Ecuador

Land and People

The Andes, dominating the country, cut across Ecuador in two ranges and reach their greatest altitude in the snowcapped volcanic peaks of Chimborazo (20,577 ft/6,272 m) and Cotopaxi (19,347 ft/5,897 m). Within the mountains are high, often fertile valleys, where grains are cultivated, and the major urban centers, such as Quito, Cuenca, and Riobamba, are located. Earthquakes are frequent and often disastrous; in 1949 the city of Ambato was leveled. East of the Andes is a region of tropical jungle, through which run the tributaries of the Amazon River. The Pacific coast region, with hot, humid valleys north of the Gulf of Guayaquil, is the source of Ecuador's chief exports, including oil and coffee. Large deposits of oil are also located in the northeast. Guayaquil and Esmeraldas are the chief ports.

Most of the population live in the highlands. About 65% of the people are mestizo, and a quarter are indigenous. Spanish is the official language, but many natives speak Quechua or Jarvo. European-descended residents, who account for about 7% of the population, are mostly landholders and historically have played a dominant role in Equador's unstable political life. Some 3% of the country's inhabitants are of African descent. Roman Catholicism is the main religion.

Economy

In recent years Ecuador's economy has become service-based, although a small percentage of the workforce still engages in agriculture. Rice, potatoes, manioc, and plaintains are grown for subsistence; bananas, coffee, and cacao are the main cash crops. Cattle, sheep, and pigs are raised, and there is fishing and lumbering. Petroleum is the country's largest industry; others include food processing, tourism, and the manufacture of textiles, wood products, and chemicals.

Oil is Ecuador's leading export, followed by bananas, cut flowers, shrimp, fish products, coffee, and cocoa; other exports include forest products (notably balsawood), sugar, and rice. Vehicles, medicines, telecommunications equipment, and electricity are the main imports. The United States, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil are its chief trading partners. During the 1980s and 90s, Ecuador's leaders imposed austerity budgets on the government in an attempt to stimulate economic growth. The country experienced an economic crisis in the late 1990s, but began recovery early in the 21st cent. Ecuador is a member of the Andean Community, an economic organization of South American countries.

Government

Ecuador is governed under the constitution of 1998. The executive branch is headed by the president, who is elected for a four-year term; the president may not serve consecutive terms. The president is both the head of state and head of government.The legislature consists of the unicameral National Congress, whose 100 members are elected for four-year terms. Administratively, the country is divided into 22 provinces.

History

Through the Nineteenth Century

Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, Ecuador was controlled by the Inca empire. Francisco Pizarro's subordinate, Benalcázar, entered the area in 1533. Not finding the wealth of the mythical El Dorado, he and other conquistadors, notably Gonzalo Pizarro and Orellana, moved restlessly on and the region became a colonial backwater. Given an audiencia in 1563 and established politically as the presidency of Quito, it was at various times subject to Peru and to New Granada. After an abortive independence movement in 1809, the region remained under Spanish control. It was liberated by Antonio José de Sucre in the battle of Pichincha (1822) and was joined by Simón Bolívar to Greater Colombia.

With the dissolution of that union in 1830, Ecuador, geographically isolated, became a separate state (four times its present size) under a constitution promulgated by its first president, Juan José Flores. Ecuador unsuccessfully attempted to annex Popayán prov. from Colombia by war in 1832 and occupied the Galápagos Islands that year. Boundary disputes led to frequent invasions by Peruvians in the 19th and 20th cent. The entire eastern frontier, known as Oriente, was in dispute. (In 1942, Ecuador signed a treaty ceding a large area to Peru, but in 1960 it renounced the treaty.)

Bitter internecine struggles between Conservatives and Liberals marked the political history of Ecuador in the 19th cent. The Conservatives, led by Flores and García Moreno (1821–75), supported entrenched privileges and the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church; the Liberals, led by Rocafuerte (1783–1847) and Alfaro (1867–1912) and championed by the writer Montalvo (1832–89), sought social reforms.

