MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuadorian Indians promise bigger blockades

Protests by Ecuador's indigenous peoples against a proposed free trade deal with United States eased on Friday but leaders warned they will call bigger blockades if the government insists in signing the agreement.

Angry indigenous groups blocked roads and burned tyres during four days and Thursday evening returned to their villages. The government welcomed the end of the recent wave of protests, which it said heralded the return of normality to Ecuador.

Public Administration Secretary Jose Modesto Apolo said that "the Indian protest has ended and the country is going back to normal".

Apolo added that the Cotopaxi province protest ended after the government awarded regional authorities 2 million US dollars for infrastructure works.

Protests paralyzed 8 of the country's 22 provinces and caused great disruptions in the capital Quito.

But protest leaders remained unconvinced by government efforts to ease the crisis and Indian Congress member Jorge Guaman warned that "an uprising" will take place between March 23 and April 6, --when the final round of negotiations takes place in Washington--, if Ecuadorian President Alfredo Palacio signs the FTA. "By no means are the demonstrations over", highlighted Guaman.

In Cotopoxi province, hotbed of the unrest, local leader Jorge Herrera echoed that view: "we are just going home to take a break and come back in force next week" emphasizing that "we are still very much against the free trade negotiations".

Ecuador's neighbours Colombia and Peru have already signed free trade agreement with United States.

Indigenous groups oppose any deal because they fear that cheap imports, mainly farm produce, from the US would devastate Ecuador's economy.

Mr Palacio has said Ecuador needs to come to an agreement with the outside world, but has vowed not to sign a deal that is not in the national interests of the whole country.

But the Palacio administration is so debilitated that several political analysts in Quito said that if protests continue, it "could" lead to the fall of the government.

Mr. Palacio came to office last April 20 after Congress ousted elected President Lucio Gutierrez for allegedly "abandoning his post" despite the fact that he was still supposedly carrying out his presidential duties.

Last Wednesday in a national address President Palacio warned the country was heading to chaos and a "constitutional rupture".

"A criminal demolition of our fundamental institutions has been reactivated: an environment of chaos is being promoted which can help foster new constitutional ruptures and coup d'état", he said. "With this dramatic advance of national dissolution, the only possible solution is the political re-structuring of the State".

Ecuadorians are due to vote for a new government in October. Popular uprisings in Ecuador have ousted three elected presidents in the last decade, Abdalá Bucaram in 1996; Jamil Mahuad in 2000 and Lucio Gutierrez 2005.