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The expectation of significant changes arriving with the inauguration of President Gutierrez in Ecuador has given way to growing social unrest. Gutierrezís rise to power had allowed the peopleís tolerance toward the adjustment program with which he inaugurated his government. Now, however, a deepening dollar crisis, along with the International Monetary Fundís continued neo-liberal strategy, which aims to concentrate the economy on payment of debt, causes unrest.

Some 120,000 teachers are into the third week of their strike, which has paralyzed classes for 3.5 million students. Lucio threatened to act with iron fist if the teachers didnít accept the basic $10 salary increase starting in October and cease their demands. This resulted in immediate mobilization and assemblies in the provinces that rejected the presidentís proposal and resolved to call a hunger strike in the entire country.

The teachers demand adherence to the 2003 fiscal budget that increases funding for education. This includes an increase in their base salary from $40 to $60 and financing of a rehabilitation program for schools and colleges, which are now neglected. Buh the National Teachers Union gives up its aspirations and renounces its insistence on adherence to the budget in favor of Minister Pozo and the International Monetary Fund would mean continued deterioration of the educational system and the rights of students and teachers.

At the same time, workers for the electrical power industry went on strike for eight hours on Monday, June 2, without blackouts. They oppose the attempt to privatize the industry and increase rates evident in the Standby Agreement between President Gutierrez and the International Monetary Fund. The agreement entails the transfer of electrical power administration to foreign interests. The workers consider this denationalization of the industry detrimental to the Ecuadoran people.

Workers in the petroleum industry expressed to the Congress their rejection of the Unification of Wages Law, which the executive branch of the government will submit soon. It relates to a project also originating from the Standby Agreement, which attempts to freeze salaries and eliminate positions in order to reduce its share in the budget.

Farmers and ranchers, severely affected by dollarization, announced a strike aimed at protecting their products. They have experienced diminished participation in domestic and foreign markets, which has increased the prices of their products over those of foreign competitors.

The honeymoon began with illusions and expectations of a new government that had defeated the old partisan system now begins to end in the embers of the dollarization crisis and the International Monetary Fundís neo-liberal political orthodoxy, which Minister Pozo represents in the cabinet.


Marcelo Larrea writes for Adital in Ecuador and is director of the newspaper El Sucre.

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