Deep Politics Forum

Chaos in Ecuador amid alleged coup attempt

Ecuador President Rafael Correato talks soldiers from Quito's main regiment, 30 Septembre, 2010.
By RFI

Ecuador has declared a state of emergency after police stormed Congress in the capital Quito. President Rafael Correa denounces what he says is a coup attempt against his country, and fearing for his life, he has sought refuge in a hospital.

“It is a coup attempt led by the opposition and certain sections of the armed forces and the police,” Correa told local television, accusing the police of trying to break into a room where he had fled.

The country has declared a state of emergency, enabling the military to take over the functions of the police that are taking part in the rebellion.

Dozens of police units took over government buildings in the country's other two main cities, Guayaquil and Cuenca.

However, the armed forces chief Ernesto Gonzales, threw his support behind Correa after a group of soldiers seized the main airport of the capital. "We live in a state which is governed by laws, and we are subordinate to the highest authority which is the president of the republic," he said.

The leftist Correa was re-elected last year to a second term as president of the country of some 14.5 million people, which is bordered by Colombia and Peru.

Peru has closed its border with Ecuador and has called on Colombia to do the same until Correa's authority has been restored.
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[BBC]
Ecuador declares state of emergency amid 'coup attempt'

Mr Correa was forced to flee a protest at a barracks when tear gas was fired by angry troops

A state of emergency has been declared in Ecuador after President Rafael Correa accused the opposition and security forces of a coup attempt.

Mr Correa was earlier forced to flee a protest in the capital, Quito, after tear gas was fired. Troops took over the main airport, forcing it to close.

Unrest was reported in several towns, as Peru closed its border with Ecuador.

The protesters are angry at a new law passed on Wednesday that ends bonuses and other benefits for public servants.
Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

If you want to kill the president, here he is. Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough”

On Thursday morning, members of the armed forces and police angry at the austerity measures occupied several barracks and set up road blocks across Ecuador to demand they be abandoned by the government.

Television stations showed images of police setting tyres on fire in the streets of Quito, Guayaquil and other cities. The National Assembly building was also occupied.

In a speech to soldiers from Quito's main barracks, President Correa said: "If you want to kill the president, here he is. Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough.

"If you want to seize the barracks, if you want to leave citizens undefended, if you want to betray the mission of the police force, go ahead. But this government will do what has to be done. This president will not take a step back."

However, Mr Correa was forced to flee the barracks wearing a gas mask shortly afterwards when tear gas was fired by the protesters.

Ecuador has a history of political instability

The president was later treated for the effects of the gas at a police hospital, from where he told local media that he had been "attacked".

"They threw tear gas at us. One exploded near my face. It stunned me and my wife for a few seconds, probably minutes," he said. "I had to put on a gas mask and some cowards took it off me so I would suffocate.

"I mean they shot at the president - it's incredible - our security forces, our national police."
Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

We live in a state which is governed by laws, and we are subordinate to the highest authority which is the president of the republic”
Gen Luis Ernesto Gonzalez Villarreal
Chief of Armed Forces Joint Command

"It is a coup attempt led by the opposition and certain sections of the armed forces and the police," he added. "Whatever happens to me I want to express my love for my family and my homeland."

Meanwhile, about 300 air force personnel and soldiers took control of the runway at Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport, causing flights to be grounded.

The protesters carried signs demanding the government give more respect to the military over benefits, witnesses told the Reuters news agency.

The US embassy said Guayaquil's airport was also closed and warned US citizens to "stay in their homes or current location, if safe".

Despite the unrest, the head of Armed Forces Joint Command, Gen Luis Ernesto Gonzalez Villarreal, said the troops remained loyal.

"We live in a state which is governed by laws, and we are subordinate to the highest authority which is the president of the republic," he said.

"We will take whatever appropriate action the government decides on."


The country's central bank chief, Diego Borja, meanwhile urged its citizens not to withdraw money from the country's banks amid reports of looting. Many schools and business were also closed because of the unrest.

One BBC News website reader in Guayaquil said three of the city's banks had been robbed, and described Ecuador as a "disaster zone".

"We don't know what will happen," he said. "There are no law enforcement agencies working. You can't go out in the streets."

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez appealed to the people of South America to defend his fellow leader, while Peruvian President Alan Garcia ordered his nation's border with Ecuador closed until Mr Correa's "democratic authority" was re-established.

The US state department said it was "closely monitoring" the situation.

