QUITO A national transport strike that paralyzed this country for 12 days ended Friday, two days after President Jamil Mahuad rolled back a 13.1 percent fuel price hike. "This is good news for the people of Ecuador," Mahuad said after the meeting. "We want to have peace in the country, so that work and production can develop without incident, because that is what our country needs," he said.

The strike was called off after transport union leaders and the government signed an agreement at the Carondelet Palace, the executive seat, said Nelson Chavez, a union leader for the drivers. Truck and taxi drivers agreed to get back behind the wheel immediately, and bus drivers will return to their routes here and in other cities. In addition to rolling back the fuel tax that sparked the strike, Mahuad agreed to look for ways to give drivers a preferential exchange rate to pay off dollar-denominated debt incurred in the purchase of new vehicles.

The government also agreed to look for legal ways, "in the pursuit of of peace and in mutual understanding," to release drivers arrested during the strike, said Interior Minister Vladimiro Alvarez. But Congress on Friday already had issued a pardon effective yesterday to all 536 people arrested for participating in the strike. Alvarez said the state of emergency would be lifted as soon as "conditions justify it." He said Mahuad had agreed to create a commission to look for ways to open up the union's frozen assets in Ecuador's banks.

On March 15, Mahuad had ordered a partial freezing of bank deposits to head off a national financial crisis. Even before the deal was reached, buses began to reappear on the streets both here and in the main port town of Guayaquil. Thousands of teachers, farmers, health care workers, and Indians had joined the national protest against Mahuad's economic policies. (AFP)