The Twentieth Century

There have been a bewildering number of changes in government during the 20th cent. In 1925 the army replaced the coastal banking interests, dominant since 1916, as the ultimate source of power. Military juntas supported various rival factions, and between 1931 and 1940, 12 presidents were in office. José María Velasco Ibarra became president (for the second time) by a coup in 1944. He was ousted in 1947, and the next year Galo Plaza Lasso was chosen in free elections. During Plaza's regime there was unprecedented political reform. Velasco Ibarra was elected again in 1952 and sponsored improvements in roads and schools.

The first Conservative to rule in 60 years, Camilo Ponce Enríquez, followed (1956–60), but Velasco Ibarra was elected again in 1960. He was forced to resign the following year. His legal successor, Julio Arosemena Monroy, was deposed by a junta in 1963. Agitation for a return to civilian government led the military to remove the junta in 1966. A constitutional assembly installed Otto Arosemena Gómez as provisional president and drafted the country's 17th constitution. Velasco Ibarra was elected for the fifth time in 1968. Two years later, faced with economic problems and protests by leftist students, he assumed absolute power. Velasco promised to hold elections in June, 1972. However, the military deposed him in Feb., 1972, and canceled the elections.

Relations with the United States deteriorated in the early 1970s after Ecuador claimed that its territorial waters extended 200 mi (322 km) out to sea. Several U.S. fishing boats were seized by Ecuadorians, and U.S. aid to the country was suspended. In the same period Ecuador became Latin America's second largest oil producer. After Velasco's ouster, the military governed Ecuador until 1979, when a new constitution came into force and Jaime Roldós Aguilera was elected president. Following his death in 1981, he was succeeded by Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea. Hurtado faced many economic and political problems, including inflation, a large international debt, and a troubled oil industry, but his austerity programs failed to revive the economy.

Contemporary Ecuador

León Febres Cordero Rivadeneira, who replaced Hurtado in 1984, was kidnapped in 1987 by a guerrilla group but was released in exchange for a former coup leader. Rodrigo Borja Cevallos was elected president in 1988, and in 1992 he was replaced by Sixto Durán Ballén. In 1990 the indigenous peoples organized a series of boycotts and demonstrations, known as “the Uprising,” and in 1992 they were given title to a large area of rain forest in the eastern part of the country. That same year Ballén privatized many state-owned enterprises. In 1994 Ecuador reached agreement with creditor banks on a landmark foreign-debt rescheduling plan. Ecuador again clashed with Peru in a border war in 1995; in 1998 the countries signed an agreement finalizing their borders and giving Ecuador access to the Amazon River.

Despite some achievements, Ballén's government was compromised by several developments, including a severe energy crisis and criminal corruption charges against the vice president. New presidential elections, held in mid-1996, resulted in a victory for Abdalá Bucaram, an often flamboyant populist. After only six months in office, he was dismissed for mental incapacity by the congress, which chose its leader, Fábian Alarcón, as interim president, but Vice President Rosalía Arteaga declared herself Bucaram's legitimate successor. An agreement was reached granting Arteaga the position, but she abruptly resigned and Alarcón succeeded her as interim president for 18 months.

Jamil Mahuad Witt, the mayor of Quito, was elected in a presidential runoff in 1998, as the country went into an economic crisis stemming from a drop in oil prices, high inflation, and nearly $3 billion in damages from El Niño. The sucre, the national currency, plunged in 1999, bringing strikes and more economic turmoil, and Mahuad declared a series of states of emergency. In Jan., 2000, dissident military officers and thousands of Ecuadorans of indigenous descent attempted to oust Mahuad and establish a junta, Armed forces chief of staff Gen. Carlos Mendoza intervened and engineered the accession of Vice President Gustavo Noboa Bejarano to the presidency. In Mar., 2000, the congress approved legislation that made the U.S. dollar the national currency beginning in 2001, a move intended to stabilize the economy; it originally had been proposed by Mahuad.

In 2002 the presidential election campaign ended with a runoff victory by Lucio Gutiérrez Borbúa of the leftist January 21st Partriotic Society party. Gutiérrez, a former army colonel, was a leader of the dissident military forces that sparked Mahuad's removal from the presidency in 2000. The government, which had been elected on a promise of increasing social spending, adopted austerity measures to win a new loan from the International Monetary Fund. The move alienated many who had backed Gutiérrez, and made his government dependent on uncertain coalitions in the congress.