Members of Mr Correa's left-wing party have threatened to block proposals to shrink the country's bureaucracy, prompting him to consider disbanding Congress and ruling by decree until new elections.

Such a move would have to be approved by the Constitutional Court.

Ecuador has a history of political instability. Protests toppled three presidents during economic turmoil in the decade before Mr Correa, a 47-year-old US-trained economist, took power in 2007.

A spokesman for the CIA is reported to have said : "We don't know even know where Ecuador is , so it's nothing to do with us.

Danny Jarman Wrote:A spokesman for the CIA is reported to have said : "We don't know even know where Ecuador is , so it's nothing to do with us.

Well, that made me laugh.....not surprisingly Correa is one of the new generation of 'Uncle Sam Off Our Backs' Presidents in Central and South America. There has been a coup attempt in almost every one.......recently, I mean......there is a very long history of US meddling and overthrows since the Spanish left. While there are elites and reactionary forces indigenous to these countries, all too often in the past it has been shown they had support, prodding, a 'green light' or the who whole thing was instigated by the US - to again install a right-wing government friendly to American and 'Western' Corporate interests. Time will tell...but the CIA and State Dept. sure as hell know where Ecuador is....for a long time they had one of their puppet dictators there; trained their torture techniques there and complained when Correa became President.

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Security forces loyal to Ecuador's president have stormed a hospital in the capital, Quito, where Rafael Correa was trapped by police officers protesting over plans to cut their benefits.

Correa was rushed out of the building after the soldiers moved amid heavy gunfire late on Thursday.

"President Correa is leaving in a wheelchair and a mask so as not to breath in gas," state media said.

Crowds of supporters celebrated, waving flags and cheering, as Correa appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace in Quito shortly after his release.

"We have five people wounded but nobody killed, I hope that that is right. I hope that they will recover very quickly," he said, speaking about the troops who had carried out the operation.

Correa said that the officers who had staged the violent demonstrations had brought "shame to the national police".

"They had not even read the law that caused them to betray their country," he said.

President attacked

Correa had been taken to the hospital after being attacked with tear gas when he tried to speak to officers at a police barracks earlier in the day.

The president had told local media from the hospital that he would not negotiate with the protesters while he was "practically captive" in the hospital.

"I'll leave here as president or they'll take me out as a corpse," Correa said.

"The people who have come to see me are very polite. They've told me, 'We can talk' and I told them, 'When I get out of here, we can communicate and I'll even have lunch with your families to discuss all the police's problems.

"While this is the situation, there's nothing to talk about, nothing to agree about. And don't you dare bring me something to sign."

Clashes between Correas's supporters and the protesting police officers outside the hospital left at least one person dead and six others injured on Thursday, according to Miguel Carvajal, the security minister.

The military is currently in charge of public order in the country after a state of emergency was declared, with civil liberties suspended and soldiers authorised to carry out searches without a warrant.

Loyal military

Ecuador's army chief had demanded that the renegade police officers end an uprising against the government.

General Ernesto Gonzalez, the army chief, has demanded that the renegade officers end their uprising and said those involved "would have their rights respected" if they turned themselves in.



He said that the military remained loyal to Correa. "We are in a state of law. We are loyal to the maximum authority, which is the president," he told reporters.

Ricardo Patino, Ecuador's foreign minister, had called on a large crowd gathered outside the presidential palace to "rescue" Correa.

"[He] has said that there are people trying to get in from the roof and attack him," Patino told the crowd. "I want to invite the brave people here below to go with us to rescue the president."

Witnesses said there was looting in Quito and in the city of Guayaquil, and that many workers and school students were being sent home.

Police in the cities held protests at their headquarters. Officers in Guayaquil blocked some roads leading to the coastal city, Ecuador's most populous.

"In front of every police station there are tyres burning with smoke rising into the evening sky," Stephan Kueffner, a Quito-based journalist, told Al Jazeera.

"The police force guarding the congress building has also joined the strike and therefore there are a few members of the legislature that are in isolation."

Patino played down the severity of the protests.

"This is not a popular mobilisation, it is not a popular uprising, it is an uprising by the police who are ill-informed," he told the TV network Telesur.

Diego Borja, the central bank chief, called for calm and urged Ecuadoreans not to withdraw money from banks.

