BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

 QUITO, Ecuador -- After his first 100 days in office, Ecuador's president Gustavo
 Noboa -- the country's fifth president in the past five years -- is trying to make the
 most of his two biggest assets: not being a politician and having a reputation for
 honesty in a country ravaged by corruption.

 The big question is whether that will suffice to get oil-rich Ecuador out of its
 economic and political bankruptcy.

 Noboa, the little-known former vice president who took office after a Jan. 21
 military coup, has done better than expected so far. But not many people are
 betting that restless army colonels with links to belligerent Indian leaders will
 allow him to finish his term in 2003.

 ``I'm like the members of Alcoholics Anonymous: I take it one day at a time,''
 Noboa said in a one-hour interview at his office. ``This country is unpredictable,
 and I'm trying to get it to recover hope.''

 One thing he won't do, he says, is abandon the presidential palace if there is a
 coup, as his former boss Jamil Mahuad did in January. Asked what he would do,
 Noboa became serious and said, ``They [the coup plotters] will have to take me
 out of here dead.''

 Noboa, 62, who was installed by Congress after the coup, is a former university
 rector with little charisma and without the speaking skills of some of his
 predecessors. But many people describe him as honest and without illusions of
 grandeur, which would be a novelty in this country's recent history.

 Other analysts note that his lack of a political constituency could become a
 problem in coming months, as he carries out a much-needed economic
 belt-tightening program that is already generating increasingly belligerent street
 protests by radical Indian groups.

 ``If he makes it through July, I will give him a grade of eight on a scale of one to
 10,'' said Rosalia Arteaga, who was Ecuador's president for less than a week in
 1997. ``Right now, I give him a six.''

 LOWERING TENSIONS

 One of Noboa's most controversial measures has been proposing an amnesty for
 the populist colonels who led the January coup.

 Asked whether this won't set a terrible precedent, Noboa said, ``I think it will lower
 tensions in the country. It will lower tensions among the armed forces' hierarchy,
 and among the Indians who were linked to the coup plotters. Ecuador needs a
 peace process.''

 Critics say Noboa's proposed amnesty is an invitation to a new coup, because it
 leaves open the possibility that a military court will allow the imprisoned colonels
 to rejoin the army. Most of them were military academy lieutenant colonels who
 are due for promotion next year, and would thus be entitled to command troops.

 Noboa said Ecuador has gone through so many traumas over the past five years
 that there is ``an impressive lack of governability'' that needs to be addressed.

 He added that the country has had several other amnesties in the past, including
 two for former President Abdala Bucaram and one for army officers who plotted
 against former President Leon Febres Cordero. ``Why were those amnesties
 good, and this one bad?'' he asked.

 On the economy, he is going ahead with Mahuad's last-minute plan to adopt the
 U.S. dollar as Ecuador's official currency, in an effort to guarantee stability. Last
 year the value of Ecuador's sucre plummeted and the country was headed for
 hyperinflation. Dollarization was a desperate measure to keep that from
 happening, he said.

 ``On Jan. 22, there weren't many other options. If you rewind the videotape and
 look at the events of that day, you will see that we had to make decisions at 7
 a.m., after not having slept more than half an hour in the previous 24 hours.

 ``If we hadn't taken the decision to dollarize, the currency would have soared to
 50,000 sucres to the dollar within a day.''

 While Ecuadoreans complain that prices have gone up sharply in recent months,
 the exchange rate has remained stable at 25,000 sucres to the dollar since
 Noboa took office.

 The president said he will not cave in to Indian activist groups who oppose
 dollarization and planned cuts in government subsidies for gasoline, which sells
 for between 45 cents and 75 cents a gallon.

 ``The problem is the politicization of the Indian leadership,'' Noboa said. ``They
 want to take the government for themselves, and this is no secret.''

 ELECTION ROUTE

 He stressed that ``while a respectable group, the Indians do not represent all of
 Ecuador'' and ``must understand that if they want to take power, they have to win
 elections.''

 Indian leaders say they represent 40 percent of Ecuadoreans, but some
 academic studies put the figure of the indigenous population at 17 percent.

 Noboa said he is sending a delegation to the United States this week to seek a
 renegotiation of Ecuador's debt, and has ambitious plans to open up state-run oil
 and telecommunications industries to the private sector.

 ``We all know that this year will be difficult, and that between now and December
 we will have problems,'' he concluded. ``But I'm optimistic. Things will get better.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald