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Intro A SIGN ON LETTERPlease reply to Karen Hansen-Kuhn KHK@DEVELOPMENTGAP.ORG, of The Development Gap, with sign-ons. Dear Friends, Please consider signing the letter below in order to support the civil-society efforts in Ecuador and to pressure the government to end the repressive measures and open a dialogue. Given the urgency of the situation, please send sign-ons (name, title, organization) to me (khk@developmentgap.org) as soon as possible. We are preparing a fact sheet with more information on the situation in Ecuador that we will distribute shortly. Dear President Noboa: We write to you as representatives of US civil-society organizations concerned about the impact of IMF- and World Bank-imposed structural adjustment programs around the world. We are alarmed by reports of violent suppression by your government of the legitimate public protests against the most recently implemented adjustment program in Ecuador. We urge you to cease this repression and to launch a national dialogue to find lasting solutions to the pressing economic and social problems confronting your country. We understand that over the past 20 years, the IMF and World Bank have made the implementation of adjustment programs a condition of financial support to the government of Ecuador. Our colleagues in Ecuador inform us that these programs and the specific economic policies they embrace have placed the major burden of adjustment on the nation's poor and working people, its small farmers and businesses. The IMF's and the World Bank's insistence on the application of a new round of economic measures has put dignified living conditions even further beyond the reach of large segments of the Ecuadorian population. Many of us are also in contact with representatives of those international institutions regarding their role in this crisis. We have also been informed that attempts at peaceful dialogue on this issue, including the SAPRI process in which the Bank, your government and civil society have been engaged, have not led to any meaningful change in the policy positions of the government or the international financial institutions. This is particularly troubling given the findings emanating from SAPRI that document the negative effects of many adjustment measures. It is therefore understandable that, when the IMF-supported economic measures were announced in December, affected citizens and civil-society groups would organize themselves to find and use other means to express their dissent regarding the continuation of these policies. What is not acceptable, by any international norm, is that these peaceful protests have now been met with state violence and repression in order to fend off public opposition to these policies. It has been reported that several indigenous people have been killed and some seriously wounded by public security forces, while others have begun a hunger strike to demand a repeal of the recent economic adjustment measures. The way forward to resolving the economic problems in Ecuador, or in any other country, will be found neither through military force and the restriction of rights nor through the imposition of adjustment measures that lead to further social exclusion. We urge you to immediately cease the violent repression of public protest against the adjustment policies and to seek real and lasting solutions through an expanded national dialogue involving a broad range of social actors representative of the diversity of Ecuadorian society in order to create a just and inclusive economic program. Sincerely, . . . The names of all organizations Karen Hansen-Kuhn Intro |