Background on the Ecuadorian coup attempt

This Real News Network report by Ecuadorian filmmaker Oscar León, "Ecuador: Failed Coup or Institutional Crisis?" 10/07/2010, gives some valuable background on the revolt against the serious but short-lived democratic government in Ecuador.



Tags: ecuador

What a concept - diplomacy to solve a military crisis!

Now this is the way to conduct diplomacy!

The nearly week-long crisis between Colombia on the one hand and its neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador on the other has been resolved. It's an amazingly daring idea. They decided to get together and talk instead of going to war! Talk and even hug, if you can believe that.

Colombia was pretty much completely isolated diplomatically in Latin America over the border-violation incident. The Cheney-Bush administration, which sneers at all this "national sovereignty" nonsense, backed Colombia.

But Colombia decided not to approach it the Cheney way, i.e., making up fake intelligence to justify invading Ecuador and making "regime change". Their alternative is described in news reports: Uribe, Chávez, Ortega y Correa cierran la crisis diplomática con un apretón de manos El País 07.03.08Latin American nations end crisis with handshake Reuters 03/07/08; Handshakes and a hug cool South American war talk by Frances Robles, McClatchey 03/07/08.

The leaders of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua got together and agreed to work things out peacefully. Nicaragua's presence is particularly notable, because they have their own separate issues with Colombia. Nicaragua joined Ecuador and Venezuela last week in breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia over Colombia's cross-border military incursion into Ecuador.

Here's how Reuters describes the meeting:

The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela ended a border dispute on Friday with a summit handshake after a week of regional diplomacy in the face of hostile rhetoric and troop buildups.

"And with this ... this incident that has caused so much damage (is) resolved," leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said before standing up and shaking hands with his U.S.-backed conservative Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had blamed the United States for the crisis as he sent tanks to the border with Colombia, joined in shaking Uribe's hand and applauded loudly and smiled.

The dispute erupted last Saturday when Colombia raided inside Ecuador to kill a rebel leader. It resolution brought the summit to a surprise ending after bitter exchanges, including Correa calling Uribe a liar.

The accord came after Uribe apologized to Correa under pressure from governments across the region, which worked to prevent the crisis escalating into Latin America's first armed conflict in more than a decade. (my emphasis)

Washington's bogeyman Hugo Chávez declared, "This summit was a gift from God."

One detail that only the El País article of the three linked above reports is that after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe shook hands with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, he went over to Chávez and not only shook hands with him but hugged him. Then he did the same with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

What are they, all a bunch of hippies? It sounds like some kind of California New Age convention! Did they pass around a reefer or something after that?

Gosh, who knew that serious international tensions could be resolved that way? Not Dick Cheney or George Bush or Rummy or the bold Maverick McCain, I would say.

But, you know, it might be worth giving it a try!

Tags: colombia, daniel ortega, ecuador, hugo chávez, nicaragua, venezuela

Colombia, Ecuador and sovereignty

Argentina's President Cristina Fernández Kirchner is taking the side of Ecuador in its dispute with Colombia over the violation of Ecuador's territory in a recent military action against the FARC guerrilla group. She says that its especially important for Latin American leaders to condemn such a violation of their neighbors sovereignty: Cristina Kirchner remarcará en Caracas su condena a Colombia Clarín 05.03.08. She made the remarks during a visit to Venezuela, where she signed a food-for-oil agreement with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Hopefully this situation will be resolved without war. But it's more serious than saber-rattling. Ecuador and Venezuela have withdrawn their diplomats from Colombia over the incident. Ecuador and Colombia have at least agreed on calling for an investigation by the Organization of American States (OAS).

It's not that Cristina Fernández is any fan of the FARC. On Tuesday, she called "a toda la región latinoamericana al compromiso con la paz y con la liberación de Ingrid Betancourt y los rehenes en Colombia" (on the whole Latin American region for compromise for peace and for the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt and the hostages in Colombia). She has made a special cause of getting Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate, freed. There were big demonstrations just a few weeks ago all across Latin America and in Spain demanding the release of the hostages still being held by FARC.

But she also said, "Creo que es muy importante la condena unánime a la violación de la soberanía territorial, que no puede tener ningún pretexto. No puede haber ninguna causa" (I think it's very important to have a unanimous condemnation of the violation of sovereign territory, which can have no pretext. The can be no [legitimate] cause). She said of the mood in the region over the confrontation, "Es una tensión que no recuerdo en mucho tiempo" (it's a tension that I don't remember having for a long time).

Brazil's President said, "Si permitimos que una violación territorial siga ocurriendo sin que haya una acción conjunta de todos los países, mañana cualquier frontera puede ser violada, y hay gente que cree que no necesita dar explicaciones" (If we permit a territorial violation to continue occurring without all countries together having taken joint action, tomorrow any frontier could be violated, and there are people that believe they have no need to give explanations). (my emphasis) (Acercamiento entre Colombia y Ecuador: acuerdan en la OEA conformar una comisión investigadora Clarín 05.03.08)

Gee, I wonder who he might have in mind in that last comment?

