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Troops Free Ecuador President
Soldiers storm hospital where Rafael Correa had been trapped by police officers protesting over plans to cut benefits.
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.
Twelve
hours after police surrounded the hospital on Thursday, soldiers
moved amid heavy gunfire and Correa was rushed out of the building.
Correa said those responsible for the uprising would be punished 'without pardon'. (Reuters) Two policemen were killed when the army attacked the hospital, the
Red Cross said. At least 37 others were injured as Correa supporters
skirmished with police outside the hospital.
Addressing supporters after his release, the president said the uprising was not a simple police insurrection over pay-related grievances but an attempt to overthrow him.
"There were lots of infiltrators, dressed as civilian and we know where they were from," he shouted from the balcony of the presidential palace.
Correa said those responsible for the rebellion would be punished.
"There will be no pardon," he said, as celebrating crowds waved flags and cheered.
Miguel Alvear, a journalist in Quito, told Al Jazeera late Thursday night that the president appeared to be fully in control.
"He has the support of the armed forces and the attorney-general has already announced that he will investigate and prosecute the people behind this."
'Banks looted'
However, Al Jazeera's Monica Villamizar, reporting from the capital, said the situation was still tense and roads empty.
"Most people are locked in their houses, as police have warned that they are not going to protect them, that they are on strike and anything could happen," she said.
"There are also reports of looting. Banks have been looted, some in the capital and some in the commercial city of Guayaquil."
The government has declared a state of siege, putting the military in
charge of public order, suspending civil liberties and allowing
warrantless
searches.
Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, summoned the South American Union to an emergency meeting in Buenos Aires while Correa was still held in the hospital.
Heads of states on Friday denounced the police rebellion as an "attempted coup", saying they were determined "not to tolerate any new assault against the institutional authority."
Al Jazeera's Craig Mauro, reporting from Buenos Aires, said the meeting was a show of of South American unity and concern for democratisation across political lines.
"The presidents span a wide ideological spectrum from those on the socialist left, Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez, to right-wingers like Sebastian Pinera of Chile and Alan Garcia of Peru," he said.
"But all of them are saying the same thing – that this must be condemned. There will be unanimous agreement here that Correa should stay in power in Ecuador."
President teargassed
Correa had been attacked by police demonstrating against cuts to their bonuses and frozen promotions when he tried to talk to them earlier on Thursday.
A tear-gas cannister exploded close to the president's face and overcome by the fumes, he was taken to the nearby National Police Hospital.
Once inside, though, Correa was unable to leave, surrounded by
mutinous police as clashes broke out in the streets of the capital.
A state of emergency was called after police stormed congress, blocked roads and set fires outside their barracks.
Though the high-ranking military officials stayed loyal to Correa, some soldiers joined the protests and seized Quito's main international airport, halting flights for several hours.
After his rescue, Correa gave special thanks to an elite police special operations unit that remained loyal and protected the hospital from the mob outside.
"If not for them, this horde of savages that wanted to kill, that
wanted blood, would have entered the hospital to look for the president
and I probably wouldn't have been telling you this because
I would have passed on to a better life," he said.
The president blamed the unrest on Lucio Gutierrez, a former president who came to power in a popular uprising and was deposed in 2005.
Interviewed by CNN in Brazil, Gutierrez denied "the cowardly, false, reckless accusations of President Correa."
Fransisco Dominguez, the head of the Centre of Brazilian and Latin American Studies at Middlesex University in the UK, told Al Jazeera that there were factors pointing to the involvement of Gutierrez.
"During the worst part of the crisis yesterday [Thursday], he called for the complete dissolution of parliament and also the resignation of Correa," he said.
Peru and Colombia closed their countries' borders with Ecuador in solidarity with Correa. Along with the rest of the region's leaders and the United States, they expressed firm support for Correa.
Political instability
The law which provoked the unrest was approved by congress on Wednesday but has not yet taken effect because it must first be published.
