State of South America (270 ' 670 km2), crossed by the equator, it is limited to north by Colombia, the east and the south by Peru and the west by the Pacific Ocean.
ColonizationThe territory corresponding to the current Ecuador, passed to the XV E century under the domination of the INCA, was conquered in 1531-1532 by Francisco Pizarro.
Released of the Spanish supervision by the general Sweetens (victory of Pichincha, 1822), the country constituted, with Colombia and Venezuela, the federation of Large-Colombia until 1830, date on which he proclaimed himself independent. The remainder of the XIXe century is dominated by a rough fight between conservatives and liberals then by the dictatorship of Gabriel García Moreno (1861-1875).
The XXe century
To the XX E century, Ecuador remains the prey of disorders, which comes to worsen the cryptogamic disease (devastation of cocoa plantations, then monoculture of the country). From 1934, the political life is marked by the personality of Jose Velasco Ibarra, elected five times chair and reversed by a military coup d'etat in 1972. Following the war against Peru (1941-1942), Ecuador loses almost half of its territory.
In August 1992, Sixto Durán Ballén (preserving) is elected president of the Republic. A new frontier litigation with Peru burst in January 1995 in connection with the delimitation of the border in the cordillera of the Condor. In this area, the demarcation had not been carried out following the protocol of Rio de Janeiro putting fine at the conflict of 1942. This business seemed classified when the Ecuadorian soldiers invaded the asserted zone. This forwarding made it possible to the soldiers to justify the maintenance of the budget of the army which president Durán Ballen wanted to reduce. The elections of 1996 carried in charge of the State populist Abdalá Bucaram Ortiz, quickly relieved for mental incapacity and temporarily replaced by the former president of the Congress, Fabian Alarcon (1997).
On July 12th, 1998, the Christian Democrat Jamil Mahuad, is elected with the presidency of the Republic. In 1999, the country is in the grip of an economic crisis without precedent. The dissatisfaction growing with the population, which claims the departure of president Mahuad, resulted by the multiplication of the strike movements and many demonstrations against the austerity policy implemented by the government, envisaging the replacement of the national currency in particular, sugar, by the American dollar. President Mahuad is constrained to issue the state of emergency (March).
At the beginning of the year 2000, new popular demonstrations supported by part of the army lead the Ecuadorian Congress to decide in favor of the dismissal of president Mahuad (on on January 21st) and of the vice-president nomination, Gustavo Noboa Berejano to replace it. This decision took to course the demonstrators, who formed a triumvirate consisted the chief of staff of the armies, the general Carlos Mendoza, the former president of the Supreme court, Carlos Solorzano, and chair it Confederation of the indigenous nations of Ecuador (Conaie), Antonio Vargas. Conaie, associated to the main trade unions, indeed established a “Parliament of the people of Ecuador”, shortly after the proclamation of the state of emergency. Invested by the Congress on on January 26th, new president, Gustavo Noboa Berejano, her intention declares to maintain the “dollarisation” disputed by the demonstrators.