After the statements of the Minister of Government, Alexandra Vela, about the alleged culprits of the acts of violence caused in the protest of this October 26, 2021, in the Historic Center of Quito, the official spokesman of the Guevarista Movement spoke.
“What the Minister said is false. The Guevarista Movement Yes, he participated in the marches, but when the attacks by the policemanWe are withdrawing, ”commented Ernesto Flores, official spokesman for the movement, who also added that none of its members are in custody.
What is the Guevarista movement?
The Guevarista Movement “Land and Freedom” is a popular organization, social and political that has been present in Ecuador for 10 years, in provinces such as Pichincha, Manabí, El Oro, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo, Carchi and Imbabura.
Its ideology is based on the Guevarism, Marxism, Leninism; that is to say, “it recognizes the universal historical principles of proletarian ideology developed during the last centuries by communists such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Malo (…)”, he quotes a document from his website.
This movement is an autonomous organization that has its own unitary organizations grouped in the Coordinadora de Trabajadores, Campesinos y Organizaciones Populares, with whom, according to Flores, they work in “popular education, community development, health protests and self defense.”
When Flores explains the structure of the Movement Guevarista avoid giving the name of your leader and explaining more in depth about your organization. “For a long time we have been victims of repression, persecution and slander, because we do the things that the State it doesn’t, ”he says.
Protest as the only option
For the international analyst in Security and Defense, Mario R. Pazmiño, the Guevarista Movement with the Insurgent Collective, which is operating on the northern border, are some of the groups that consider that the path is destabilization.
“Since May 2021 the president was told, Guillermo Lasso, that the destabilization process of this October was already ready because, the regional socialism, it received a very strong blow when there is a small country (Ecuador) that has a new center-right current, ”explained Pazmiño, who also pointed out that the indigenous movement is losing its convening power.
For his part, Ernesto Flores also points out that the group he represents has a defined and ideological line of action that “is not accepted by power or by the classes dominant“, And that that would be an excuse for the government to slander them and try to find a”internal enemy ”.
The marches seek to destabilize
Article 66 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador establishes that all people have the right to “express their opinion and express their thoughts freely and in all its forms and manifestations.”
However, according to Mario Pazmiño, the protests that are facing up the country They go beyond what it would seem because they are destabilizing processes not only internally, but also with ideas from the outside. The analyst highlights that the indigenous movement would be looking for three triggers:
- Create a distractor through injured people.
- Try to increase the number of detainees (so far there are 94).
- The process that Leonidas Iza faces in the prosecution, to activate “the unity of the indigenous people.”
The political analyst Oswaldo Moreno points out that “the concept of social protest has been blurred according to who is in the Government or the current interests that are protested”; However, it also recognizes that the Government has serious problems in terms of internal security and internal security, that is, of governance.
Although the Guevarista Movement would not yet be a threat to the State, the events that occurred yesterday would be an alert for the State to begin to strengthen security. “These groups could be structures that are preparing at other levels with an operational capacity to carry out selective acts of violence,” Pazmiño concluded.
