By Mark Weisbrot
In June of last year, when the Honduran military overthrew the social democratic government of Manuel Zelaya, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador took it personally. "We have intelligence reports that say that after Zelaya, I'm next," said Correa.
Yesterday it turned out to be true. Some analysts are still insisting that what happened was just a police protest over possible benefit cuts that got out of hand. But to anyone who watched the prolonged, pitched gun battle on TV last night, when the armed forces finally rescued President Correa from the hospital where he was trapped by the police, this did not look like a protest. It was an attempt to overthrow the government.
The coordinated actions in various cities, the takeover of Quito's airport by a section of the armed forces - all this indicated a planned coup attempt. And although it failed, at various points during the day it was not so clear what the outcome would be.
The government pointed a finger at former president and army Colonel Lucio Gutierrez, and he was on television yesterday calling for the ouster of Correa. He accused the president of everything from supporting the FARC (the guerrilla group fighting Colombia's government) to wrecking the economy.
The coup might have had a chance if Correa were not so popular. Despite his enemies in high places, the president's approval rating was 67 per cent in Quito a couple of weeks ago. His government has doubled spending on health care, significantly increased other social spending, and successfully defaulted on $3.2 billion of foreign debt that was found to be illegitimately contracted. Ecuador managed to squeak through 2009 without a recession, and is projected to grow about 2.5 percent this year. Correa, an economist, has had to use heterodox and creative methods to keep the economy growing in the face of external shocks because the country does not have its own currency. It adopted the dollar in 2000, which means that it can do little in the way of monetary policy and has no control over its exchange rate.
Correa had warned that he might try to temporarily dissolve the Congress in order to break an impasse in the legislature, something that he has the right to request under the new constitution - it would have to be approved by the Constitutional Court. This probably gave the pro-coup forces something they saw as a pretext. It is reminiscent of the coup in Honduras, when Zelaya's support for a non-binding referendum on a constituent assembly was falsely reported by the media - both Honduran and international - as a bid to extend his presidency.
Media manipulation has a big role in Ecuador too, with most of the media controlled by right-wing interests opposed to the government. This has helped build a base of people - analogous to those who get all of their information from Fox News in the United States, but proportionately larger - who believe that Correa is a dictator trying to turn his country into a communist Cuba.
The U.S. State Department issued a two-sentence statement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late yesterday afternoon that urged "all Ecuadoreans to come together and to work within the framework of Ecuador's democratic institutions to reach a rapid and peaceful restoration of order." Unlike the White House statement in response to the Honduran coup last year, it also expressed "full support" for the elected president. This is an improvement, although it is unlikely that it reflects a change in Washington's policy toward Latin America.
The Obama administration did everything it could to support the coup government in Honduras last year, and in fact is still trying to convince the South American governments - including Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and the collective organization of UNASUR - to recognize the government there. South America refuses to recognize the Lobo government because it was elected under a dictatorship that did not allow for a free or fair contest. The rest of the hemisphere also wants some guarantees that would stop the killing of journalists and political activists there, which has continued and even become worse under the "elected" government.
As the South American governments feared, Washington's support for the coup government in Honduras over the last year has encouraged and increased the likelihood of right-wing coups against democratic left governments in the region. This attempt in Ecuador has failed, but there will be likely be more threats in the months and years ahead.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
U.S. Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment in Guatemala
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.
American tax dollars, through the National Institutes of Health, even paid for syphilis-infected prostitutes to sleep with prisoners, since Guatemalan prisons allowed such visits. When the prostitutes did not succeed in infecting the men, some prisoners had the bacteria poured onto scrapes made on their penises, faces or arms, and in some cases it was injected by spinal puncture.
If the subjects contracted the disease, they were given antibiotics.
“However, whether everyone was then cured is not clear,” said Susan M. Reverby, the professor at Wellesley College who brought the experiments to light in a research paper that prompted American health officials to investigate.
The revelations were made public on Friday, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to the government of Guatemala and the survivors and descendants of those infected. They called the experiments “clearly unethical.”
“Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health,” the secretaries said in a statement. “We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices.”
In a twist to the revelation, the public health doctor who led the experiment, John C. Cutler, would later have an important role in the Tuskegee study in which black American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated for decades. Late in his own life, Dr. Cutler continued to defend the Tuskegee work.
