Ecuador's Indigenous Movement Is Bleeding So the IMF Books Can Balance

On September 12, Ecuador's president Daniel Noboa scrapped the diesel subsidy that generations of Indigenous and rural families had relied on since the 1970s, overnight pushing the price of diesel from $1.80 to $2.80 a gallon. He had promised, twice, not to do this. The Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE) called an indefinite national strike ten days later. What followed was not a policy debate. It was a military occupation of the country's indigenous highlands, and it has already cost lives.

Efraín Fuerez, a 46-year-old land defender from Cotacachi, was shot three times in the back by soldiers on September 28 during what the government called a "humanitarian aid" convoy. He died in hospital. Days later a second man, José Guamán, was shot in the chest by the military in Otavalo — even a serving army general admitted "excessive use of force" in his death. On October 14, 61-year-old Rosa Elena Paquí, a community elder in Loja, died of a heart attack after police teargas filled her home during a nearby crackdown. None of these people were terrorists. They were indigenous Ecuadorians defending a fuel subsidy that keeps their communities fed.

Noboa's government answered grief with the language of counterinsurgency. Twelve detainees rounded up in Otavalo — the "Otavalo 12" — remain locked up on terrorism charges for allegedly torching a police vehicle in which nobody was hurt. State media invented a link between the strike and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, the same rhetorical trick right-wing governments across the hemisphere now reach for whenever indigenous or working-class movements organize. It is the Bukele/Milei playbook, and Noboa is one of Trump's three declared "friends" in Latin America for a reason: crush dissent, call it terrorism, keep the IMF happy.

By late October, human rights monitors were counting 282 injured, 172 arrested, and communities in Imbabura living under communications blackouts, frozen bank accounts, and curfews — a 60-day state of emergency imposed not because a crime wave demanded it, but because people said no to austerity. CONAIE has led three national strikes since 2019, each time forcing a government to partially reverse fuel hikes. That history is precisely why Noboa's repression has been this severe: the Ecuadorian state knows organized indigenous resistance works, and it would rather kill that precedent than negotiate with it.

This is what "fiscal responsibility" looks like when the bill comes due on the world's most exploited communities: soldiers shooting land defenders in the back so a diesel subsidy can be cut for a country that dollarized its economy to please creditors two decades ago. Solidarity with CONAIE isn't sentiment, it's strategy — every government from Bogotá to Guatemala City is watching to see whether Ecuador's repression sets the regional template. Push back before it does.

Sources

New Internationalist: Ecuador's Indigenous communities face violent state repression

Green Left: Ecuador — brutal government repression forces end to national strike

teleSUR English: CONAIE maintains demands as national strike marks 26 days

Wikipedia: 2025 Ecuador protests