1.) Three-person ``council'' takes over in Ecuador By Carlos A. DeJuana QUITO, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Ecuador's top military chief Carlos Mendoza said on Friday a three-member ``council'' has taken over leadership of the Andean country and replaced President Jamil Mahuad, who earlier said he would not resign. Indian leader Antonio Vargas, former supreme court judge Carlos Solorzano and Mendoza, head of the military's joint command, will make up the new ruling body, the three said in a news conference at the government palace. ``We have assumed as a council which will have the Ecuadorean people's hopes in mind,'' Mendoza said. ``We will work to help the country, we will work against corruption and so that we are less poor.'' Mendoza said he had the full support of the armed forces and promised full freedom for the country of 12.4 million people. He said he did not know the whereabouts of Mahuad, who has not officially resigned and was last reported at a military base with his ministers. Calling it the only way to end the country's social crisis, Mendoza demanded Mahuad resign Friday while thousands of Indians seeking to overthrow the government took over Congress with the help of some military units. Mahuad has seen his popularity plunge during his 17 months in office as the country's economy has progressively spiraled into its worst crisis in decades. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Benjamin Ortiz said Mahuad was at a base in Quito. ``He's not going to abandon Ecuador,'' Ortiz told local radio. ``There's no reason in leaving a vacuum of legitimate leadership.'' Earlier reports by local media said Mahuad was planning to travel to Peru or Chile. Indian groups are sharply opposed to Mahuad's plan to revive the country's economy by adopting the U.S. dollar as its currency. The Indians say that would further impoverish the country's poor. Thousands of highland Indians claiming to represent almost half of the country's 12.4 million people have marched into Quito in recent days after staging roadblocks since Saturday. The government estimates 5,000 to 6,000 Indians have arrived in Quito, while Indians leaders say they have up to 30,000 supporters in the capital. Inflation, poverty and unemployment have skyrocketed under Mahuad, and the economy contracted 7.5 percent in 1999. The country is also engaged in tough negotiations to restructure its debt, on which it partly defaulted last year. 2.) Junta Announced in Ecuador By MONTE HAYES The Associated Press QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador's military chief announced late Friday a three-person junta to replace the unpopular president, who fled after a rebellion led by Indians and backed by the armed forces. President Jamil Mahuad insisted he would not resign - but he abandoned the palace where he worked and lived in the afternoon after refusing a request from the military high command to step down. Speaking in the name of the junta, Gen. Carlos Mendoza, the head of the joint military command who was named defense minister last week, said: ``It is a government of the Ecuadorean people. We cannot speak of left or right.'' Shortly before midnight the three members of the junta emerged from a meeting at the national palace to present themselves to the news media as Ecuador's new leaders. In addition to Mendoza, the members are Antonio Vargas, leader of an Indian federation that organized the protests, and Carlos Solorzano, a former Supreme Court judge. Thousands of people streamed onto the plaza in front of the national palace, mingling with soldiers in combat gear and celebrating, some waving the red flag of an extreme-left party. It was a day of political chaos, with Indians demanding Mahuad's resignation and forcing their way into Congress and the Supreme Court. After first backing Mahuad, the military later in the day decided to support the protest, saying it was the only way to prevent ``a social explosion.'' Mahuad had insisted he would not step down, saying during a nationwide television broadcast that anyone who wanted to overthrow him would have to do it by force. Late Friday, Interior Minister Vladimiro Alvarez said in a television interview that ``the president has no intention of leaving the country.'' Ecuador's economic woes appear to have led to the unusual Indian uprising. Last year, inflation reached 60 percent, the highest in Latin America, and only one in three in the labor force has full-time work. A vast majority of the nation's 4 million Indians live in poverty. At an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States in Washington, Ecuador's ambassador, Patricio Vivanco, said Mahuad had abandoned the presidential palace in Quito and taken refuge at a military base in the city. The OAS unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the attempt to overthrow the government and expressed full support for Mahuad. South American leaders also lined up in support of Mahuad, issuing statements condemning attempts to oust him. A statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, urged Ecuador's armed forces and police to uphold Mahuad. ``Whatever regime arises from this unconstitutional process will confront political and economic isolation, bringing more misery to the Ecuadorean people,'' the statement said. Earlier in the day in Quito, guards stepped aside when hundreds of Indians accompanied by an unknown number of military officers stormed an empty Congress building, seized the podium and announced that they had created their own ``Parliament of the People.'' Military leaders said 120 officers were involved in the rebellion, along with an undetermined number of troops. While downtown Quito during the day was in chaos - with Indians armed with rocks and clubs paralyzing traffic and menacing