It has now been more than a month since the resistance to the feudal mafia-type political culture climaxed in Ecuador, last 20th of April. Indeed what went on in Guayaquil, Cuenca, and especially Quito is of utmost importance for Ecuador’s political history, not only because of the nature of the episode, but because of its possible implications. The Revolution of the Outlaws picked up its name from the fickle protesting outside of the ex-President, Lucio Gutierrez’s, house days before, which caused him to label the demonstrators “outlaws,” or “forajidos” in Spanish. The next day T-shirts, cars, and signs of common civilians bore tags like “I also am a forajido.” The general discontent in the civilian population began to be focused and actively expressed, motivated by the recognition of its own might, represented in numbers.

After months of mild protesting triggered by the then president Lucio Gutierrez´s handpicking the Supreme Court members in December 2004 (after having dismembered it), defaulting on his task as president to assume his functions as dictator, the indignation culminated in a massive spontaneous prostest on 19 April (estimated at 150,000 people in Quito) that demanded him out of office, along with the courts, and congress. Policemen and hired thugs confronted prostesters with tear gas, clubs, and some shooting, but in the end, an hour after he had last sworn to die for his cause if needed, supposedly to depoliticize the courts, the military withdrew their support and he left the Carondelet presidential palace. On Wednesday April 21, Ecuador acquired a new president, Alfredo Palacios.

In the last nine years Ecuadorians have ousted three presidents, Abdala Bucaram, Jamil Mahuad, and Lucio Gutierrez, expressing the stable dissatisfaction with the inability of the governing class to function as it is demanded. Indeed, what is supposed to be the public sphere in Ecuador works as a domain where regional mafias negotiate their private interests, while dressing their de facto functions in democratic, yet populist, rhetorical gowns. This has a very marginalizing effect on much of the population, and yet Ecuadorian populism, as a way of acquiring consent, is very effective in keeping the actual governing class in power. The expressed dissatisfaction, however, has been unable to generate fundamental changes in the way politics is done in Ecuador, and while faces in office change, the institutional structure that warranted the ousting of past presidents remains the same. This is something the current Forajido movement recognizes, and one of the characteristics that importantly distinguish it from past expressions of political dissatisfaction. Other distinguishing characteristics include its class inclusiveness, nationalistic civicism, no centralized (e.g. party) leadership, especially because the flaws of the existing (centralized) institutions are seen as unfixable and thus to be replaced, attentiveness to foreign policy, and the central role of women.

When the protests commenced, Gutierrez tried to minimize the extent to which the protesters represented the whole population by calling them “forajidos in Mercedez,” trying portray himself as a leader like President Hugo Chavez whose popularity amongst the rich is low, but is high amongst the poor. However, the streets of Quito filled with people not only coming out of the lawyer’s office in suits, but also Native Americans (usual targets of class marginalization) who carried their babies on their backs by a scarf. In fact several occasions obscured class divisions that would often be manifest on the Ecuadorian streets. In one instance, a whole building of elite professionals in business suits came out of their offices to combat hired thugs out in the streets. When a shoe cleaner caught in the middle of the struggle had his working tools sprawled on the pavement, several of the men in suits helped him pick them all up and into place.

The air in Quito was full not only of determination, but also full of interpretation about the meaning of the movement. Slogans of “rebuilding the republic” were claimed, people sang the national anthem, and arguments at the encounters with armored police centered on accusing the policemen as traitors to what they are supposed to stand for and whom they should be there to protect. Through the radio station La Luna, people actively expressed their discontent with the president and coordinated their action. In the past, centralized institutions expressed their oppositional voice through few representatives and coordinated the action of the masses through definite leaders. In this movement there was no representation or leader, and decentralized action coordination worked surprisingly well. The “forajidos” have learned from past experiences of “changing into more the same.” They are demanding that ALL the political class be replaced by new persons and groups, placed into another set of institutional norms. The “forajidos” explicitly justify themselves with the idea that they do not want to make the same mistakes of the past “changes.”

A short-range difference between this presidential ousting and the others, are that unlike with Bucaram and Mahuad, who easily fled the country after their oust, people invaded the airport track to prevent Lucio´s plane from leaving. He was given assylum at the Brazilian embassy, but there too people sought him out, chanted for a trial, and honked their horns, 24 hours a day. He was, however, given assylum in Brazil, and under a high-security covert operation left in a Brazilian plane days after. Under the presidency of Jamil Mahuad, Ecuador gave the US the right to have a military base by the coastal city of Manta. Voice on this issue was loud and abolitionist. At the time of the April protests free trade agreements were being discussed between Ecuador and the US, amongst other American nations. It was popularly demanded that there be a direct vote on whether the agreement should exist, and for the documents of the negotiations to be publicly available.

Women have had major role in the shaping of this uprising, and you now hear of proposals being called “Manifiestas” (female-rendered term) instead of “Manifiestos” (male rendered term). When “macho” talk is displayed on the radio, the comment is regularly followed by an acclaim to talk more inclusively regarding the female role in the movement. After all, it was a woman who first called for the “cacerolazos,” the pot-banging oppositional manifestations.

As a result of the Forajido Movement, highly critical executive secretaries have been placed in office. As well as not having a history of party membership, they are persons with high qualifications for their jobs (something rare in Ecuadorian politics), criticize the US base in Manta, request formal apologies from the US for mishandling Ecuadorian property (recently, a ship), push the purges of public institutions from corrupt officials, and push for election-policy reforms so that the traditional parties are not reinstated. Congress has been slick in protecting its de facto territory, and that is the main adversary of the Forajido Movement at the moment. But what is happening in Ecuador is part of what is happening in the rest of Latin America. Lest the institutions significantly change, civil war is a major threat.

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