Ecuador, 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 was elected in 2006.
More than half of the 124-member congress are officially allied with Correa, but some in his left-wing Country Alliance party have been blocking budget proposals aimed at cutting state costs.
To solve the deadlock, Correa has said he is considering dissolving congress. 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.
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.
Once in power, Correa backed the rewriting of the constitution to tilt the balance of power towards the executive. He easily won re-election under the new constitution in 2009, and he is allowed to stand again in 2013.
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27 Comments so far
Show AllWas any foreign group (e.g. cia) in coup attempt?
"There were lots of infiltrators, dressed as civilian and we know where they were from," he shouted from the balcony of the presidential palace.
Oh yes... NOTHING happens in SA without the depraved stamp of the CIA and thier well-paid ne'er-do-wells.
Yeah, just like under every Bush there is always dirt, you can bet that under every coup in SA there is always the CIA!
This attempted coup in Ecuador is a direct result of the coup in nearby Honduras being allowed - with US support - to stand.
Such rot spreads.
No Pasaran!
Picture caption: "That guy right over there. He did it."
In 20 years it will be revealed that the CIA was behind both the Honduran and Ecuadorean coups. By them the architects of said illegal acts will be dead or retired...typical.
Aye. But they'll know we're watching them, and watching FOR them. The visibility improves. Words and knowledge do have power.
Smarter: "But they'll know we're watching them..."
It's virtually guaranted that THEY will be watching YOU...every goddamn move you make. In fact, in 20 years I'd bet you'll be carrting an implanted RFID chip in you (don't bet against it)
"Words and knowledge do have power." ...perhaps in a sane world but you are living in a rapidly evolving Orwellian world of perpetual surviellience, tyranical gov't power and a permanent Police State.
If I had to pick a winner - logic says the latter. It's cynical but real.
Read this:
"Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.
Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009."
(Quoted from uk.reuters.com/article/idUKADD25267520071022)
Now, put two and two together.
If you put two and two together what you get is President Correa is an anathema to the MIC and the Chevron oilgarchy. I would not be surprised if he wasn't visited by a Perkins type economic hit man sent by Chevron and maybe the conversation went something like this: Mr. President I have $100,000,000 in this pocket if you drop the lawsuit, and a bullet in this pocket; the choice is yours Mr. President. Rafael Correa's reponse: take your $ 100,000,000 and shove it up you know where!
as Oikos pointed out, Correa (who has a PhD in Economics, openly eschews American neo-liberal economic policy, banned the World Bank from Ecuador, paid off the IMF) ousted the US military from Manta, where port and aviation operations are now being managed by a Hong Kong Company.
Reagan-era black ops douche/totalitarian Otto Reich alarmingly posted on the douchy NRO site that: "freely-elected" presidents like Correa "are engaged in undermining the very institutions of a democracy" and "are abusing their presidential powers to change the rules of the game"
for those on this thread sniffing the stench of CIA involvement - USAID (CIA subsidiary), the Inter_American Foundation (created by Nixon)along with career diplomat Larry Palmer, who was recently rejected as ambassador to Venezuela, have long been funding organizations in Ecuador.
The fascist, propaganda, whores in the MSM have reported the police in Ecuador were in revolt because President Correa was cutting their salaries. I believe that was a red herring put out by the CIA to cover their nefarious dealings in the shadows of the attempted coup 'd etat. Because just the opposite was true as Rafael Correa had doubled and in some cases tripled the police salaries in Ecuador. Again follow the $. Cui bono?
Good article here from AL GIORDANO at Narco News with updates:
Update III: The situation in Ecuador today is further complicated by the disillusion that the very social forces that elected President Correa have with his actions in office. The CONAIE (Federation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) is the leading national indigenous movement with strong alliances with labor and other social forces) held a press conference today to say that it is neither with the police forces nor with President Correa. The CONAIE and its hundreds of thousands of participants is not only responsible for Correa's election, but its mobilizations caused the rapid-fire resignations of previous presidents of Ecuador in this century.
