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Brussels October 5 1998 (ICFTU OnLine): The ICFTU is urging all members of its Human and Trade Union Right Committee, and International Trade Secretariats to bombard the Ecuadorian President and the Minister responsible for the Police with faxes following the televised denunciation of Jose Chavez, President of the CEOSL, the Ecuadorian trade union centre.

On September 30, the day before the general strike (October 1) Ana Lucia Armijos, the Minister for Government and Police appeared on Gamavision, an Ecuadorian TV channel and threatened to prosecute Jose Chavez for his "disparaging remarks about the country and for threatening national security."

Five people were killed in clashes during the general strike, and ninety people were arrested. The strike was called by the Ecuadorian Confederation of Free Trade Unions (CEOSL), affiliated to the ICFTU, and other national trade union centres grouped in the United Workers’ Front (FUT).

The strikers and demonstrators were protesting at the economic programme announced on September 14 by the country’s Christian Democrat President Jamil Mahuad. The programme includes the abolition of price subsidies for gas, electricity and diesel oil, and a 15 per cent devaluation of the national currency, the sucre.

The threats to Jose Chavez, are particularly worrying since at the beginning of September he was attacked by men wearing police uniforms, but who have not been identified, who took his money and the keys to the union car, when he was on the way to a union meeting. So far, the Minister for Police has not yet carried out an investigation, despite repeated requests and an ICFTU protest.

The ICFTU wrote to President Mahuad at the end of September to demand that steps be taken to avoid any police provocation during strikes and demonstrations. The Confederation denounced the use of tear gas and the arrest of 35 students on September 14.

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
Boulevard Emile Jacqmain 155, B - 1210 Brussels, Belgium. For more information
please contact: Luc Demaret on: 00 322 224 0212 - press@icftu.org

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