CONAIE Assembly at House of Culture to Decide on Strike

Around noon on Thursday, Government Minister Francisco Jimenez assured that the Guillermo Lasso administration will allow the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAEI) to enter the facilities of the House of Culture to hold a massive assembly.

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In exchange for accepting this condition for starting a bilateral dialogue, the Ecuadorian government asked the Indigenous peoples to end the closure of roads throughout the country and carry out demonstrations peacefully.

This affirmation was strongly criticized by citizens given that the security forces commanded by the Lasso regime have carried out aggressions against the protesters over the last days.

The lastest example of police brutality involved a young Indigenous man, who died as a result of a tear gas canister that penetrated his head and killed him immediately. Social networks viralized the scenes of this macabre event as well as the tomographies of his corpse.

The tweet reads, "Thousands of Indigenous people, farmers, women, students, and Quito residents arrive at the House of Culture to start the People's Assembly convened by CONAIE‼️ In that meeting they will define the dialogue with Lasso."

While dozens of social leaders held an assembly in front of thousands of people who have resisted repression over the last 11 days, the National Assembly came out of its lethargy and decided to do something.

With 80 affirmative votes, the Ecuadorian lawmakers approved a request for the Interior Minister and the Defense Minister to attend the plenary session to explain the actions of the Armed Forces during the national strike.

This decision and other events on Thursday were interpreted by citizens as a triumph of the popular forces, which made the banker Lasso yield momentarily. "The amount of protesters here in the Casa de la Cultura is certainly a victory as the national strike continues. Tremendous and impactful turnout," a young woman Aminta tweeted.

"We did not come to put the dead and the wounded so that other opportunists come in and continue governing," the CONAIE President said at the beginning of the Assembly, warning that the demands of the Indigenous peoples have not yet been met."