Ecuador's President Flees Palace Amid Riots
By Nicholas Moss in Quito and Agencies
Financial Times
January 22, 1000
 http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/global/ecuador3.htm

Jamil Mahuad, Ecuador's president, last night left the presidential palace
in an ambulance, bound for a military airbase protected by troops loyal to
the government, after a week of demonstrations against his administration
and an announcement by the armed forces that he no longer had their support.
Ecuador's Congress building was yesterday overrun by thousands of indigenous
Indian protesters, staging their boldest action yet in a week of protest
against the government.

Rioting and looting broke out in Quito and in the Southern city of
Guayaquil. Carlos Mendoza. Head of the armed forces, at first said the
military backed the constitutional government - Mr. Mahuad was
democratically elected in 1988 - but later said Mr. Mahuad should step down.

The highland Indians, who make up at least a third of the Andean country's
12.4m population, began marching on Quito on Monday to demand Mr. Mahuad's
resignation. They accused the government of corruption and mismanagement,
and blamed the president for the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

Me. Mahuad's proposal to adopt the US dollar as the country's principal
currency would further impoverish millions of people living below the
poverty line, they said. The proposal came after Ecuador's currency crashed
to record lows. Inflation last year was 60 per cent and the economy shrank
by more than 7 per cent.

In Quito 2,000-3,000 protesters remained in the Congress building through
the day, hailing the declaration by an indigenous activist leader, Antonio
Vargas, of a "government of national salvation". "The people are in power,"
Mr. Vargas said.