Grassroots rise in Ecuador strike

A woman shouts at police officers blocking a peaceful demonstration during the popular and plurinational march called by the Kitu Kara Indigenous nation on the 16th day of the national strike convened by CONAIE. Quito, Ecuador, October 7, 2025. Photo © Karen Toro.

Interview • October 10, 2025 • Cristina Vega • Leer en castellano

Nancy Bedón is the vice president of the Union of Peasant Organizations of Esmeraldas (UOCE), part of the Indigenous movement that called for the ongoing national strike in response to measures taken by the Noboa administration in Ecuador.

The strike began on September 15, and was convened by the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE). Since then there has been an intensification of state violence by police and the army, resulting in attacks on peaceful protests, arbitrary detentions, unfounded accusations against more than fifty leaders the government accuses of illicit enrichment, detainee transfers to prisons where massacres and torture have taken place, the closure of media outlets, and attacks and expulsions of journalists. 

States of emergency have become normalized in Ecuador, where the right to protest no longer exists and human rights are a dead letter. 

In addition to defunding basic services and the elimination of the diesel subsidy, which is what triggered the strike, recent measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund are also a factor.

After the April elections Noboa rapidly approved a set of unconstitutional laws. These increase prison sentencing for minors, add opacity to government spending, encourage secret operations and the denial of access to public information, curtail freedom of expression and expand digital surveillance, subordinate the judiciary, and appropriate resources from the Social Security Bank, among other initiatives.

Some of these measures have been stopped by the Constitutional Court, which has triggered direct attacks on the court by the executive branch as well as accusations against judges as interfering with security policy. The Noboa administration launched a public consultation seeking to convene a constituent assembly that would repeal the current constitution, which enshrines, among other things, the rights of nature. The prohibition of foreign bases on national soil is another issue the government seeks to overturn.

Securitization triggered by the declaration of internal armed conflict in early 2024 remains the government's main argument as it promotes these measures.

Gaza is the most obscene contemporary expression of the annihilation of a people, but in this part of the world, Ecuador is being transformed into a proving ground for extreme efforts to curtail rights in order to deepen capitalist plunder and decimate the capacity to resist.

Last week, I spoke with Nancy Bedón, former president of the UOCE, as we returned from a meeting in Bolivia. Our conversation has been translated, and lightly edited for clarity and length.

Indigenous women and men chant slogans during a march as part of the national strike, after learning of the death of Efraín Fuerez, a community member from Cotacachi, on the seventh day of the national strike. Quito, Ecuador, September 28, 2025. Photo © Karen Toro.

Cristina Vega: Talk to us about what’s happening in Ecuador.

Nancy Bedón: We’re experiencing a national strike that is unprecedented in the brutality of the application of state violence against those of us who are in the streets expressing our rejection of the decree that eliminates the diesel subsidy, which means greater impoverishment and more economic inequality.

We are also in the streets to say “no” to a constituent assembly, because it would jeopardize the rights we’ve achieved [through struggle] in Ecuador: collective rights, the right to nature, the right to prior consultation. These rights protect Indigenous peoples as well as nature, which is a fundamental part of life.

Those of us in the streets see not only state violence, which has left protestors dead and wounded, has left comrades without eyes, and seen women be abused, but also incredible racist violence, like through the government's accusation that the peoples and nationalities in struggle are terrorists.

We’ve seen how colonial racism is still present and how it continues to mark our bodies, our territories, and our ways of governing and participating in this so-called democracy. [Democracy] does not exist in Ecuador today. 

We are living under a dictatorship of terror, a violent dictatorship overseen by police soldiers, who use their whole arsenal to prevent the right to protest.

CV: In addition to the elimination of the diesel subsidy, what are the other demands?

NB: Despite our constitutional achievements, the reality is that our hard-won rights are not exercised or respected.

We’re demanding real investment in education, real investment in health, labor protection, defense of territories against extractivism and respect for the legitimate right to protest. 

We’re demanding justice for the cruel murder of our comrade Efraín Fueres and other victims of repression, including the release of the Otavalo Twelve, who were unjustly detained and transferred to a prison in Esmeraldas in which a massacre recently occurred in which seventeen people were killed.

We call for a “no” vote in the referendum that seeks to destroy our collective rights and rights of nature that are enshrined in the Constitution, and that are being disregarded by this government.

CV: What challenges is CONAIE and its new council facing at the moment?

NB: It is no secret that the Indigenous movement has been weakened by the policies of recent governments, which have used tactics like buying people off, offering benefits to specific leaders in order to divide us, and giving away opportunistic bonuses during campaigns and in other moments.

The challenge before us is to build unity, and to build it in an economic reality that is very harsh. Despite a certain degree of disorientation on the part of leadership, grassroots people are taking the lead and guiding the continuation of the strike across different territories.

The challenge is to recover our organic, well structured fabric. To be clear in our orientation towards a plurinational, equitable, anti-racist, non-patriarchal state. The other challenge we have is coordination with other social sectors. We can’t fight this struggle alone.

The peoples and organizations that make up CONAIE understand that our daily work is connected with broader segments of society: with women, with workers, with environmentalists and movements like the student movement, professionals, and Indigenous and peasant groups.

Unfortunately, some leaders refuse to see this. Our challenge is to open our eyes and look at each other in relation to each other, so that we can build a new country together. 

The political, social, and economic crisis we are experiencing doesn’t only affect the Indigenous movement. We must face this struggle together. 

