Ecuador’s Soul for Sale
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
President Lenin Moreno was expected to continue a decade of progressive policies instituted by his predecessor, Rafael Correa.
Instead he turned right, betraying his supporters, reversing Correa’s agenda, serving monied interests over popular ones, enforcing neoliberal harshness, transforming Ecuador into a US vassal state.
Trump’s ambassador in Quito Todd Chapman praised his rule, calling Ecuador “our ally in the Americas.” With Moreno in charge, “(w)e are recovering the time we lost” under Correa. “That’s important.”
The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CDES) in Ecuador warned that Mike Pence’s visit to Quito days earlier aimed “to align the country to US influence: that turns Ecuador into a territory of war (by) sign(ing) an aggressive (unfair one-sided) free trade agreement, eliminat(ing) ‘irritating’ subjects like the Texaco (Chevron) case…dismantl(ing) sovereign regional integration,” and letting drug cartels, and related crime, flourish in the country the way things operate elsewhere in Latin America.
Allying with Washington assures loss of the Ecuador’s soul, ordinary people grievously harmed, the country governed like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and other Latin American hardline anti-populist regimes.
In cahoots with Washington and Britain, Moreno appears headed toward expelling Julian Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy, a move to facilitate his extradition to America, kangaroo justice and harsh imprisonment awaiting him, maybe his death.
On Tuesday, Ecuador’s National Justice Court approved “preventive detention” of former President Correa – on false charges of involvement in a failed kidnapping of former right-wing opposition lawmaker Fernando Balda in 2012.
Correa now resides in Belgium. Ecuador’s chief prosecutor requested Interpol to arrest, detain and extradite him.
He slammed the order saying no evidence against him exists. Nothing was made public, adding:
“How much success will this farce have at the international level?Don’t worry. Everything is a matter of time. We will overcome!”
Correa’s government charged Balda with involvement in the CIA-orchestrated failed 2010 coup against his government.
Interviewed by RT, he called charges against him “tremendously ridiculous,” explaining:
“That is called lawfare, you know. They can’t defeat us in elections, so they try to defeat us using the judicial system. We have to stop that because this is not democracy,” adding:
Dark forces opposing him “may invent whatever they want because they control everything – media, judicial system, the National Assembly, etc. to pursue left leaders.”
“This is a regional strategy to pursue progressive leaders through the judicial system. It’s called lawfare or judicialization of politics.”
Asked what he’ll do next, he replied he’s “(j)ust waiting because there is no hope to have a fair” trial in Ecuador under its US-co-opted government.
The country’s prosecutor “was installed with a mission to put me in jail,” said Correa, explaining under Ecuadorian law, he doesn’t have to prove anything. Authorities have all the proving to do.
“They will never be able to do that because they lying” and have nothing to go on, just phony accusations.
Moreno has done nothing to intervene for justice, nothing for the people he swore to represent, serving his imperial master in Washington instead.
He’s in cahoots with the Trump regime “want(ing) me dead,” Correa explained – calling Moreno a “traitor…a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
As part of selling Ecuador’s soul to Washington, he wants Correa barred from seeking reelection in 2021 – his legal right unless Moreno’s proposed constitutional change is adopted by referendum, limiting the number of presidential terms.
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