The situation thus also shines a light on the growing rift in the hemisphere between the statist left and the indigenous left and related autonomy and labor movements. The CONAIE is basically saying to Correa, "you want our support, then enact the agenda you were elected on." Whether one sees this as a dangerous game of brinkmanship or something that actually strengthens Correa's hand by placing him in the middle zone ideologically, it is worth seeing this at face value and beware of getting led astray by some of the usual suspect conspiracy theorists of the statist left who are predictably out there barking that the CONAIE is somehow an agent of imperialism, dropping rumors of US AID funding but never seeming to exhibit the hard evidence. Sigh. What Johnny-One-Notes! They wouldn't know nuance if it slapped them in the face. For them, you either line up lock-step with THE STATE (if it is "their" state) or you're a running dog of capitalism. That kind of Stalinist purge mentality should have died with the previous century.
The CONAIE's grievances happen to be very legitimate. Of course, they do not justify a coup d'etat, but the CONAIE is not participating in or supporting the coup d'etat. It is saying to Correa; we'll have your back, when you have ours. This, like the Armed Forces support for Correa, is also a historical first in the region. And the plot thickens...
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4138/coup-attempt-ecuador-result-sec-clintons-cowardice-honduras
Yes, there are these contradictions between the Left positions -- though in Bolivia they are slowly getting worked out. However, the CIA, Southern Command, etc. have the job of fomenting these divisions, as Phillip Agee documented for Ecuador 40 years ago -- passing disinformation to group X that group Y had supposedly plotted against X. As Correa said the golpistas didn't even read the law. Who told them what they believed about the law?
Also, if it was spontaneous how come the Air Force "just decided" to take the airport in Guayaquil?
CONAIE's grievances are legitimate, and the Bolivian path to resolving them is slow, but what would they get from a Lucio Gutierrez government?
Thanks for the link, mcoyote.
I became aware of CONAIE through the Pachamama Alliance...I hope that Correa, who has done some very good things for Ecuador, will expand his umbrella to include more of CONAIE's wishes and perspectives. I think it would be in his best interest to do so, because the CIA is always looking for political rifts to exploit...
the tiny elites wanting to continue their parasitic existence on the back of their fellow men, with the help of the global fascist overlords.
the same story everywhere, from india to equador, from south korea to thailand, from pakistan to kenya, from iceland to peru.
Here is a statement from CONAIE about the attempted coup.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49
/2717-conaie-on-the-attempted-coup-in-ecuador
"A process of change, as weak as it may be, runs the risk of being overturned or overtaken by the right, old or new, if it does not establish alliances with organized social and popular sectors, and deepen progressively.
The insubordination of the police, beyond their immediate demands, lays bare at least four substantial things:
1. While the government has dedicated itself exclusively to attacking and delegitimizing organized sectors like the Indigenous movement, workers' unions, etc., it hasn't weakened in the least the structures of power of the right, or those within the state apparatus, which has become evident through the rapidity of the response from the public forces.
2. The social crisis that was let loose today was also provoked by the authoritarian character and the non-opening to dialogue in the lawmaking process. We have seen how laws that were consensed around were vetoed by the President of the Republic, closing any possibility of agreement.
3. Faced with the criticism and mobilization of communities against transnational mining, oil, and agro-industrial companies, the government, instead of creating a dialogue, responds with violence and repression, as occurred in Zamora Chinchipe.
4. This scenario nurtures the conservative sectors. Already various sectors and people from the old right are asking for the overthrow of the government and the instalation of a civil or military dictatorship; but the new right, from inside and outside the government, will use this context to justify their total alliance with the most reactionary sectors and with emerging business interests.