A bid to impeach the president (Nov., 2004) failed, and he subsequently won enactment of a reorganization of the supreme court, which he accused of favoring the opposition. That move, however, sparked protests and demonstrations (and counterdemonstrations) and led to a political crisis in early 2005. In April increasing street protests and the president's endorsement of the use of force to quell them led the congress to remove the president. Vice President Alfredo Palacio was sworn in as his successor, and Gutiérrez, who denounced his removal as unconstitutional, went into exile.

In Aug., 2005, protesters in NE Ecuador sparked a national crisis by disrupting the nation's oil industry. They called for more of the revenues to be invested in the Amazonian regions that produce the oil, and won concessions from the government and oil companies. Gutiérrez returned to Ecuador in Oct., 2005, in a bid to retake office, but he was arrested; he was released only in Mar., 2006, after the charges of endangering national security were dismissed.

Palacio, who lacked allies in congress and headed a government suffering from scandal and defections, also was frustrated with his inability to push political reforms through Ecuador's congress. In Oct., 2005, he proposed asking voters to approve holding a constitutional assembly instead, but abandoned the idea (Dec., 2005) after it was rejected by the nation's electoral tribunal. Meanwhile, in November, a new supreme court was finally sworn in. In Feb.–Mar., 2006, the country experienced a new series of demonstrations, by various groups calling for local investment of oil revenues, full-time jobs for oil contract workers, and an end to negotiations on a free-trade pact with the United States. The protests, which disrupted the economy and were sometimes violent, led the government to declare a state of emergency several times during the two months. In the first round of the presidential election in Oct., 2006, no candidate won a majority, forcing a runoff in November. Álvaro Noboa, the country's wealthiest person and a conservative, placed first with 27% of the vote; the runner-up, Rafael Correa, a leftist economist, secured 23%. In the runoff, however, Correa won 57% of the vote.

Correa sought a referendum to establish a national assembly for constitutional reform, which the congress approved in Feb., 2007. The question of the powers of the assembly set off a power struggle between the president (supported by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal), who favored unlimited powers, and the congress, which had approved the assembly with limited powers. A narrow congressional majority voted to remove the tribunal judges aligned with the president, and those judges then voted to remove 57 members of the congress; both moves were of uncertain constitutionality. Correa, buoyed by his popularity and supported by sometimes violent demonstrators, managed to retain the upper hand; the congress lacked a quorum until March, when sufficient substitute members were appointed.

In April, voters approved electing a national assembly to rewrite the constitution, and it was elected in September. Also in April, the consitutional tribunal first refused to hear the congress members' challenge concerning their dismissal and then called for them to be reinstated, but the congress then dismissed the members of the tribunal, and Correa ordered the police to prevent the dismissed members from returning to the congress.

Bibliography

See C. R. Gibson, Foreign Trade in the Economic Development of Small Nations: The Case of Ecuador (1971); L. Linke, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts (repr. 1976); N. E. Whitten, Jr., ed., Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador (1981); O. Hurtado, Political Power in Ecuador (1985); J. D. Martz, Politics and Petroleum in Ecuador (1987); F. M. Spindler, Nineteenth Century Ecuador: A Historical Introduction (1987); D. Corkill, ed., Ecuador (1989).

República del Ecuador Republic of Ecuador
Flag Coat of arms
Motto "Dios, patria y libertad"  (Spanish) "Pro Deo, Patria et Libertas"  (Latin) "God, homeland and liberty"
Anthem Salve, Oh Patria We Salute You, Our Homeland
Capital		Quito 00°9′S, 78°21′W
Largest city		Guayaquil
Official languages		Spanish
Demonym		Ecuadorian
Government		Republic
-	President	Rafael Correa
-	Vice-President	Lenín Moreno
Independence
-	from Spain	May 24 1822
-	from Gran Colombia	May 13 1830
Area
-	Total	km² (73nd)  sq mi
-	Water (%)	8.8
Population
-	2007 estimate	13,810,000 (65th)
-	Density	53.8/km² (147th)  /sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2006 estimate
-	Total	$61.7 billion (70th)
-	Per capita	$4,776 (111th)
Gini?		42 (medium)
HDI (2003)		0.765 (medium) (83rd)
Currency		U.S. dollar2 (USD)
Time zone		(UTC-5 (-63))
Internet TLD		.ec
Calling code		[[+593]]
1	Kichwa and other Amerindian languages spoken by indigenous communities.
2	Sucre until 2000, followed by the U.S. dollar and Ecuadorian centavo coins
3	Galápagos Islands.