Political impasse

Ecuador, an member with a population of 14 million, has a long history of political instability. Street protests toppled three presidents during economic turmoil in the decade before Correa took power.
A tear gas canister was thrown at Correa as he attempted to address police officers in Quito [EPA]


"The police are taking advantage of a political crisis in the National Assembly, the congress, in which the ruling party is split over legislation," Colin Harding, a Latin America expert, told Al Jazeera in London.

"They are taking the opportunity to take to the streets to press their demands."

Members of Correa's own left-wing party are blocking legislative proposals aimed at cutting state costs, prompting him to mull disbanding congress, a move that would let him rule by decree until new elections, one of his ministers said.

Ecuador's two-year-old constitution allows the president to declare a political impasse that could dissolve congress until a new presidential and parliamentary elections can be held.

The measure would, however, have to be approved by the Constitutional Court to take effect.

"This a scenario that nobody would want, but it is a possibility when the conditions for change do not exist," Doris Solis, the policy minister, said after meeting Correa and other senior officials late on Wednesday.

"A decision still has not been made," she told reporters.

"Lawmakers in our coalition have the obligation to be coherent with our project for change."

'Citizen's revolution'

More than half of the 124-member Congress are officially allied with Correa, but the president has blasted congressmen from his own Country Alliance party for not going along with his proposals for shrinking the country's bureaucracy.

Correa, a US trained economist, was first elected in 2006 promising a "citizens' revolution" aimed at increasing state control of Ecuador's natural resources and fighting what he calls the country's corrupt elite.

His government alienated international capital markets when it defaulted on $3.2 billion in global bonds two years ago. Correa described the debt as "illegitimate."

Cash has been tight since then as the country relies on multilateral loans and bilateral lending to meet its international financing obligations.

Once in power, Correa backed the rewriting of the constitution to tilt the balance of power toward the executive. He easily won re-election under the new constitution in 2009, and he is allowed to stand again in 2013.

Hornberger’s Blog
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2008-04-22.asp
Will the CIA Kill or Oust Ecuador’s President?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa may not be long for this world, both in a political sense and in genuine life-or-death sense. He recently fired his defense minister, army chief of intelligence, and commanders of the army, air force, and joint chiefs.

Why might those firings cost Correa his job or even his life? Because the reason he fired them was that Ecuador’s intelligence systems were “totally infiltrated and subjugated to the CIA.” As other rulers around the world, including democratically elected ones, have learned the hard way, bucking the CIA is a real no-no that sometimes leads to coups and assassinations.

What’s the CIA doing infiltrating Ecuador’s military intelligence systems? Good question! Maybe it’s because the CIA still fears 'the threat of communism'. Don’t forget that that was the apparent rationale for the U.S. government’s support of Operation Condor, the campaign of assassination and torture co-sponsored by the brutal regimes in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru during the 1970s. Don’t forget also that many of the brutal military personnel in those regimes received their training at the U.S. Army’s infamous School of the Americas, famous for, among other things, its torture manuals.

To make matters worse for Correa, he promises to throw the U.S. military out of his country when the U.S. government’s lease at its base in Manta expires in 2009. The U.S. government spent $60 million to build the base in 1999, securing a 10-year lease that provided no rent to be paid to Ecuador.

So, why does the U.S. military have a $60 million military base in Ecuador? The base is part of the U.S. government’s much-vaunted 30-year-old war on drugs, one of the U.S. Empire’s never-ending wars around the world. The base houses Awacs surveillance planes whose purported mission is to search for international drug smugglers.

What irked President Correa is that apparently his CIA-infested intelligence services fed classified information to Colombian officials that led to a Colombian military attack on a Colombian rebel camp that was located inside Ecuador. One big problem was that when Correa’s intelligence services leaked the information to Colombia, they left Correa (their boss) out of the loop.

The final nail in Correa’s coffin might be the fact that he is an ally of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez, who himself is a likely target of CIA ouster or assassination.

