GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (Reuters) -- Ecuadorean Indians who forced
                   former President Jamil Mahuad out of office last month gathered signatures
                   on Sunday to demand a vote to dissolve Congress and free mutinous troops
                   who had backed a coup.

                   "We're not hoping to get one million signatures but five million," said Antonio
                   Vargas, head of Ecuador's Confederation of National Indians. "This will
                   allow us to hold a popular consultation in which the people can decide their
                   future."

                   The Chief Electoral Officer's bureau said at least 600,000 signatures need to
                   be collected to hold a plebiscite.

                   The plebiscite would ask Ecuador's citizens whether they want to dissolve
                   the 123-member Congress and free the 100 soldiers who took part in the
                   popular uprising, Vargas said.

                   The speaker of Congress, Juan Jose Pons, said he had no other choice but
                   to acknowledge the idea of such a plebiscite constituted a legally valid
                   mechanism.

                   Unlike leaders of other Latin American countries, Ecuador's short-serving
                   presidents have been unable to pass tough reforms needed to modernize a
                   nation crippled by a squabbling Congress, protests and a debt that equals
                   the size of its economy.

                   Gustavo Noboa became Ecuador's fifth president in three years last month
                   after a military and Indian revolt. But Noboa, Mahuad's vice president, plans
                   to press on with his predecessor's economic reforms, including adopting the
                   dollar to pay most debts.

                   That last plan was the final straw for many of Ecuador's 12.4 million people,
                   65 percent of whom live in poverty and earn $4 a month.

                   In the plebiscite, voters would also be asked if they agree with dollarizing.
                   "Ecuador is in a state of war and this time we'll definitely take power,"
                   Vargas told reporters.

                   The roots of Ecuador's economic and social woes go back for years. The
                   recent unraveling began in September when the Andean nation became the
                   first country ever to default on its Brady bonds, shocking world markets and
                   losing what little investor confidence it had. Brady bonds had been created
                   to help debt-ridden nations.

                   Ecuador had the highest inflation -- 60.7 percent last year -- in all of Latin
                   America last year. And it currency, the sucre, shed two-thirds of its value as
                   the economy contracted 7.5 percent. Eighteen of 33 banks have been taken
                   over by the government since 1998.

                    Copyright 2000 Reuters.