corruption.
Gerlach explains that the Indians fought back by forming federations to
advance their interests and by joining forces with similar structures
molded in the highlands of Ecuador. Together they created the country's
first truly national indigenous organization in 1986-CONAIE (The
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador)-and by 2000 their
movement was a major force to be reckoned with, one which increasingly
influenced state policy. This book shows how the Indians helped bring
down two governments when massive demonstrations led to the fall of two
regimes in 1997 and 2000. The Indians battled for economic advancement,
but above all demanded respect for the dignity of their culture and for
their moral and historical rights to their lands and territories. This
valuable case study of the politics of ethnicity will become
increasingly useful for those interested in Latin American politics.
