Andrea Moreta

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An agent provocateur is defined as a person who induces other people to be violent or commit illegal acts to incriminate them or discredit their cause. On the other hand, Steven Chase’s book mentions that agents provocateurs are false activists who work undercover on behalf of the movement’s opponents. These instigate violence as a means to discredit those who are part of the movement that exercise nonviolent resistance.

The job of agents provocateurs is to look for vulnerable activists who “don’t know what they’re doing” or are “confused” in order to suggest other forms of action, such as disorder, violence towards state security agents or carrying out acts of vandalism. . In this way, vulnerable activists align themselves with the goal of agents provocateurs to cause destabilization, giving sufficient reasons for repression.

In demonstrations of nonviolent civil resistance, power elites seek to weaken these movements, breaking nonviolent discipline and provoking violence within. To achieve this, they use severe repression and employ spies and agitators to justify more intense government repression and damage the image of the movement in the public opinion. An example of this was the nonviolent civil resistance against the Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico Castañeda in 1944. Protesters presented various demands such as salary increases for teachers, university autonomy, the reinstatement of fired teachers, the release of imprisoned students, and freedom academic. Ubico used agents provocateurs to justify the repression against protesters and damage the movement at different levels. Agents provocateurs aim to destabilize protesters in nonviolent civil resistance. These agents know the weaknesses and tactics of the movement and use incitement, influence and trust to infiltrate protesters. Their planning consists of doing the opposite of the movement’s objectives, suggesting the adoption of violent tactics instead of nonviolent discipline.

In the case of Ecuador, for protesters and state security agents, the perspective of agents provocateurs had its impact and meaning within the protests of October 2019 after the signing of neoliberal economic agreements with the International Monetary Fund. Ten proposals emerged, among which the gradual elimination of fuel subsidies stands out. This caused transporters, activists and, mainly, members of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), to join the social protest as an exercise of the right to civil resistance.

From the point of view of the protesters, it is alleged that during the October protests they maintained nonviolent discipline at both the organizational and individual levels, and the participants exclusively exercised their right to demonstrate. However, they also allege that there was persecution and condemnation, mainly of the agents provocateurs or infiltrators who, according to Patricia Tuquerez, a member of Conaie who participated in the protests, had a rock and punk appearance and carried microphones on different parts of their bodies. They were acting in opposition to the nonviolent discipline of the protesters. On the other hand, Jaime Vargas, president of Conaie in 2019, alleged that state security agents had also infiltrated the nonviolent resistance movement, generating violence and repressing protesters. This criterion is related to Lourdes Tibán, former indigenous assembly member, who highlighted the participation of people from the Ecuadorian police service in the demonstrations with the objective of provoking or validating the violent attack of those who were in nonviolent civil resistance.

In short, the perspective of the protesters is that the agents provocateurs start out as the unknown protester since they do not belong to any movement or organization—they do not belong to nor are they recognized by the militants who participate in the demonstrations. However, by being present it becomes an ally of strategic planning and nonviolent discipline to the point of actually taking action. Once set in motion, the infiltrated agent promotes violent action as a form of resistance.

On the other hand, state security agents maintain that the agents provocateurs are not part of the indigenous movement, but are outsiders infiltrating to cause destabilization and damage. According to them, these agents pursue other interests that are not related to legitimate indigenous rights. In other words, they were people who had the ability to influence the protesters, making them react contingently. That is to say, the reaction of the protesters was a direct result of the influence and provocation exerted by the agents provocateurs, causing a disorderly, violent environment and seeking the discrediting of those who were in nonviolent resistance.

State agents believe that the agents provocateurs were responsible for the disturbances and damage during the demonstrations. Although they recognize their presence, some members of state security raise the need to detect and expel the provocateurs, while others suggest that the strategy is to identify them to take control measures. Thus, the perspective of the majority of state agents, members of the armed forces and national police present at the October 2019 protests in Ecuador is related to what the protesters said: the provocateurs intensified the violence, managing to denigrate the social protest and that the rest of civil society considers their struggle as invalid because it is violent.

In short, agents provocateurs are used to destabilize and repress protesters engaged in nonviolent civil resistance. They act in a contradictory way: encouraging actions contrary to the established power, but creating a climate that justifies repression. Their goal is to weaken the social movement and divert its focus toward violence instead of nonviolence. Both the protesters and state security agents in the events analyzed recognized that the figure of the agent provocateur causes disorder and violence at the national and international level, because his actions do not fall within the framework of peace, much less encourage dialogue.

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This text published on September 20, 2023 is part of a postgraduate academic research on the identity, actions and effects of agents provocateurs or infiltrators for the Master’s Degree in International Relations at Flacso Ecuador.

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Graduated as a lawyer in Ecuador. Currently, he works in free practice and is finishing his postgraduate studies as a Master of International Relations with a mention in Security and Conflict at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso Ecuador).

Photo: courtesy of Billy Navarrete, executive secretary of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights

Translated by Damian Vasquez