The Ecuadorian Indigenous movement, CONAIE, with its regional Confederations and its grassroots organizations states before Ecuadorian society and the international community their rejection to the economic and social policies of the government, and with the same energy we reject the actions of the right that in an undercover way form part of the attempted coup d'état, and to the contrary we will continue to struggle for the construction of a Plurinational State with a true democracy.
Consistent with the mandate of the communities, peoples and nationalities and faithful to our history of struggle and resistance against colonialism, discrimination and exploitation of those who are below, of the poor, we will defend democracy and the rights of the people: no concessions for the right.
In these critical moments, our position is:
1. We convene our bases to maintain themselves alert and ready to mobilize in defense of true Plurinational democracy and against the actions of the right.
2. We deepen our mobilization against the extractive model and the imposition of large scale mining, the privatization and concentration of water, and the expansion of the oil frontier.
3. We convene and join together with diverse organized sectors to defend the rights of workers, affected by the arbitrariness which has driven the legislative process, recognizing that they are making legitimate demands.
4. We demand that the national government firmly depose every possible concession to the right. We demand that the government abandons its authoritarian attitude against the popular sectors, that they not criminalize social protest and the persecution of leaders: the only thing this type of politics provokes is to open spaces to the Right and create spaces of destabilization.
The best way to defend democracy is to begin a true revolution that resolves the most urgent and structural questions to the benefit of the majority. On this path is the effective construction of the Plurinational state and the immediate initiation of an agrarian revolution and a de-privatization of water.
This is our position in this context and in this historical period.
Marlon Santi PRESIDENT, CONAIE
Delfín Tenesaca PRESIDENT, ECUARUNARI
Tito Puanchir PRESIDENT, CONFENIAE
Olindo Nastacuaz PRESIDENT, CONAICE
Gutierrez is owned by the CIA.
everyone in the world, and specifically , everyone in Latin AMERICA knows that coups and destabilizations that only caused decades of impoverishment and destroyed economies have the hallmark of
"EL gigante en le Norte"..USA.
ironically...
all leaderships in latin america - whether from left or "right" (peru, chile, uruguay) -- also KNOW THIS same thing...more than anyone the Right or conservative ones.
the leaderships arrived when "summoned by President Morales" to have a summit in Argentina to support Correa..knowing ANY of them could be next if the USA has any say in it.
what is the irony?
any attempt by the USA to destabilize governments that are not bowing to the washington consensus as before - only has BEEN BRINGING EVEN OPPOSING political ideas together AS LATIN AMERICANS....
it actually has strengthened their "south american" identities - most importantly -- as DISTINCT from the USA dictated ones.
the USA may TIGHTEN its grip on the throats of AMERICANS in the USA ..but the more it tries to tighten its grip on OTHER countries or regions -- the more that grip will not be able to hold for long.
of course, only washington doesn't understand that, as well as a great number of americans themselves.
lenny davis, one of the key neo-lib jews around the clintons, must have been busy engienering this coup after the coup in honduras.
go to Democracy Now and watch / read the conscience-free thug shamelessly defending the honduran coup.
I think lenny lost this one.
Ecuador isn't going the way of Honduras.
And the mobsters running Honduras may change thir tune as the US market evaporates in the full blown depression we are entering.
And what will the CIA pay the modern day latifundistas with when our currency is shot? Will they start giving away trps to Vegas like on the quizz shows?
How long will it be before we understand that there is no "Obama", no political force that can stand against the globalized drive for absolute domination. The U.S. engineered coup in Honduras opened the wedge. Now those forces who placed "Obama" in the Presidency seek to drive the wedge in deeper.
Of course it was the USA behind it. Who else?
"Ecuador, with a population of 14 million, has a long history of political instability."
Yeah, from right about the time Teddy Roosevelt started building that big Navy for the USA.
From Standard Oil to the OSS to the CIA there is a direct line with family connections criss crossing big Oil and cloak and dagger stuff.
Ambition and Death have this in common: they are never satisfied.