With blessings and wishes of ‘good wind and good sea’, the dialogues between the Government and the indigenous people began, which will last 90 days

A blessing: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, and a wish for “good wind and good sea”, by Monsignor Alfredo Espinosa, vice president of the Episcopal Conference, were the first signs that began to the dialogue tables between the Government and the representatives of three indigenous organizations and that will last ninety days.

In the auditorium of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference (CEE), in the north center of Quito, no less than 100 attendees placed in rows of chairs next to each other made the sign of the cross. Among them were at least five ministers of state, presidents and directors of various government entities, such as the National Finance Corporation (CFN) and the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC), and the principals of the three largest indigenous organizations in the Ecuador: the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), the Council of Evangelical Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of Ecuador (Feine) and the National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous and Black Organizations (Fenocin).

Monsignor Espinosa had mentioned that when a path begins, this journey arrives with hope, with illusion, and that the goal of this path of dialogue was “to build a peaceful, just, fraternal Ecuador.” That this new Ecuador look at reality with different eyes: that it have that sensitivity towards the poorest, towards the excluded. He also spoke of the fact that in order to dialogue one had to “have an attitude of humility, meekness and respect towards the other person”. He assured that dialogue is never easy, but it is possible if you have the will.

With this idea in mind, the attendees were divided into the two tables planned for the first day. Table 1 on fuel targeting and table 2 on debt moratorium of the public and private financial system.

Minutes before the inauguration, which was convened at 08:30, there were doubts that the indigenous delegations would attend the meeting. It is that at 08:03 the ministers and delegates of State institutions began to arrive. One of the first to arrive was the Minister of Transportation, Danilo Herrera. The officials of the Episcopal Conference verified the names one by one. Only those who were on a list could enter. Minister Julio José Prado, the president of the CFN, Iván Andrade, and Roberto Castillo, from INEC, who was going to provide the data on the subsidies, arrived.

Minutes passed and more and more government representatives arrived, but not a single one from the indigenous sector. There was no other entrance door through which they could have entered. “If they arrive, they must enter through here,” said one of those guarding the door.

The uncertainty as to whether or not the delegations would arrive was due to the declarations that the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, had issued in previous days in an international environment, in the sense that the indigenous paralysis that lasted 18 days would have been financed with drug money. That caused a lot of discomfort.

However, at 09:00 those delegations began to arrive. The first to enter was that of the Fenocin, with Gary Espinoza at the head and accompanied by two well-known figures in the political and economic sphere: Henry Llanes, an oil expert and former Assemblyman who has belonged to CREO and the PSC. There was also Wilma Salgado, manager of the Deposit Guarantee Agency (AGD) at the time of Lucio Gutiérrez and an expert in financial matters.

Their presence was due precisely to the fact that two key issues were going to be addressed on the first day of talks: the targeting of subsidies and the moratorium on public and private banking debts.

On the issue of targeting, Llanes had already commented in previous days that the indigenous sector was seeking to present a comprehensive proposal, in which the targeting of subsidies in the agricultural sector could be made viable through distribution plants that should be co-managed by the communities and the Government, but also proposed an intelligent system for dispatch control, as well as to identify the beneficiaries of the subsidy.

Regarding debts, the request from the indigenous sector has been that BanEcuador debts of up to $10,000 be forgiven. This, despite the fact that the Government has already approved a forgiveness of up to $3,000. They have also called for a moratorium on debts from the private financial sector, although the regime has stated that it cannot interfere in private sector decisions.

Then Eustaquio Tuala, de la Feine, arrived. Only when everyone was installed in the auditorium did Leonidas Iza, president of Conaie, enter. During the opening ceremony, the three indigenous representatives expressed their discomfort at what they called disqualifications by the Government. Iza said that these kinds of pronouncements put the process at risk. He also considered it a worrying sign that before the beginning of the dialogue, investigation processes had been initiated against more than one hundred members of the indigenous organizations; but now there are already 416 who are being investigated.

The Minister of Government, Francisco Jiménez, thanked the Episcopal Conference for its perseverance and regarding the discomfort of the indigenous sector, said that although there are reasons to be angry, there are also reasons to be optimistic. That a person ends up being defined more by his actions than his words and that for the Government the dialogue to which the highest authorities such as the ministers of State are attending is a historical fact.

The absentees were the president of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, Luis Cabrera, and the secretary David de la Torre. They had to go to Bogotá to participate in the Latin American Episcopal Council. Espinosa then, in a joking tone, assured that he was presiding over the meeting, because “in the absence of bread, the cakes are good.”

Father Espinosa made a wish that the actors can sit down, listen to each other and walk together in the same direction; “If we go along parallel paths we will never meet. We have to go looking for these points that are going to bring us closer and are going to be able to reach agreements”, he said.

Two representatives of the academy have been appointed as facilitators of the tables. The targeting table will include Fernando Ponce, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE), and the public and private bank, with Fernando Sempértegui, rector of the Central University. There is a rapporteur for each table: Freddy Proaño for table 1 and Libia Rivas for 2.

Espinosa recalled that the mechanics of the tables will be:

• Present the status of the situation regarding the demand of the indigenous sector.
• Discussion and analysis open.
• A presentation of the Executive and a work proposal are made with respect to the demands raised.
• It returns to a debate and analysis of the proposal.
• Agreements are sought and it ends with the review of the minutes of agreements and the closing of the table.

The evaluation of the first day was scheduled for 17:30. (YO)