Vienna, 31/01/01
The Antiimperialist Camp denounces the arrest of two of the most important leaders of the popular struggle in Ecuador: Luis Villacàs Maldonado, National President of the Popular Front and one of the official speakers of the Patriotic Front, as well as Antonio Vargas, the well known leader of the CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador).
All the promises of the government of Noboa to the poor people that rose up one year ago against the hunger-politics of the former corrupt government of Jamil Mahuad and even could overthrow it, have proofed to be cheap lies to betray the people, to demobilize and pacify its fights. There is no more doubt: the government of Noboa, ex-vice-president of the overthrown president Mahuad and now president of the Republic, doesn´t respect the sovereignty of the people, but only the totalitarian sovereignty of the international capital, of globalisation and the omnipotence of IMF and the World Bank.
A government, that has no answer to the demands of the people but repression and violence, has lost all democratic legitimation. The people therefore has the democratic right to resist this tyranny and fight to bring it down in order to reconquer the democratic sovereignty of the people with a government of the majorities of workers, peasants, indigenous peoples and the poor.
All the democrats and anti-imperialists worldwide and all those who oppose the capitalist globalisation and the neoliberal totalitarism have to support the democratic and revolutionary people´s struggle in Ecuador and denounce strongly the new wave of repression against the popular movement.
We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Luis Villacàs Maldonado and Antonio Vargas and all the political prisoners!
We call on all the democratic, revolutionary, anti-imperialist and popular organizations to mobilize in order to denounce the repression of the popular struggle in Ecuador!
Long lives the fight to reconquer the sovereignty of the people – long lives people´s power!
Facing this situation all the movements that oppose globalisation and protested in Seattle, Prag, Biarritz, Nizza and Davos and that met in Porto Alegre, now have to rise urgently their protest. In Ecuador the people has risen against the barbarism of globalisation. It is there where we have to show our real internationalist capacity of supporting the advance of the mass struggle against neoliberalism and for the construction of people´s power as the only alternative to the anti-people´s governments imposed by the transnational capital.
