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| History | |
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This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2011)
Main article: History of Ecuador
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 (near present day Cuenca). Each civilization developed its own distinctive architecture, pottery, and religious interests, although consolidated under a confederation called the Shyris which exercised organized trading and bartering between the different regions and whose political and military power was under the rule of the Duchicela blood line before the Inca invasion. After years of fiery resistance by the Cañaris and other tribes, as demonstrated by the battle of Yahuarcocha (Blood Lake) where thousands of resistance fighters were killed and thrown in the lake, the region fell to the Incan expansion and was assimilated loosely into the Incan empire.[citation needed]
[edit] Tags:Ec,Quito,Reliable Sources,Challenged,Valdivia Culture,Machalilla Culture,Quitus,Cañaris, | |
| Inca Empire | |
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Through a succession of wars and marriages among the nations that inhabited the valley, the region became part of the Inca Empire in 1463. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived from the north, the Inca Empire was ruled by Huayna Capac, who had two sons: Atahualpa, being in charge of the northern parts of the empire, and Huáscar, seated in the Incan capital Cusco. Upon Huayna Capac's death in 1525, the empire was divided in two: Atahualpa received the north, with his capital in Quito; Huáscar received the south, with its capital in Cusco. In 1530, Atahualpa defeated his own brother, Huáscar, and claimed control over the entire empire. Atahualpa's victory was short-lived as he was soon captured by the Spanish conquistadors in Cajamarca, and later executed for the murder of his brother.[citation needed]
[edit] Tags:Spanish,Inca Empire,Huayna Capac,Atahualpa,Huáscar,Cusco,Conquistadors,Cajamarca, | |
| Colonization | |
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Spanish Historical Center in Quito
Disease plagued the indigenous population during the first decades of Spanish rule — a time when the natives also were forced into the encomienda labor system for the Spanish. In 1563, Quito became the seat of a real audiencia (administrative district) of Spain and part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and later the Viceroyalty of New Granada.
After nearly 300 years of Spanish colonization, Quito was still a small city of only 10,000 inhabitants. It was here, on August 10, 1809, that the first call for independence from Spain was made in Latin America, under the leadership of the city's criollos like Juan PÃo Montúfar, Quiroga, Salinas, and Bishop Cuero y Caicedo. Quito's nickname, "Luz de América" ("Light of America"), comes from the fact that this was the first successful attempt to produce an independent and local government. Although it lasted no more than two months, it had important repercussions and was an inspiration for the emancipation of the rest of Spanish America.
[edit] Tags:Peru,Encomienda,Real Audiencia,Viceroyalty Of Peru,Viceroyalty Of New Granada,Criollos,Luz De América, | |
| Independence | |
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The States of Ecuador, Cundinamarca, and Venezuela formed The Republic of Great Colombia.
Main article: Ecuadorian War of Independence
On October 9, 1820, Guayaquil became the first city in Ecuador to gain its independence from Spain. On May 24, 1822, the rest of Ecuador gained its independence after Antonio José de Sucre defeated the Spanish Royalist forces at the Battle of Pichincha, near Quito. Following the battle, Ecuador joined Simón BolÃvar's Republic of Gran Colombia – joining with modern day Colombia and Venezuela – only to become a republic in 1830.
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 JoaquÃn de Olmedo; José MarÃa 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.
[edit] Tags:Guayaquil,Colombia,Republic,Gran Colombia,Battle Of Pichincha,Simón BolÃvar,Juan José Flores,Vicente Rocafuerte,José JoaquÃn De Olmedo,José MarÃa Urbina,Diego Noboa,Pedro José De Arteta,Manuel De Ascásubi,Antonio Flores Jijón,Gabriel Garcia Moreno,Roman Catholic Church,Cocoa, | |
| Liberal Revolution | |
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Main article: Liberal Revolution of 1895
The coast-based Liberal Revolution of 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 MarÃa Velasco Ibarra.
[edit] Tags:Liberal Revolution Of 1895,Eloy Alfaro,José MarÃa Velasco Ibarra, | |
| War with Peru | |
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Main article: History of the Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute
The Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute
History of the Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute
Gran Colombia–Peru War (1828-1829)
Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute of 1857-1860
Ecuadorian-Peruvian War (1941)
Paquisha War (1981)
Cenepa War (1995)
Map of the dispute (Spanish)
Ecuadorian troops during the conflict.