His unpublished Guatemala work was unearthed recently in the archives of the University of Pittsburgh by Professor Reverby, a medical historian who has written two books about Tuskegee.
President Álvaro Colom of Guatemala, who first learned of the experiments on Thursday in a phone call from Mrs. Clinton, called them “hair-raising” and “crimes against humanity.” His government said it would cooperate with the American investigation and do its own.
The experiments are “a dark chapter in the history of medicine,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. Modern rules for federally financed research “absolutely prohibit” infecting people without their informed consent, Dr. Collins said.
Professor Reverby presented her findings about the Guatemalan experiments at a conference in January, but nobody took notice, she said in a telephone interview Friday. In June, she sent a draft of an article she was preparing for the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Policy History to Dr. David J. Sencer, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control. He prodded the government to investigate.
In the 1940s, Professor Reverby said, the United States Public Health Service “was deeply interested in whether penicillin could be used to prevent, not just cure, early syphilis infection, whether better blood tests for the disease could be established, what dosages of penicillin actually cured infection, and to understand the process of re-infection after cures.”
It had difficulties growing syphilis in the laboratory, and its tests on rabbits and chimpanzees told it little about how penicillin worked in humans.
In 1944, it injected prison “volunteers” at the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary in Indiana with lab-grown gonorrhea, but found it hard to infect people that way.
In 1946, Dr. Cutler was asked to lead the Guatemala mission, which ended two years later, partly because of medical “gossip” about the work, Professor Reverby said, and partly because he was using so much penicillin, which was costly and in short supply.
Dr. Cutler would later join the study in Tuskegee, Ala., which had begun relatively innocuously in 1932 as an observation of how syphilis progressed in black male sharecroppers. In 1972, it was revealed that, even when early antibiotics were invented, doctors hid that fact from the men in order to keep studying them. Dr. Cutler, who died in 2003, defended the Tuskegee experiment in a 1993 documentary.
Deception was also used in Guatemala, Professor Reverby said. Dr. Thomas Parran, the former surgeon general who oversaw the start of Tuskegee, acknowledged that the Guatemala work could not be done domestically, and details were hidden from Guatemalan officials.
Professor Reverby said she found some of Dr. Cutler’s papers at the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught until 1985, while she was researching Dr. Parran.
“I’m sifting through them, and I find ‘Guatemala ... inoculation ...’ and I think ‘What the heck is this?’ And then it was ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.’ My partner was with me, and I told him, ‘You aren’t going to believe this.’ ”
Fernando de la Cerda, minister counselor at the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, said that Mrs. Clinton apologized to President Colom in her Thursday phone call. “We thank the United States for its transparency in telling us the facts,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of reparations for survivors or descendants, Mr. de la Cerda said that was still unclear.
The public response on the Web sites of Guatemalan news outlets was furious. One commenter, Cesar Duran, on the site of Prensa Libre wrote: “APOLOGIES ... please ... this is what has come to light, but what is still hidden? They should pay an indemnity to the state of Guatemala, not just apologize.”
Dr. Mark Siegler, director of the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago’s medical school, said he was stunned. “This is shocking,” Dr. Siegler said. “This is much worse than Tuskegee — at least those men were infected by natural means.”
He added: “It’s ironic — no, it’s worse than that, it’s appalling — that, at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, the U.S. government was supporting research that placed human subjects at enormous risk.”
The Nuremberg trials of Nazi doctors who experimented on concentration camp inmates and prisoners led to a code of ethics, though it had no force of law. In the 1964 Helsinki Declaration, the medical associations of many countries adopted a code.
The Tuskegee scandal and the hearings into it conducted by Senator Edward M. Kennedy became the basis for the 1981 American laws governing research on human subjects, Dr. Siegler said.
It was preceded by other domestic scandals. From 1963 to 1966, researchers at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island infected retarded children with hepatitis to test gamma globulin against it. And in 1963, elderly patients at the Brooklyn Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital were injected with live cancer cells to see if they caused tumors.
Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City.
From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.
American tax dollars, through the National Institutes of Health, even paid for syphilis-infected prostitutes to sleep with prisoners, since Guatemalan prisons allowed such visits. When the prostitutes did not succeed in infecting the men, some prisoners had the bacteria poured onto scrapes made on their penises, faces or arms, and in some cases it was injected by spinal puncture.
