Ecuador’s president assures that drug traffickers have financed the national strike

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, has assured that drug trafficking would have financed with almost 15 million euros the mobilizations that would have taken place in the country for 18 days and that were called by indigenist organizations.

Lasso said in an interview with the digital newspaper Infobae published on Thursday that, although he considers the demands for rural and peasant development of the mobilizations to be fair, there would have been an alliance of the indigenist organizations and Correism, with the financing of drug trafficking, to “fabricate a protest to overthrow” his government.

“This is an alliance with correísmo and in this alliance participates a third actor, which is the one that puts the money for the protests, which will have cost about 15 million euros for 18 days. This actor is drug trafficking in Ecuador”, detailed the Ecuadorian president, accusing former president Rafael Correa of wanting to disrupt public order from his exile in Belgium.

Likewise, Lasso has pointed out that Correa and the organizers of the mobilizations would have coordinated the protests because “they were looking for the destabilization of the country”.

“That is the political action of an ex-president sentenced for corruption, who lives as a fugitive in Belgium, who seeks to alter public order, allied with certain political leaders who use the indigenous people as a kind of parapet to say ‘this is a social protest’,” he added.

These statements have taken place while the implementation of the ten thematic dialogue tables agreed by the Executive and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONIAE) to address the main social needs is being developed.

On Thursday both parties had their first meeting to define the ‘road map’ through which to fulfill the agreements that put an end to this month’s protests that lasted for more than two weeks, leaving at least six dead.