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 Ecuadorian force of 2,300, 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 Ecuadorian border troops. Finally, on July 23, 1941, the Peruvians launched a major invasion, crossing the Zarumilla river in force and advancing into the Ecuadorian province of El Oro.
During the course of the war, Peru gained control over part of the disputed territory and some parts of the province of El Oro, and some parts of the province of Loja, demanding that the Ecuadorian government give up its territorial claims. The Peruvian Navy blocked the port of Guayaquil, almost cutting all supplies to the Ecuadorian troops. After a few weeks of war and under pressure by the United States 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 favoring Peru with the territory they occupied at the time the war came to an end.
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 Ecuadorian 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. The pipeline in southern Ecuador did nothing, however, to resolve tensions between Ecuador and Peru.
The Rio Protocol failed to precisely resolve the border along a small river in the remote Cordillera del Cóndor region in southern Ecuador. This caused a long-simmering dispute between Ecuador and Peru, which ultimately led to fighting between the two countries; first a border skirmish in January–February 1981 known as the Paquisha Incident, and ultimately full-scale warfare in January 1995 where the Ecuadorian military shot down Peruvian aircraft and helicopters and Peruvian infantry marched into southern Ecuador. Each country blamed the other for the onset of hostilities, known as the Cenepa War. Sixto Durán Ballén, the Ecuadorian president, famously declared that he would not give up a single centimeter of Ecuador. Popular sentiment in Ecuador became strongly nationalistic against Peru: graffiti could be seen on the walls of Quito referring to Peru as the "Cain de Latinoamérica", a reference to the murder of Abel by his brother Cain in the Book of Genesis.[12]
Ecuador and Peru reached a tentative peace agreement in October 1998, which ended hostilities, and the Guarantors of the Rio Protocol ruled that the border of the undelineated zone was set the line of the Cordillera del Cóndor. While Ecuador had to give up its decades-old territorial claims to the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, as well as to the entire western area of Cenepa headwaters, Peru was compelled to give to Ecuador, in perpetual lease but without sovereignty, one square kilometre of its territory, in the area where the Ecuadorian base of Tiwinza — focal point of the war — had been located within Peruvian soil and which the Ecuadorian Army held as their strong hold all the time during the conflict. The final border demarcation came into effect on May 13, 1999.
[edit] Tags:South America,Gran Colombia–peru War (1828-1829),Paquisha War (1981),Cenepa War (1995),El Oro,Rio Protocol,Axis Powers,Cenepa War,Nationalistic,Abel,Cain,Book Of Genesis, | |
| Military governments (1972–1979) | |
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In 1972, a "revolutionary and nationalist" military junta overthrew the government of Velasco Ibarra. The coup d'état was led by General Guillermo RodrÃguez and executed by navy commander Jorge Queirolo G. The new president exiled José MarÃa Velasco to Argentina. He remained in power until 1976, when he was removed by another military government. That military junta was led by Admiral Alfredo Poveda, who was declared chairman of the Supreme Council. The Supreme Council included two other members: General Guillermo Durán Arcentales and General Luis Leoro Franco. The civil society more and more insistently called for democratic elections. Colonel Richelieu Levoyer, Government Minister, proposed and implemented a Plan to return to the constitutional system through universal elections. This Plan enabled the new democratically elected president to assume the duties of the executive office.
[edit] Tags:Junta,Coup D'état, | |
| Return to democracy | |
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Elections were held on April 29, 1979, under a new constitution. Jaime Roldós Aguilera was elected president, garnering over one million votes, the most in Ecuadorian history. He took office on August 10 as the first constitutionally elected president after nearly a decade of civilian and military dictatorships. In 1980, he founded the Partido Pueblo, Cambio y Democracia (People, Change and Democracy Party) after withdrawing from the Concentracion de Fuerzas Populares (Popular Forces Concentration) and governed until May 24, 1981, when he died along with his wife and the minister of defense, Marco Subia Martinez, when his Air Force plane crashed in heavy rain near the Peruvian border. Many people believe that he was assassinated,[citation needed] given the multiple death threats leveled against him because of his reformist agenda, deaths in automobile crashes of two key witnesses before they could testify during the investigation and the sometimes contradictory accounts of the incident.