Ecuador (IPA: /ɛk.wə.doʊɹ/), officially the Republic of Ecuador (Spanish: República del Ecuador), is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, by Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean on the west. The country also includes the Galápagos Islands (Archipiélago de Colón) in the Pacific, about 965 kilometers (600 miles) west of the mainland. Ecuador straddles the equator, from which it takes its name, and has an area of 256,370 square kilometers (98,985 mi²). Its capital city is Quito; its largest city is Guayaquil.

History

Main article: History of Ecuador

Pre-Columbian

First settlements

Evidence of human cultures in Ecuador exist from c. 3500 B.C.[1] Many civilizations rose throughout Ecuador, such as the Valdivia Culture and Machalilla Culture on the coast, the Quitus (near present day Quito) and the Cañari (in present day Cuenca). Each civilization developed its own distinctive architecture, pottery, and religious beliefs. After years of fierce resistance the Cañari fell to the Incan expansion, and were assimilated loosely into the Incan empire.

Part of the Incan empire

Cotopaxi volcano.

Through a succession of wars and marriages among the nations that inhabited the valley, the region became part of the Inca Empire. Atahualpa, one of the sons of the Inca emperor Huayna Capac, could not receive the crown of the Empire since the emperor had another son, Huascar, born in Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire. Upon Huayna Capac's death, the empire was divided in two: Atahualpa received the north, with his capital in Quito; Huascar received the south, with its capital in Cusco. In 1530, Atahualpa defeated Huascar and conquered the entire Empire for the crown of Quito.

Colonization

Barely a week later, in 1531, the Spanish conquistadors, under Francisco Pizarro, arrived to find an Inca empire torn by civil war. Atahualpa wanted to reestablish a unified Incan empire; the Spanish, however, had conquest intentions and established themselves in a fort in Cajamarca, captured Atahualpa during the Battle of Cajamarca, and held him for ransom. The Incas filled one room with gold and two with silver to secure his release. Despite being surrounded and vastly outnumbered, the Spanish executed Atahualpa. To escape the confines of the fort, the Spaniards fired all their cannons and broke through the lines of the bewildered Incans. In subsequent years, the Spanish colonists became the new elite, centering their power in the vice-royalties of Nueva Granada and Lima.

The indigenous population was decimated by disease during the first decades of Spanish rule — a time when the natives also were forced into the "encomienda" labor system for Spanish landlords. In 1563, Quito became the seat of a royal audiencia (administrative district) of Spain and part of the Vice-Royalty of Lima, and later the Vice-Royalty of Nueva Granada.

Independence

After nearly three hundred years of Spanish colonization, Quito was a city of ten thousand inhabitants. It was there, on August 10, 1809 (the national holiday), that the first call for independence from Spain was made in Latin America ("Primer Grito de la Independencia"), under the leadership of the city's criollos like Carlos Montúfar, Eugenio Espejo and Bishop Cuero y Caicedo. Quito's nickname, "Luz de América" ("Light of America"), comes from the idea that this first attempt produced the inspiration for the rest of Spanish America, creating a domino effect that would ultimately lead to the expulsion of Spain from the continent.

On October 9, 1820, Guayaquil became the first city in Ecuador to gain its independence from Spain. It was not until May 24, 1822, that the rest of Ecuador gained its independence after Field Marshal Antonio José de Sucre defeated the Spaniard Royalist forces at the Batalla del Pichincha (Battle of Pichincha) near Quito. Following the battle, Ecuador joined Simón Bolívar's Republic of Gran Colombia, only to become a separate republic in 1830.

Building a nation

View of Old Quito, one of the highest cities in the world.

