Ecuador indigenous, president open talks over protests

President Lenn Moreno and leaders of Ecuador's indigenous peoples sat down Sunday evening to a nationally broadcast negotiating session aimed at defusing nearly two weeks of protests that have paralysed the economy and left seven dead and hundreds injured in clashes with police.

Sitting around a U-shaped table, Moreno and indigenous leaders took turns laying out their positions in talks mediated by the United Nations' chief representative in Ecuador and broadcast live online and on national TV.

Wearing the feathered headdress and face paint of the Achuar people of the Amazon rain forest, the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations, Jaime Vargas, demanded the immediate cancellation of Moreno's October 1 decree ending fuel subsidies as part of an International Monetary Fund austerity package.

"This isn't a demand of the indigenous people, it's the demand of the country," Vargas said.

"We haven't come to form negotiating commissions."
"Everything must be aimed at stabilising the country, at stabilizing our severely degraded budget situation. Fundamentally, our agreements must be aimed at solving problems."
"The government measures are really bad for poor people like me. The government wants something that we are rejecting."