Roldos was immediately succeeded by Vice President Osvaldo Hurtado who was followed in 1984 by León Febres Cordero from the Social Christian Party. Rodrigo Borja Cevallos of the Democratic Left (Izquierda Democrática or ID) party won the presidency in 1988, running in the runoff election against Abdalá Bucaram (brother in law of Jaime Roldos and founder of the Ecuadorian Roldosist Party). His government was committed to improving human rights protection and carried out some reforms, notably an opening of Ecuador to foreign trade. The Borja government concluded an accord leading to the disbanding of the small terrorist group, "¡Alfaro Vive, Carajo!" ("Alfaro Lives, Dammit!") named after Eloy Alfaro. However, continuing economic problems undermined the popularity of the ID, and opposition parties gained control of Congress in 1990.
The emergence of the indigenous population (approximately 25%) as an active constituency has added to the democratic volatility of the country in recent years. The population has 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, has 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 removal of President Lucio Gutiérrez from office by Congress in April 2005. Vice President Alfredo Palacio took his place and remained in office until the presidential election of 2006, in which Rafael Correa gained the presidency.
On September 30, 2010, in a police revolt, many police officers were killed after a military intervention in a police hospital. President Rafael Correa alleged that he was taken hostage in the hospital by police officers as part of a series of protests against cuts to the benefits of public service workers that were part of a financial austerity package. What angered police and elements of the army was a law to end the practice of giving medals and bonuses with each promotion. It would also extend from five to seven years the usual period required for promotions. The government called the revolt a coup and declared a one-week state of emergency which put the military in charge of public order and suspended civil liberties. Peru shut its border with Ecuador.[13] Numerous social movements claim that civil rights have been violated by the government.
[edit] Tags:Presidential, | |
| Politics | |
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Main article: Politics of Ecuador
Palacio de Carondelet, the executive branch of the Ecuadorian Government
Ecuador is governed by a democratically elected President, for a four year term. The current president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, exercises his power from the presidential Palacio de Carondelet in Quito. The current constitution was written by the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly elected in 2007, and was approved by referendum in 2008.
The current President Rafael Correa
The executive branch includes 25 ministries. Provincial governors and councilors (mayors, aldermen, and parish boards) are directly elected. The National Assembly of Ecuador meets throughout the year except for recesses in July and December. There are thirteen permanent committees. Justices of the National Court are appointed by the Council of Social Participation, for nine year terms.
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, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, the Andean Community of Nations and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
[edit] Tags: | |
| Administrative divisions | |
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Main articles: Provinces of Ecuador and Cantons of Ecuador
Ecuador is divided into 24 provinces (Spanish: provincias), each with its own administrative capital:
Administrative divisions of Ecuador
Province
Surface (km²)
Population (2010)[14]
Capital
1
Azuay
8,639
702,893
Cuenca
2
Bolivar
3,254
182,744
Guaranda
3
Cañar
3,908
223,463
Azogues
4
Carchi
3,699
165,659
Tulcan
5
Chimborazo
5,287
452,352
Riobamba
6
Cotopaxi
6,569
406,798
Latacunga
7
El Oro
5,988
588,546
Machala
8
Esmeraldas
15,216
520,711
Esmeraldas
9
Galápagos
8,010
22,770
Puerto Baquerizo Moreno
10
Guayas
17,139
3,573,003
Guayaquil
11
Imbabura
4,599
400,359
Ibarra
12
Loja
11,027
446,743
Loja
13
Los Rios
6,254
765,274
Babahoyo
14
Manabi
18,400
1,345,779
Portoviejo
15
Morona Santiago
25,690
147,886
Macas
16
Napo
13,271
104,047
Tena
17
Orellana
20,773
137,848
Puerto Francisco de Orellana
18
Pastaza
29,520
84,329
Puyo
19
Pichincha
9,494
2,570,201
Quito
20
Santa Elena
3,763
301,168
Santa Elena
21
Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas
3,857
365,965
Santo Domingo
22
Sucumbios
18,612
174,522
Nueva Loja
23
Tungurahua
3,334
500,775
Ambato
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