The 19th century for Ecuador was marked by instability, with a rapid succession of rulers. The first president of Ecuador was the Venezuelan born Juan José Flores, who was ultimately deposed, followed by many authoritarian leaders such as Vicente Rocafuerte, José Joaquín de Olmedo, José María Urbina, Diego Noboa, Pedro José de Arteta, Manuel de Ascásubi and Flores's own son, Antonio Flores Jijón, among others. The conservative Gabriel Garcia Moreno unified the country in the 1860s with the support of the Roman Catholic Church. In the late 19th century, world demand for cocoa tied the economy to commodity exports and led to migrations from the highlands to the agricultural frontier on the coast.

A coastal-based liberal revolution in 1895 under Eloy Alfaro reduced the power of the clergy and the conservative land owners of the highlands, and this liberal wing retained power until the military "Julian Revolution" of 1925. The 1930s and 1940s were marked by instability and emergence of populist politicians such as five-time President José María Velasco Ibarra.

Territorial dispute

Control over territory in the Amazon basin led to a long-lasting dispute between Ecuador and Peru. In 1941, amid fast-growing tensions between the two countries, war broke out. Peru claimed that Ecuador's military presence in Peruvian-claimed territory was an invasion; Ecuador, for its part, claimed that Peru had invaded Ecuador. In July 1941, troops were mobilized in both countries. Peru had an army of 11,681 troops who faced a poorly-supplied and inadequately-armed Ecuadorean force of 5,300, of which only 1,300 were deployed in the southern provinces. Hostilities erupted on July 5, 1941, when Peruvian forces crossed the Zarumilla river at several locations, testing the strength and resolve of the Ecuadorean border troops. Finally, on July 23, 1941, the Peruvians launched a major invasion, crossing the Zarumilla river in force and advancing into the Ecuadorean province of El Oro.

During the course of the war, Peru gained control over all the disputed territory and occupied the Ecuadorean province of El Oro, now Tumbes, and some parts of the province of Loja (65 percent of the former country), demanding that the Ecuadorean government give up its territorial claims. The Peruvian Navy blocked the port of Guayaquil, cutting supplies to the Ecuadorean troops. After a few weeks of war and under pressure by the U.S. and several Latin American nations, all fighting came to a stop. Ecuador and Peru came to an accord formalized in the Rio Protocol, signed on January 29, 1942, in favor of hemispheric unity against the Axis Powers in World War II. As a result of its victory, Peru was awarded the disputed territory.

It would take two more undeclared wars before a peace agreement was finally reached in 1999 to end hostilities. (See Paquisha Incident and Cenepa War.)

Monument in Guayaquil commemorating the conference between Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín.

Government instability

Recession and popular unrest led to a return to populist politics and domestic military interventions in the 1960s, while foreign companies developed oil resources in the Ecuadorean Amazon. In 1972, construction of the Andean pipeline was completed. The pipeline brought oil from the east side of the Andes to the coast, making Ecuador South America's second largest oil exporter. That same year a "revolutionary and nationalist" military junta overthrew the government, remaining in power until 1979, when elections were held under a new Constitution. Jaime Roldós Aguilera was elected President, governing until May 24, 1981, when he died in a plane crash. By 1982, the government of Osvaldo Hurtado faced an economic crisis, characterized by high inflation, budget deficits, a falling currency, mounting debt service, and uncompetitive industries, leading to chronic government instability.

Many years of mismanagement, starting with the mishandling of the country's debt during the 1970s military regime, had left the country essentially ungovernable. Since the mid 1990s, the government of Ecuador has been characterized by a weak executive branch that struggles to appease the ruling classes represented in the legislative and judiciary. The three democratically elected presidents during the period 1996-2006 all failed to finish their terms.

Today's government

The emergence of the indigenous population (app. 25 percent; see demographics below) as an active constituency has added to the democratic volatility of the country in recent years. The population have been motivated by government failures to deliver on promises of land reform, lower unemployment and provision of social services, and historical exploitation by the land-holding elite.

Their movement, along with the continuing destabilizing efforts by both the Elite and Leftist movements, have led to a deterioration of the executive office. The populace and the other branches of government give the president very little political capital, as illustrated by the most recent ouster of a president. In April 2005, Ecuador's congress ousted President Lucio Gutiérrez.

