I've been following sketchily Latin American politics for some years now, starting with the Argentinian financial crisis, partly through Martin Costi's citizen-on-the-street interviews, partly through the BBC and Guardian. Thus I wasn't totally surprised at the Ecuadoran un-coup this past week, I knew that there was a lot of dissatisfaction in the streets.
But first, the trigger of it I found interesting, as a mirror of our own situation: the flash point was apparently the president (elected as a "man of the people" but not living up to that promise) taking it into his head to pack the courts.
For some reason, Equadorans didn't like the idea of all the branches of their government being consolidated under one rule.
And they said so. Loudly. Despite efforts from their media whores to avoid the topic.
This is where it gets really interesting: it was an underground radio station - literally underground, in a basement, that is - holding "open mike" sessions where citizens could air their grievances and share stories and build solidarity nationwide, that helped bring about peaceful regime change.
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