Lenin in siege

Ecuador’s ‘Drone Revolution’ Meets IMF Austerities

When he announced the austerity package, Moreno sensed that large protests against his government were inevitable. So, he declared a national “state of emergency,” and immediately deployed both the police and the military against protesters in the capital of Quito and other areas around the country.

The state of emergency has been widely condemned as unconstitutional. Leaders of the opposition have argued that it is a desperate measure to try to prevent the kind of mass-scale uprising that overthrew Ecuador’s neoliberal governments of Jamil Mahuad in 2000 and Lucio Gutiérez in 2005.

Various sectors of society have mobilized in response. Among the most visible political forces leading the demonstrations have been the Citizens’ Revolution Movement of Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s former leftist president. They have been joined by a number of social and trade union organizations, such as the United Workers’ Front, the indigenous organization CONAIE, and the Popular Front political party.