The good news for Americans in all this is that the Ecuadorian people are doing their best to rid their country of the CIA and the U.S. military. Maybe the Ecuadorans will start a trend in which all other countries will do the same. While it would obviously be best if the American people were to dismantle their government’s overseas empire themselves, having foreigners do it instead by throwing the CIA and the Pentagon out of their countries would be just as effective and beneficial — to both the United States and the people of the world.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Quito’s Police: CIA breeding ground

Posted on September 30, 2010 by machetera| Leave a comment
“I applied and was accepted at the Escuela superior de policía de Quito, and studied there from September 1992 to August 1995.”
Guy Philippe, speaking to Peter Hallward about his background prior to leading an armed insurgency that contributed to the removal of Haiti’s elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide.
Report Confirmed: U.S. Intelligence Thoroughly Penetrated the Ecuadoran Police – español
By Jean-Guy Allard
Translation: Machetera
The uprising by putschist elements of the Ecuadoran police against President Rafael Correa confirms an alarming report about the infiltration of the Ecuadoran police by U.S. intelligence services released in 2008, which indicated that many members of the police corps developed a “dependency” on the U.S. Embassy.
The report made clear that the Ecuadoran Police “maintain informal economic dependence on the United States, to pay for informants, training, equipment and operations.”
The systematic use of corruption techniques by the CIA in order to acquire the “goodwill” of police officers was described and denounced on many occasions by the ex-CIA agent Philip Agee who, before leaving the agency’s ranks, was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Quito.
In his official report, distributed at the end of October 2008, the Ecuadoran Defense Minister Javier Ponce revealed how U.S. diplomats dedicated themselves to the corruption of the police as well as officers from the armed forces.
In confirmation, the leadership of the Ecuadoran police then announced that it would sanction any of its agents who collaborated with the United States, while the U.S. Embassy claimed “transparency” in its support of Ecuador.
“We work with the Ecuadoran government, with the military, with the Police, on objectives that are very important for security,” said the U.S. Ambassador in Quito, Heather Hodges.
However, the diplomat told journalists that she would not comment “on intelligence matters.”
For her part, the public affairs officer, Marta Youth, categorically refused to comment on the Ecuadoran government’s denunciations, which included complaints about CIA participation in an operation with Colombia that led to a military attack by the Colombian military against FARC guerrillas on Ecuadoran territory on March 1st of that year.
The head of Army intelligence, Mario Pazmiño, had been removed for concealing information related to the attack on the FARC.
In recent months, U.S. officials have appeared in Ecuador under the pretext of extending relations between Ecuador and the United States. Arturo Valenzuela, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, repeatedly visited President Correa, leading up to a visit from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Valenzuela was accompanied by Todd Stern, “Climate Change Envoy,” also known for his CIA ties.
Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.[B] This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.[/B]

And it's being orchestrated by Lucio Guitierrez, the President of Ecuador betwen 2003 and 2005 who was ousted due to a popular uprising. Not only is Lucio Guitierrez an ex-Prez, he's a retired army colonel and the head of the opposition Sociedad Patriotica party. He's also been vociferous in his opposition in the last few days, having blasted him from the cozy surrounding of Miami (where else?) last week.


Today, speaking from Brasilia, Guitierrez called for the dissolution of parliament and a new election "to avoid bloodshed". And thus his tips his hand. Also, his lawyer was spotted as one of the crowd of officers that stormed and cut off the transmission of Ecuador's State TV channel tonight., which is what you call a dead giveaway in this game. Here below is the translated money quote from Guitierrez, meanwhile Correa has just said he'll either leave the hospital where's he's holed up "as President or as a cadaver". He has a good turn of phrase, gotta be said.

Wow. Was today exciting or what?


Even in a gasmask, yowza.
Holy fucking moly. Just when I thought nothing was going on in the world, a fascist coup decided to go down (and fuck up) in Ecuador. The federal police took the president prisoner in the military hospital where he'd recently had knee surgery, and tear-gassed rioting ensued. So far, the Red Cross reports two dead (both police) and 88 injured. (Sadly, we can expect these tolls to rise.)
President Correa finally made it out of the hospital, with the help of a hefty contingent of loyal soldiers and citizens who fought it out barrel-to-barrel with the police in an intense firefight; he was spirited out from an underground parking garage in a grey truck. His rescuers pulled him out in a wheelchair with a gasmask on his face to protect him against the tear gas which the cops were shooting with no regard for the other patients at the hospital (including at least 20 newborn babies, so's you know. Yeah, those fascists value human life so much!)
I ended up spending the night hunched over a hot (and often balky) tweeter, RTing and translating headlines from Spanish to English. And biting my nails for President Correa, and vowing to kill anyone who harmed one hair on that fine head of his. And cursing the crappy reporting from all the Anglo sources, including the usual shitty suspects (Chicken Noodle Network; the fucking Torygraph, with its creative use of quotation marks) and the otherwise excellent (Al-Jazeera, HOW COULD YOU?) They all wrongly reported that Correa had cut police salaries; in fact, he has doubled them. And there is ample evidence that the CIA was behind this one, too...where is it ever not?
Anyhow, other than my own frenetic tweetlings, there was Otto, keeping score here, here, here and here. He was awesome in his own right, and I was thankful he was still tweeting when my birdie temporarily lost its cheep.
And how about those UNASUR leaders? In spite of tremendous political differences, they were unanimous in condemning the coup. They are meeting in Buenos Aires as I write this. Chavecito was first and loudest in condemning the coup; Fidel predicted it would fall apart quickly, and it did. Evo even suggested, in a ballsy move, that they all fly to Quito to make clear to the police that Correa was to be freed at once, no fucking around. (Just when I thought I couldn't possibly love those guys any more than I already did. That'll teach me.)
Needless to say, tomorrow's FLFB entry is all sewn up, and I won't be left scrounging for material as I'd feared I might. If anything, I'll have a surplus. Can you guess what I'll be blogging, kiddies? (Hint: Diabetics, please have your insulin syringes handy. You're gonna need 'em.)
http://www.hollow-hill.com/sabina/