And there's a weird twist. People who have followed the Cheney-Bush administration's policies toward Iraq and Iran may have a hard time avoiding a sense of deja vu on this one. Secret incriminating documents found on laptop computers? A terrorist group trying to get a dirty bomb? The #2 man in a terrorist organization killed? (Actually, it seems to be the #3 man in Al Qa'ida that we keep killing over and over.)

The incident that caused the current crisis involved a mililtary operation against FARC that supposedly killed their #2 man, Raul Reyes. His laptop, so the Colombian government claims, had some secret documents, as Tyler Bridge and Jenny Carolina Gonzalez report for McClatchey, Colombia: Rebel documents talk of uranium offer 03/04/08.

There was no independent verification of the documents, but Colombia has said it would allow experts from the Organization of American States to examine the computers involved.

The most stunning information in the documents involves uranium, which can be used by terrorists for so-called "dirty bombs" in which conventional explosives disperse radioactive materials that people then inhale.

"Another of the themes is the one on uranium," says a Feb. 16 note from someone identified only as Edgar Tovar to Raul - most likely Reyes.

"There's a man who supplies me with material for the explosive we prepare, and his name is Belisario and he lives in Bogota," the note says. "He sent me the samples and the specifications and they are proposing to sell each kilo for two and a half million dollars, and that they supply and we look for someone to sell to, and that the deal should be with a government that can buy a huge amount. They have 50 kilos ready and can sell much more."

Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said in a statement Tuesday that the letter proves the FARC was "negotiating to get radioactive material, the principal base for making dirty weapons of destruction and terrorism."

Until there is some kind of independent verification, it certainly would be advisable to be cautious about believing this story. Acting on fake information about "weapons of mass destruction" can cause a country a lot of problems.

Also, even though the "war on drugs" has faded from the headlines, Colombia still ranks as the fifth largest recipient of American aid after Iraq, Israel, AFghanistan and Egypt, most of it law-enforecement and military related. In 2002, Congress dropped previous restrictions that had (officially) prevented assistance from going to non-drug-related military operations.

If you wanted to justify your country on a action that has basically the rest of Latin American united against you with a threat of a shooting war with two neighborhing countries over it, it's certainly timely and convenient to show that the action yielded useful information. In fact, according to Colombia's Santos, "This shows that these terrorist groups ... constitute a grave threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean region and Latin America."

And it doesn't hurt to show any members of the US Congress who might be nervous about American aid being used to support Colombia in operations that seriously tick off the rest of Latin America that, wow, it's all for the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) is a nice selling point. What's the White House's position on all this? White House spokeswoman Dana Perino in her March 5 press briefing says ... the problem is Venezuela:

Q Venezuela is saying today that it's deploying tank battalions and air and sea forces toward the Colombian border and its crisis there. What's the level of U.S. concern on that? And is there any chance that the U.S. would be offering military assistance to it's ally, Colombia?

MS. PERINO: I think that's a little bit premature. I don't - we do not have independent confirmation of that claim of the troop movements down in that area. So I'm not able to say. I think it's premature to say that there would be any need for military help. We do believe that Colombia and Ecuador should be able to work this out between themselves. We don't see any need for a country that wasn't involved to be a part of it. We do think it's curious that a country such as Venezuela would be raising the specter of military action against a country who was defending itself against terrorism. I think that says a lot about Venezuela.

And what President Bush said to [Colombian] President Uribe yesterday is that we are going to stand strong with our ally; that we support their democracy; and their move to free enterprise. And when the President asked President Uribe, what's the most important thing that we can do for you right now, President Uribe said that it is to work with the Congress to pass the free trade agreement, because that will show that there is a different path from the drug trade that Colombia had been mired in, in the past. They've have made tremendous strides. They have reduced their poverty rate by 20 percent. It used to be the murder capital of the world; it no longer is.

There are many different things that President Uribe has done in order to help the situation in Colombia. And now he says that one of the most important things that we can do is help pass the free trade agreement, which would not only help our businesses, but also improve - make sure that our national security is secure. (my emphasis)

Borders, smorders, we violate them all the time, who cares? By the way, we should pass another "free" trade agreement for the benefit of corporations in order to support the war against terrorism. Or drugs. Or Venezuela. Whatever.

It's sad. The Cheney-Bush government apparently couldn't even manage to grumble a few hypocritical words against the idea of one country invading another's territory. So, let's see, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, basically all of Latin America are very concened about the sovereignty question in this matter. The US government's attitude is, what the heck, they were killin' terrorists. Who cares what silly little country that might have had to invade in the process? Just approve the free trade agreement we want and shut the hell up about it.

Why do they hate us? So much of the world, that is. It's just unfathomable! What possible reasons might they have?

Tags: argentina, colombia, ecuador, venezuela