The vice-president, Alfredo Palacio, took his place and remained in office until the presidential election of 2006, which did not produce a conclusive winner until a runoff election on 26 November elected Rafael Correa over Alvaro Noboa.^[1] ==

Politics

Current president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa.

Main article: Politics of Ecuador

The constitution provides for concurrent four-year terms for the president, vice president, and members of Congress. Presidents may be reelected after an intervening term, while legislators may be reelected immediately.

The executive branch includes 15 ministries. Provincial governors and councilors (mayors, aldermen, and parish boards) are directly elected. Congress meets throughout the year except for recesses in July and December. There are 20 seven-member congressional committees. Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by the Congress for indefinite terms.

On September 30, 2007 Ecuador elected a constituent assembly, dominated by President Rafael Correa's PAIS Alliance, charged with rewriting the Constitution of Ecuador.

Foreign Relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Ecuador

Ecuador has often placed great emphasis on multilateral approaches to international issues. Ecuador is a member of the United Nations (and most of its specialized agencies) and a member of many regional groups, including the Rio Group, the Latin American Economic System, the Latin American Energy Organization, the Latin American Integration Association, and The Andean Pact.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Ecuador

Map of Ecuador

Ecuador has three main geographic regions, plus an insular region in the Pacific Ocean:

• La Costa, or the coast, comprises the low-lying littoral in the western part of the country, including the Pacific coastline.
• La Sierra ("the highlands") is the high-altitude belt running north to south along the center of the country, its mountainous terrain dominated by the Andes mountain range.
• El Oriente ("the east") comprises the Amazon rainforest areas in the eastern part of the country, accounting for just under half of the country's total surface area, though populated by under 5 percent of the population.
• The Región Insular is the region comprising the Galápagos Islands, some 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) west of the mainland in the Pacific Ocean.

Capital City

Ecuador's capital is Quito, which is in the province of Pichincha in the Sierra region. Its largest city is Guayaquil, in the province of Guayas on the Coast. Cotopaxi, which is just south of Quito, features one of the world's highest active volcanoes. The top of Mount Chimborazo (6,310 meters) is considered to be the most distant point from the center of the Earth, given the ovoidal shape of the planet (wider at the equator). [The top of Mt. Everest is the highest point above sea level.]

Provinces and cantons

Main articles: Provinces of Ecuador and Cantons of Ecuador

Ecuador is divided into 24 provinces, each with its own administrative capital:

Province Capital Azuay Cuenca Bolívar Guaranda Cañar Azogues Carchi Tulcán Chimborazo Riobamba Cotopaxi Latacunga El Oro Machala Esmeraldas Esmeraldas Galápagos Puerto Baquerizo Moreno Guayas Guayaquil Imbabura Ibarra Loja Loja Los Ríos Babahoyo

Province Capital Manabi Portoviejo Morona-Santiago Macas Napo Tena Orellana Puerto Francisco de Orellana Pastaza Puyo Pichincha Quito Santa Elena Santa Elena Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Santo Domingo de los Colorados Sucumbíos Nueva Loja Tungurahua Ambato Zamora-Chinchipe Zamora

The provinces are divided into 199 cantons and subdivided into parishes (or parroquias).

Climate

Because of its three mainland regions (as delineated in the preceding section), Ecuador's climate cannot be generalized. La Costa (Pacific coastal area) is tropical, La Sierra (Andes highlands) is temperate, and El Oriente (eastern side of the mountains) shares the jungle climate of the upper Amazon rain forest.

Because of its location at the equator, Ecuador does not experience variations in daylight hours during the course of a year. Except for a few minutes resulting from a slight wobble in the earth as it rotates, sunrise and sunset are always at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., respectively. Although it is in the same time zone as the eastern United States (except for the Galápagos Islands, which correspond to the U.S. central time zone), Ecuador does not switch to daylight savings time.

Biodiversity

Ecuador is one of 17 megadiverse countries in the world according to Conservation International.^[2] With 1600 bird species (15 percent of the world's known bird species) in the continental area, and 38 more endemic in the Galápagos. In addition to 25,000 species of plants, the country has 106 endemic reptiles, 138 endemic