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     By Ronald J. Morgan

   QUITO, Ecuador -- It was the remembrance of the
foul smell of kerosene, the way it made the food taste
and the irritation to her eyes that set Susana
Pupiales, a Quichua Indian marching toward the
capital.
   The use of kerosene in rural areas for cooking had
been eliminated in 1992 as a health hazard and
Pupiales like many Indians thought its reinstatement
would be a step back into the past.
   Ecuadoran President Gustavo Naboa had announced the
issuance of kerosene and special stoves for the fuel
in his January State of the Nation address as a way of
compensating for sharp increase in cooking gas.
   The move was a mistake. And more were to follow,
in a 10-day battle between the
adminstration and Ecuador's indigenous as they
contended over a series of steep gasoline, cooking gas
and transport increases mandated by an International
Monetery Fund stand-by agreement.
   After four deaths including a child, and numerous
injuries, the government signed a 23- point agreement
Wednesday (Feb.8) backtracking on the scale of the
hikes -- cooking gas fell from $2 to $1.60 and
gasoline prices were frozen at their previous price
for one year, students and the elderly were to be
given discounted bus fares. The government also
promised production of a cheaper
cooking gas and a series of other incentives. Kerosene
would not return to the homes of the poor.
Political Analyst Simon Pachano of the Latin American
Faculty of Social Siences noted the president and
his team -- a group that comes predominatly from the
Ecuadoran coast which
has a reputation for misunderstanding the indigenous
-- misread the power of the protests.
Indigenous leaders had been feuding in
December over the leadership role of Antonio Vargas,
who heads the powerful Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities of Ecuador. And Indigenous protests
launched in September had fizzled. The dollarization
of the economy had been accepted and inflation had
begun to tack down.
    "When the protests first began they didn´t give
them much importance," Pachano said. "They thought
the matter would be resolved easily. And when it
wasn´t they decided to resolve the issue through
repression. This is a costeño government. And they
don´t understand the indigenous. They don't understand
the problems of racial minorities"
    It was police bullets fired into protesters in the
indigenous area of Cotopaxi wounding seven, that sent
the uprising into high gear. Cotopaxi Congressional
Deputy Miguel Perez, who is a member of the
indigenouns Pachakutik Party, called the police and
military attacks on protesters unprecedented.
    "Before there was not such repression, Perez said.
This time we had implementation of a state of
emergency and before that there was repression with
gas and bullets. They kidnapped our comrades. They put
them in prison. They beat them with clubs. They
tortured them. There has been a lot of torture," Perez
charged.
    A change in indigenous protest tactics also
befuddled the government. Instead of laying seige to
Quito the protesters showed their strength in the
countryside, shutting down the rural economy and
affecting the export of cut flowers.
    As the strangled hold grew more effective,
violence flared more often; the president ordered
Indigenous leader Vargas arrested.
   Vargas was out of jail in 48 hours on a legal
manuever and talking to the government quickly. But when the
president refused to meet face to face with the
indigenous has had been the tradition in the past
Vargas broke off the talks. On Friday, Feb. 2, the state of
emergency was declared and in ensuing days bombs went off at
banks in the wee hours. On Monday Police opened fire
on protesters occupying the Puerto Napo bridge which
controls the entrance to the Ecudoran Amazon, killing two.
Simultanously, protesters burned the airport at nearby
Tena.
   In Quito police held about four thousand protesters nearly
hostage at the Salesian University. The situation was
careening out of control.
   But a late night chat Monday Feb. 5 between government representatives,
congressional leaders and a ad-hoc laison
committee headed by Vice President of the Ecuadoran
Municipal Association Auki Tituana and made up of the
head of the Conference of Ecuadoran Bishops Enrique
Galarza, representatives of the United Nations, human
rights organizations and university leaders, reopened
the way for
negotiation and eventually the accustomed direct
meeting with the
president.
    “They played a very important role,” said Gilberto
Talahua, Pachatutik deputy from Bolivar and a member
of the Congressional Indigenous Affairs Committee.
“They sought mechanisms and forms to resolve the
demands. And the news media was important because it
sided with the protesters and criticized the
government.”
    But while there were gains, the price was paid in
blood, said Talahua. He declared the number of dead to
be seven as of Thursday Feb. 8 with dozens wounded and
the
number arrested in the hundreds. Under the agreement
dead and wounded are to receive still undetermined
government
compensation. Those arrested are being released.
    Pachano said the process toward resolution took
too
long. "He (Naboa) waited a long time. And the cost of
an
agreement went up. The number of points under
discussion increased. He had to make more concessions
than he would have had to at the beginning.¨

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