Chaotic scenes come in from Ecuador’s Quito, where protesters took to streets en masse over.

[Guest Indiana]

Ecuador's President Lenín Moreno has said he will "not negotiate with criminals" after a second day of protests over cuts to fuel subsidies.

Mr Moreno said he would not reverse his decision to scrap fuel subsides, which have been in place for four decades.

Chairing a cabinet meeting, the president said he would not bow to the demands of "criminals".

Angered by the rising cost of fuel, protesters have taken to the streets across the country.

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On Thursday, when the cuts came into effect, protesters blocked roads across the county, bringing transport to a standstill.

In response, a 60-day state of emergency was declared by Mr Moreno, who said he would not allow protesters to "impose chaos".

More protests were held on Friday in Quito, the capital, and the city of Guayaquil, where roads were strewn with makeshift barricades and burning tyres.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49942390

[Guest Indiana]

Thousands of protesters in Ecuador have clashed with security forces in the capital, Quito.

The protests are led by indigenous groups demanding the end of austerity and the return of fuel subsidies.

Demonstrators have been throwing homemade firebombs at riot police, who have responded with tear gas.

They are demanding the resignation of President Lenín Moreno, who has moved his government to the coastal city of Guayaquil.

Those taking part in the protests stormed parliament on Wednesday, waving flags and chanting slogans before being forced out by tear gas.

Mr Moreno declared a state of emergency last week. He said he would resign "under no circumstance", but was open to mediation through the United Nations or the Roman Catholic Church.

Two people have lost their lives in the disturbances and dozens more have been injured.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49994278

[admin]

Wow!  The masses are turning on their governments worldwide right now....

[JW Insider]

In 1994, I was working in Midtown Manhattan and someone handed me a 26 page booklet called "Four Years of Struggle against Texaco's Dark Legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon." There is also a tract inside called "Boycott Texaco - Star Polluter of the Ecuadorian Rainforest."

I never read them at the time, but I find them today in pristine condition, and didn't even know about the tract inside until this morning. Representatives of indigenous groups, along with supporters around the world, brought a case against Texaco which had devastated the lands, killed the fish, and chased away the animals that the rural people of Ecuador had relied upon to live. Texaco had agreed to clean up their mess, but this is in a part of the world that cannot enforce a cleanup in the way Texaco had been forced to clean up messes affecting the United States.

Texaco continued to flout the laws, while claiming to uphold them, without a care that they were literally killing people by their roughshod processes. (Separately, not in the tracts, they have been investigated for suspicion of being in cahoots with actual hitmen who murdered indigenous people in Ecuador when they tried to stand in the way of Texaco and other oil companies there.)

If any company or group had come into the United States and done something similar it would easily have been seen as a declaration of war. Similarly, a lot of people don't realize that when a group or government destroys the food supplies of another nation that it is the same thing as a declaration of war. When the US sanctions Venezuela, or Iraq, or Iran, (or perhaps Turkey) for example, if it attempts to enforce a total blockade of goods going into and out of the nation through pressure on other nations, too, it has not only declared war (unofficially) but has found a way to kill more civilians than an outright declaration of war would accomplish. Most people think of Bush II as the person who killed the most Iraqis, but when Clinton enforced the sanctions promoted through the UN, and continued to bomb infrastructure such as electric power plants, airports, clean water facilities, etc., Clinton had been able to accomplish the killing of at least a MILLION women, children, and men. When Saudi Arabia, with US help, bombs Yemen's water, and power, and resources, it creates the same situation where the majority of the population of men, women, and children can die of starvation and disease. 

There have been dozens of cases where governments have promised to help survivors of such campaigns, and dozens of cases where corporations have promised to help out the survivors who have had a livelihood taken away. If the country or corporation is rich enough, however, they always find a way to avoid the promised expenditures. And they don't worry much about the negative publicity, because if they break their promises long enough, they can usually just wait until the demonstrators get violent so that they can be termed "criminal" and most of the world will just look away.

[TheWorldNewsOrg]

Chaotic scenes come in from #Ecuador’s #Quito, where protesters took to streets en masse over President Lenín #Moreno’s unpopular austerity policies

MORE: https://t.co/WybcFX7hax pic.twitter.com/IHLP8zZ83I

— RT (@RT_com) October 12, 2019

via .ORG

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[LNN]