Celebrations broke out across Ecuador Oct. 13 after President Lenin Moreno agreed to overturn Decree 883, which would have eliminated fuel subsidies. Moreno's capitulation followed 10 days of nationwide protests that left at least eight dead, hundreds injured and more than 1,000 detained. After suspension of the decree was announced, thousands of indigenous activists, local residents and student volunteers took to the streets of Quito to clean up the city. Teams worked their way through El Arbolito park, epicenter of the protest movement, which was still littered with burning tires and pavement slabs that had been used as barricades. Moreno and protest leaders are to open a dialogue to find alternative means to cut Ecuador's public spending.
Jaime Vargas, president of the indigenous confederation CONAIE, thanked all who had joined the protests or helped those that came to Quito for the mobilization.
The protests had spread to the Amazon region, where demonstrators occupied facilities at the Sacha, Auca and Libertador oil-fields in Sucumbios and Orellana provinces, halting production and causing the loss of some 100,000 of Ecuador's 550,000 barrel-a-day oil output. (CONAIE [12], TeleSur [13], El Comercio [14], Quito, La República [15], Lima, The Guardian [16], Bloomberg [17])
