This short book is a reflection on the Inti Raymi Indian uprising that occurred in June 1990 throughout Ecuador. The book was written by two Ecuadoran scholars, Lic. José Figueroa and Dr. Segundo Moreno Yáñez, the latter well known for his studies of Indian and peasant revolts during colonial times, particularly the eighteenth century. The authors try, although not with complete success, to relate the very recent, overwhelming civic insubordination of ethnic minorities and other Indian and peasant groups from the coast, the highlands, and the Amazonian forest of Ecuador to its colonial antecedents. The comparison is strained because of the very nature of the 1990 “levantamiento,” which was organized mostly by the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), unlike the colonial revolts or uprisings (Moreno Yáñez uses the Spanish words sublevaciones and alzamientos). But the book does not pursue a conceptual discussion of the different kinds of movements these words might be meant to evoke. Its goal is to understand and narrate the more contemporary event, and from it to draw some beneficial conclusions for the future organization of the Ecuadoran nation.
The book is divided into five chapters and three appendixes. The first chapter reviews the precedents for Indian and peasant uprisings during colonial and republican times. Here the authors wish to show very briefly the marginalization of Andean Indian peasants, their ethnic subordination, and their struggle for land tenure and redistribution until the 1964 agrarian reform plan was implemented. The second chapter tries to explain the genesis of the current indigenous movements by looking to internal demands and international and social influences. The current ethnic militancy apparently sustains itself through educated Indian leaders who seek to change the country’s political and legal organization to meet their historical demands.
The third chapter presents elements for a diagnosis by describing the Indian organizations, the social differentiation in the Indian population, and the inter- and intraethnic relationships among the Indian groups. The fourth chapter narrates the uprising, while the last chapter gives some keys for analysis and interpretation, such as the relationships between indigenismo, agrarismo, and the Indian movement; the movement’s ethnic and ecological ideology; and the negotiations it has undertaken with government, church, and other officials, including the president of the republic. The three appendixes contain the Roídos administration’s proposed legislation to guarantee legal rights to “aboriginal groups,” the document on the indigenous population and ethnic minorities issued by Izquierda Democrática in 1988, and the proposal to reform the constitution presented by the Court of Constitutional Rights in 1992. In all, the book is an interpretive essay on a contemporary event that seeks to propose some future policy measures for Indian nationalities in Ecuador, rather than a well-researched study attempting to understand deep-rooted historical events.
