The situation in Cotacachi is even more hopeless than before. After the terrible violence in our neighboring town of Otavalo on Wednesday, leaving more dead and injured, a dialogue was invoked and agreements were reached. But the basis of the communities did not agree with their leaders and kept the barricades up. They said that their main demands weren’t even discussed. Sunday, the government declared that they would not stay in the dialogue anymore, as the communities were changing participants and did not comply with the agreements, mainly lifting the blockades.
The leadership in the communities seems to have done some big mistakes. The biggest one was probably thinking that the same method that was used in 2019 and 2022 and many times in between for short periods would work again. The government lead them from one trap to the next, and they willingly jumped in.
The incapability of "leaders" on both sides of the conflict is saddening. The government is acting with repression. The various organizations enacting the strikes not only lack the capacity of adapting their strategy to react properly towards what the government is doing, but are actively antagonizing the bigger part of the population, all while not being able to admit defeat nor control their base. But let’s start at the beginning. This is more or less the road map that the president used, allegedly, of course:
- Raise the diesel prices to provoke the strike.
- Provoke violence by using highly repressive tactics from day one, to generate pictures that seemingly justify the label “terrorist.”
- Show strength by breaking through the blockades with the military convoys, falsely labeled “humanitarian”, creating more images to follow the narrative of “terrorists.”
- Leaving the province abandoned for two weeks while instigating with social media and waiting for the aggression to turn inwards, causing further division between the communities, as well as those for and those against the strike.
- During those weeks, having many intents to dialogue fail for numerous pretenses, with both sides always blaming the other.
- Using a heavily armed “humanitarian” convoy with the narrative of liberating the province, with advanced notice to give time to prepare heavy resistance, and create images that are similar to war.
- Entering a dialogue, rashly declaring an agreement to control the narrative, without respecting the due process on the other side.
- As the rashly declared agreement is not uphold as the due process failed, as expected, call off the dialogue.
- Yeah, well. “We tried with words. They don’t want to listen. Now we have to.”
It’s a great playbook. If it was one, who knows, maybe it was al genuine and the president had good intentions – I’m generally biased against political authorities, and then also, everyone thinks they’re doing right. The civil organizations (CO) lost all credibility by now. And for good reason, they failed spectacularly, shooting themselves in the feet so often that it's a miracle that they're still standing. It's a shame that they failed, as a lot of what is coming, the real resistance is needed. A smart resistance. A resistance aware of the changes of time, aware of how the rules of the game have shifted in the last 6 years.
They’re not credible because they’re using the same instruments that the state is using. Threats, violence, control, restriction of freedom. They’re not offering a better world, they’re offering “Animal Farm”. I laid that out before.
The CO lost. I can’t see them winning going on like this. How many more have to get hurt? How many more have to die? Yes, the government is using excessive force, as is to be expected (at least by me, again, biased by experience). But there is just no way left to win this with what they call “resistance”, but at this point of time sounds like a euphemism for stubbornness. Another incapacity – that of admitting that they lost. Retreat, regroup, and find a new way.
A way of real resistance. I really hope they’re brave enough to go that road. It doesn’t look like it. It looks like they want the government to come in hot, so they can keep their face, victimize themselves and create more martyrs. The tried that on Wednesday, having the dialogue, coming to terms - but they couldn't make their base agree.
Everyone went rogue now, and that is dangerous.
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