President Daniel Noboa escaped injury after his convoy was attacked by protesters in a rural town on Tuesday.
His government has labeled the attack an assassination attempt, saying that shots were fired at the car, as political tensions in the country intensify.
Video footage showed protesters pelting the convoy with rocks, cracking windows as the cars tried to pass.
The government said that five people were detained after the incident, with Environment Minister Ines Manzano saying the car had evidence of bullet damage, a claim that Ecuadorean law enforcement is yet to reinforce.
“The level of aggression that the caravan was attacked with shows that this was a clear assassination attempt and act of terrorism against the president,” Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said on local television early on Wednesday.
“Clearly we have [protest] leaders turning up the heat on the street, who are calling for the takeover of cities,” Loffredo said.
Indigenous protests after fuel subsidies cut in austerity drive
The national Indigenous federation CONAIE, which launched a strike 17 days ago, blamed the government for the violence that broke out on Tuesday in El Tambo, south of the capital, Quito.
It alleged that law enforcement launched a brutal attack on people including elderly women before the convoy arrived, and accused the government of entering an area they knew to be volatile “to justify their war policy.”
The group also called on international bodies to remain observant.
A banana mogul turned politician, on pledges to tackle rising crime in the country and impose austerity measures to steady the state’s financial problems.
He’s frequently used emergency powers, including deploying the military on the streets, to tackle crime, .
Protests also intensified in size and frequency in mid-September when Noboa stopped diesel subsidies, leading to sharp rises in fuel prices.
Several previous attempts by past governments to scrap the subsidies, identified by various observers including the World Bank as an increasingly expensive barrier to more useful public spending, met similar protests and were soon abandoned.
Noboa has said scrapping the subsidies will save more than $1 billion that can be spent on public services but this has done little to calm the mood.
On Sunday, his government declared a state of emergency amid the unrest.
UN calls for calm, interior minister says more arrests may follow
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday condemned the violence against Noboa’s motorcade, and expressed deep concern “about the situation amid ongoing protests,” calling for an end to all violence and on all sides to engage in peaceful dialogue to resolve their differences, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg said on Wednesday said his ministry was also launching an investigation to see if the necessary steps to protect Noboa’s convoy had been taken.
Later on, he said the government would also seek to detain more people involved in Tuesday’s attack.
“We have five people detained, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only one,” Reimberg said, adding that video footage would be used to identify other suspects.
“The world was a witness to what happened yesterday,” he said. “They’re responsible for the chaos and the violent acts.
Edited by: Wesley Rahn
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