Ecuador Undergoing Soft Coup – Says Correa

(The Real Agenda) The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, is facing the fourth week of protests in Ecuador. 

Citizen marches have been convened since the start of June as a way to show people’s rejection of bills that promote inheritance taxes and extraordinary Money confiscation measures from the sale of properties.

Protesters have joined opposition politicians such as Jaime Nebot, mayor of Guayaquil, and former presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso.

Given the growing opposition Correa decided to withdraw the bills temporarily , but it wasn’t sufficient to calm down people’s anxiety or to set up a national dialogue on what people wanted to do about the collection of new taxes. In fact, the opposition now wants the resignation of the president.

On Thursday three new marches are planned against the government. Assemblyman, Andres Paez, a member of the Conservative Party, has called on citizens to walk from around the National Assembly to the president’s building to demonstrate their opposition and their will to have him removed.

At the same time trade unions, indigenous people and peasants, mostly claiming labor rights, will begin their march to the same destination, but from the Institute of Social Security.

They will be joined, for the first time by health workers, who are opposed to the creation of the Agency for Health Quality Assurance, which was created on 25 June by presidential decree.

The fear of doctors is that ceilings on rates for private health may be imposed. Alberto Narvaez, of the Ecuadorian Medical Federation, criticized the unilateral attitude of the president and has called for dialogue.

So much opposition has prompted the government to call these protests na example of a “soft coup”. Wednesday afternoon, on the eve of concentrations, the Interior and Foreign Affairs Departments summoned the media to talk about what they call “attempts to destabilize democracy”.

José Serrano, Minister of Interior, said that there is a conspiracy going on, aimed at taking over the seating government.

According to intelligence data gathered by the Correa administration, there are guidelines to encourage the protesters to use pointed sticks to destroy police shields bombs with paint to blind the police and to annoy police dogs and horses.

The report presented by Interior says that if the “coup” fails to take power, the supporters plan to take the airports in Quito and Guayaquil and block border outlets to create “national chaos” and get the Pope Francis cancel his arrival in the country. Francis is scheduled to arrive on July 5.

Among the aforementioned was Assemblywoman from Pachakutik, Lourdes Tibán, who rejected the accusations. “We do not want temporary peace because of the arrival of the Pope, we want a Ecuador with permanent Peace and freedom,” she said.

The foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, also spoke of the danger to democracy and introduced three representatives of the Committee of Victims of Guarimba and Golpe Continuado from Venezuela, who spoke of the similarities of the current situation with what happens in their country.

Luis R. Miranda is an award-winning journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief at The Real Agenda. His career spans over 18 years and almost every form of news media. His articles include subjects such as environmentalism, Agenda 21, climate change, geopolitics, globalisation, health, vaccines, food safety, corporate control of governments, immigration and banking cartels, among others. Luis has worked as a news reporter, on-air personality for Live and Live-to-tape news programs. He has also worked as a script writer, producer and co-producer on broadcast news. Read more about Luis.