President announces that he will be unwavering with his principles
Quito (Pichincha) – The president, Rafael Correa, who stands against a seditious attempt by some members of the National Police against the democratic and constitutional regime lead by the president, announced that despite attempts to attack the government and even him as a person, he would be unwavering with his principles.
“I'm not going to back down, if you want to come here and look for me, shoot me and the Republic will move forward, kill me, but as Pablo Neruda said, 'You can cut all the flowers but you cannot stop the Spring from coming,'” he told Radio Pública.
From the Police Hospital, where he came after being attacked during a visit to Quito Regiment # 1—after being hit by a tear gas canister—the president expressed his profound rejection of the actions taken by a sector of the police who hope to destabilize the regime based on their opposition to the vetoes announced to the Public Service Act.
According to the President, this attempt at destabilization is the result of a strategy that has been brewing for quite some time. A barrage of messages and misinformation have been given to the National Police, which today has been realized through violent actions from a conspiracy attempt.
“A while ago they came looking for a coup, because they can't win at the polls and there are compañerosof ours who do not understand that this is part of a political mission,” he said, in relation to the serious possibility of a “muerte cruzada”* with the National Congress.
He announced that he would return to Carondelet Palace when the security conditions allowed, as there is a possibility that the hospital was affected by this morning's actions.
*The constitutionally-granted power of the president to dissolve Congress and hold pending immediate elections, when there is a deadlocked Congress.

Gee, I'd love to see the top secret cable traffic at the US Embassy in Quito and at the CIA station there.....busy as bees....killer bees, I'm sure.... It is following the usual course of such things over the decades...but lately they have all fallen flat...unlike the bad old days. :congrats: The USA will deny all involvement, but find things to discredit about Correa....some months down the road it will turn up that those who led the putsch were all trained at the School of the Americas or on the CIA payroll in one way or another.... formuleric... but sadly most Americans just don't see the patterns... they have been trained not to see patterns....everything is without history; without those who stand to profit by such actions; without analysis of local or international law; without shame at American ambitions and actual Empire and interference for centuries; believing the forked tongue of the 'great non-white father' in the White House and his goon squad from Wall Street, JCS, and Corporate Row......very sad stuff....it never seems to end. A certain group seem dead set on reversing the minor advances made in the evolution of human moral, legal, and ethical progress. Forward into the past...the distant past....:dong: America the shining light on the mountain top.....GIVE ME A BREAK!:eviltongue: The thought of the entire World following in our blood, bodybag and feces filled footsteps through real politik is not a pretty picture......never was....from WWII to present, even worse...with the few who tried to take a different path...no matter how small the difference...LIQUIDATED!....

BULLET THAT HIT PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA'S ROOM




DURING THE ATTEMPTED COUP YESTERDAY IN ECUADOR AGAINST PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA, BULLETS HIT THE ROOM HE WAS SEQUESTERED IN DURING THE LATE NIGHT RESCUE OPERATION. INVESTIGATORS CONCLUDED COUP FORCES WERE ATTEMPTING TO ASSASSINATE HIM BEFORE HE COULD BE RESCUED. THE CAR THAT TOOK HIM BACK TO THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE WAS ALSO HIT WITH SEVERAL BULLETS, INCLUDING ON THE SIDE WHERE HE WAS TRAVELING.
http://www.chavezcode.com/