Ecuador’s Scorned Indigenous Rise Up as Moreno’s Biggest Threat
- Gas-price increase supported by IMF has farmers flooding Quito
- Doubled costs cripple a population that lives on little
An indigenous woman wears a mask during a protest in Quito, Ecuador,, Oct. 9.
Photographer: David Diaz Arcos/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Freddy Heredia this week downed his tools, left his wife and his bean and squash fields in Ecuador’s mountains behind and joined tens of thousands of his fellow indigenous farmers for the biggest anti-government protests in a generation.
The fuel price increases imposed last week as part of an International Monetary Fund-backed austerity drive will make his precarious existence even tougher, he said Friday. So Heredia and a group of neighbors packed into the bed of a rented pickup. They jounced over potholed roads to Quito, the capital, where for a week demonstrators and police have clashed in the streets.