Tag Archives: Andrés Arauz

Ecuador’s Right-Wing President Dissolves Congress to ‘Stave Off Impeachment’

The head of the Andean nation’s largest Indigenous rights group accused President Guillermo Lasso of launching a “cowardly self-coup” and pushing the country toward an “imminent dictatorship.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-17-2023 by Common Dreams

Guillermo Lasso’s inauguration in 2021 Photo: Asamblea Nacional del Ecuador/flickr/CC

Days before Ecuadorian lawmakers were expected to vote on removing him from office, Guillermo Lasso, Ecuador’s deeply unpopular right-wing president, dissolved the country’s National Assembly, a move progressive critics called a bid to avoid impeachment.

For the first time ever, Lasso invoked Article 148 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, which gives presidents the power to dissolve the legislature under certain circumstances, including legislative overreach and a “severe political crisis and domestic unrest.”

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‘Policy of Death’: Amazon Guardians Sue Ecuador’s President Over Oil, Mining Decrees

“We are fighting to defend our territory, our rivers, our forest, our fish, and our animals,” one Indigenous leader explained. “Without our forest and without water, we cannot live.”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 10-18-2021

Indigenous Amazon protectors on October 18, 2021 filed the first in a series of lawsuits challenging a pair of decrees by Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso in service of expanding the fossil fuel and mining industries. (Photo: Amazon Frontlines/Twitter)

In a bid to halt what one Indigenous leader called a “policy of death,” communities from Ecuador’s Amazon region on Monday sued the country’s right-wing president, who is planning a major expansion of fossil fuel extraction and mining that threatens millions of acres of pristine rainforest and the survival of native peoples.

In the first of a series of lawsuits against President Guillermo Lasso, Indigenous nations, groups, and advocates allege that Executive Decree 95—which aims to double the country’s oil production to one million barrels per day by deregulating the fossil fuel industry—violates their internationally recognized right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent. Continue reading

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