pedestrians - most of the country and much of the city seemed unfazed and Mahuad said he had no intention of stepping down. ``I am not going to abandon you,'' Mahuad, 50, said his nationwide television broadcast, his only public appearance of the day. ``If you want to take power through force, gentlemen, take power through force,'' he said, directing his comments to the military high command, which only a few minutes before had asked him to resign. Later, Mahuad left the national palace with close aides and was being protected by several military officers. The actions by the armed forces seemed more a result of their growing impatience with Mahuad's inability to handle the Indian rebellion, which was part of a month of broader protests. They backed the attempted takeover mainly to prevent ``a social explosion,'' said Gen. Carlos Mendoza, who was joint military commander until becoming defense minister last week. ``We are conscious that we must maintain order and discipline in the country,'' he said. Two men were killed and eight were wounded by gunfire during protests and looting in Quito, Guayaquil, and two smaller cities, the Red Cross said. The two men who were killed were shot by merchants while allegedly looting a public market in Portoviejo. Earlier in the day in Guayaquil, 165 miles southwest of the capital, a group of leftist-led unions, student organizations and neighborhood associations seized the provincial government building. The protesters are also upset about Mahuad's plans to scrap Ecuador's currency for the dollar. In becoming the first South American country seeking to adopt the greenback, Ecuador was hoping to curb inflation, bring down interest rates to U.S. levels and spur investment to end the country's deep recession. Critics contended that Mahuad's decision to establish the conversion rate at 25,000 sucres to the dollar would have devastating repercussions for the thousands of Ecuadoreans whose savings are in sucres. A year ago, the sucre was valued at 7,000 to the dollar. The vast majority of Ecuador's Indians live in the Andean highlands and speak Quichua, a dialect of the language spoken by the Incas. 3.) NEWSMAKER-Adversity has dogged Ecuador's Mahuad QUITO, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Once a leader of massive demonstrations to overthrow Ecuador's then President Abdala Bucaram, President Jamil Mahuad ended up on the other end of the stick after 17 months in office. An announcement on Friday by Ecuador's top military chief that a three-member ``council'' had taken over leadership of the country and had replaced Mahuad followed months of social and political chaos in the poor Andean nation of 12 million people. The country was struggling with its worst economic crisis in decades. Carlos Mendoza, head of the military's joint command, said on Friday he did not know the location of Mahuad, who had not officially resigned. Earlier, Foreign Minister Benjamin Ortiz reported that the president was at a military base in the capital, Quito. Mendoza's announcement of the new ruling council came as thousands of Indians seeking to overthrow Mahuad's government took over Congress with the help of some military units. Adversity has been the constant companion of the 50-year-old Mahuad over the past three years, starting with a brain haemorrhage that left him temporarily paralysed in 1997. The Harvard-trained lawyer blamed the affliction on a need for more rest, but that was the last thing he got on taking power. The economy contracted an estimated 7.5 percent in 1999, inflation raged at 61 percent, and Ecuador's currency, the sucre, lost 67 percent of its value against the dollar. The president's attempts to install austere economic measures met protests laced with violence. His most recent proposal to salvage his position and fix the economy was to replace the sucre with the U.S. dollar via ``dollarization'' of the economy. But the plan was rejected by a nation weary of heavy-handed economic solutions. AN UNSTABLE DEMOCRACY Mahuad, a divorced man who had formerly served as mayor of Quito, was elected the 41st president of Ecuador, where democracy has been rife with instability for the past 20 years. He took over from interim President Fabian Alarcon, chosen in February 1997 by Congress after Bucaram, nicknamed ``El Loco,'' or ``the Crazy One,'' was thrown out of office by Congress on grounds of mental incompetence. The slender, flat-faced Mahuad had used his gentlemanly charisma to rise quickly in public life after standing out as a student politician. As a second-time presidential candidate in 1998, he was supported by the business community, which was looking for stability and turned a blind eye to a confessed extramarital affair that produced one of his two children. Mahuad was elected twice as mayor of Quito and had a solid reputation as a hard worker who got roads and tramways built. As president, he had early success in resolving a border dispute that had divided Ecuador and Peru since 1995. But that achievement was quickly overshadowed by economic woes caused by El Nino storms, low international prices for top exports oil and bananas, and fallout from the Asian financial crisis. During Mahuad's tenure, Ecuador also wrote itself into the record books by becoming the first nation to default on its Brady bonds, which were created in the 1980s to help indebted emerging markets. Currently the nation has a moratorium on its total foreign debt, which is about $13.6 billion, roughly equal to its annual gross domestic product. About 60 percent of the population lives in poverty. As if economic and social chaos were not enough, Mahuad's hapless administration was also threatened by the activity of the Tungurahua and Guagua Pichincha volcanoes. The latter overshadows Quito, which is home to 1.2 million people.