A woman holds a sign that reads "Diesel prices are rising. Everything is going up. Noboa must go," as she watches a group of protesters during the Global Day of Action for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion. Feminist groups joined the demonstrations on the seventh day of the national strike called by CONAIE. Quito, Ecuador, September 28, 2025. Photo © Karen Toro.

CV: Noboa is trying to create divisions and fractures by exploiting feelings of fear and instilling terror via the armed forces. He makes calls in the name of “peace” to mobilize sectors of the population, who are often paid, against the strike.

NB: Noboa’s government is governing based on fear, and it's using the idea of security against the people.

He’s building a clientelist base by taking advantage of the needs of people who are not necessarily racist, but who are driven by the daily need to survive and accept state assistance in the immediate term.

We are facing a Machiavellian, impoverishing, and terrorist government that instills terror and fear in the people and uses the conditions of poverty it creates to its advantage.

CV: You’re from Esmeraldas, which has specific challenges related to being a border territory with Colombia, and also suffers from long-standing extractive and racist violence.

NB: Esmeraldas is one of Ecuador's coastal provinces. We live on the northern coast of Ecuador and, of course, we’re impacted by violent economies, gangs linked to drug trafficking, microtrafficking, and other violent businesses that fight over territory and the recruitment of impoverished young people. They are the commodity that sustains this economy.

In this context, we as the UOCE, as a provincial organization, promote women’s mobilization, since women are most sensitive to the devastation of our territory and our youth.

We need to reflect politically on what the presence of armed actors in our territory means. Doing so is absolutely critical.

We must move beyond fear and paralysis and engage in strategic political reflection to strengthen ourselves, our ability to protect the lives of our children and defend our lands, which are now seen as lands to be dominated and to grow capital. 

In this sense, our work with young people in schools is crucial. We’re betting everything on that.

CV: What role do you think women and women's organizations ought to play?

NB: Women have the clarity to promote actions for community defense, and to build alliances between territories. As women on the coast I think we’re much more aware of the damage this type of economy does to our families and communities.

It hurts us deeply to have our children, nephews, neighbors, and close friends linked to criminal groups. I believe that women in particular are able to perceive this.

Men, especially on the coast, are regularly taught to confront situations with violence, with machetes, with guns, or by becoming involved in economic violence.

But as women, we believe we can use our perspective to help build organizational tools that we can use at this moment.

Women on the coast, especially women who are linked to the UOCE, from the Indigenous Huancavilca nation as well as in Santa Elena, in Manabí, in El Guayas, rural women who are farmers like me are leading these processes. 

The idea is to see how we, those who are leading organizations and organizational processes, can be more reflective and political in these moments. 

CV: We spent the last few days with the Bartolinas [a historic organization of Indigenous and peasant women] in Bolivia. What do you take away from your dialogue with them?

NB: First, I feel in my heart a common feeling, a Latin American feeling of what it means to be a woman working within organizational processes and in political decisionmaking.

I realize that we are still subordinate within our organizations, which are guided by patriarchal principles. Critical reflection by the Bartolinas around what the process of change can be can help us open up new perspectives.

Then there’s the possibility of creating alliances between women. We’re the same, we’re in the same situation, which is why it is vital and necessary to come together.

I feel hope in strengthening the Indigenous movements by strengthening the role of women, as the Bartolinas have done, so that we can contest power from within, not to compete but to help steer things in a better direction, with the goal of sustaining life in our territories.

And I take with me a beautiful phrase from our comrade Nelby, who is a member of the Bartolinas. “Women may make mistakes, but we will never betray a collective dream.”

CV: What does what is happening in Ecuador say about the world?

NB: I am convinced that what is happening in Ecuador is also happening in the world. The responsibility for building a new human society, one that is eminently protective, that produces and protects life, is a shared responsibility that stretches around the world. 

What I would say to the women of the world is that it is time to take a step forward. We need women’s voices to stop being left out. We need to be able to speak up and say: “Here we are, and this is how we want the world to be for our children, for our grandchildren, for our territory.” 

We need strong women’s voices that are just as powerful as male voices, but that center the strategy of care as a real political element.

Indigenous women embrace after participating in the popular and plurinational march organized by the Kitu Kara Indigenous people on the 16th day of the national strike called by CONAIE. Quito, Ecuador, October 7, 2025. Photo © Karen Toro.

CV: This strike is very different from those of 2019 and 2022. Where do you think it's headed?

First, I believe the strike will continue because we are no longer waiting for direction from leadership, which is in transition. Grassroots organizations are raising their voices and making their statements.

This can no longer be considered a CONAIE strike.

More people and organizations are joining in, and the strike is moving towards strengthening the “no” vote in the constituent assembly, as a fundamental element to protect life and rights.

After days of anxiety, despair, and emptiness, I’m convinced that the strike will carry on in a different way; not only through confrontational actions in the streets, but with other beautiful strategies, such as those that have been deployed by artists and other collectives.

We’re going to see the reconfiguration of resistance, toward building a powerful force to vote “no” to the constituent assembly, “no” to the referendum.

Noboa is defiant. He wants to stay in power, to say that the people are supporting him, and the most dangerous thing is that he is willing to go all out using populist and terror tactics.

He is going to go all out, and the only way we can fight is to reconstitute unity in the midst of this strike, to rebuild unity among the people, a strategic unity in which, in the face of offers of money, bonuses, the buying and selling of loyalties, we can work to affirm our collective joy, culture, and dialogue.

This is vital, which is why I firmly believe that women in Ecuador have to be on the front lines.