If the subjects contracted the disease, they were given antibiotics.
“However, whether everyone was then cured is not clear,” said Susan M. Reverby, the professor at Wellesley College who brought the experiments to light in a research paper that prompted American health officials to investigate.
The revelations were made public on Friday, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to the government of Guatemala and the survivors and descendants of those infected. They called the experiments “clearly unethical.”
“Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health,” the secretaries said in a statement. “We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices.”
In a twist to the revelation, the public health doctor who led the experiment, John C. Cutler, would later have an important role in the Tuskegee study in which black American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated for decades. Late in his own life, Dr. Cutler continued to defend the Tuskegee work.
His unpublished Guatemala work was unearthed recently in the archives of the University of Pittsburgh by Professor Reverby, a medical historian who has written two books about Tuskegee.
President Álvaro Colom of Guatemala, who first learned of the experiments on Thursday in a phone call from Mrs. Clinton, called them “hair-raising” and “crimes against humanity.” His government said it would cooperate with the American investigation and do its own.
The experiments are “a dark chapter in the history of medicine,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. Modern rules for federally financed research “absolutely prohibit” infecting people without their informed consent, Dr. Collins said.
Professor Reverby presented her findings about the Guatemalan experiments at a conference in January, but nobody took notice, she said in a telephone interview Friday. In June, she sent a draft of an article she was preparing for the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Policy History to Dr. David J. Sencer, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control. He prodded the government to investigate.
In the 1940s, Professor Reverby said, the United States Public Health Service “was deeply interested in whether penicillin could be used to prevent, not just cure, early syphilis infection, whether better blood tests for the disease could be established, what dosages of penicillin actually cured infection, and to understand the process of re-infection after cures.”
It had difficulties growing syphilis in the laboratory, and its tests on rabbits and chimpanzees told it little about how penicillin worked in humans.
In 1944, it injected prison “volunteers” at the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary in Indiana with lab-grown gonorrhea, but found it hard to infect people that way.
In 1946, Dr. Cutler was asked to lead the Guatemala mission, which ended two years later, partly because of medical “gossip” about the work, Professor Reverby said, and partly because he was using so much penicillin, which was costly and in short supply.
Dr. Cutler would later join the study in Tuskegee, Ala., which had begun relatively innocuously in 1932 as an observation of how syphilis progressed in black male sharecroppers. In 1972, it was revealed that, even when early antibiotics were invented, doctors hid that fact from the men in order to keep studying them. Dr. Cutler, who died in 2003, defended the Tuskegee experiment in a 1993 documentary.
Deception was also used in Guatemala, Professor Reverby said. Dr. Thomas Parran, the former surgeon general who oversaw the start of Tuskegee, acknowledged that the Guatemala work could not be done domestically, and details were hidden from Guatemalan officials.
Professor Reverby said she found some of Dr. Cutler’s papers at the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught until 1985, while she was researching Dr. Parran.
“I’m sifting through them, and I find ‘Guatemala ... inoculation ...’ and I think ‘What the heck is this?’ And then it was ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.’ My partner was with me, and I told him, ‘You aren’t going to believe this.’ ”
Fernando de la Cerda, minister counselor at the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, said that Mrs. Clinton apologized to President Colom in her Thursday phone call. “We thank the United States for its transparency in telling us the facts,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of reparations for survivors or descendants, Mr. de la Cerda said that was still unclear.
The public response on the Web sites of Guatemalan news outlets was furious. One commenter, Cesar Duran, on the site of Prensa Libre wrote: “APOLOGIES ... please ... this is what has come to light, but what is still hidden? They should pay an indemnity to the state of Guatemala, not just apologize.”
Dr. Mark Siegler, director of the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago’s medical school, said he was stunned. “This is shocking,” Dr. Siegler said. “This is much worse than Tuskegee — at least those men were infected by natural means.”
He added: “It’s ironic — no, it’s worse than that, it’s appalling — that, at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, the U.S. government was supporting research that placed human subjects at enormous risk.”
The Nuremberg trials of Nazi doctors who experimented on concentration camp inmates and prisoners led to a code of ethics, though it had no force of law. In the 1964 Helsinki Declaration, the medical associations of many countries adopted a code.
The Tuskegee scandal and the hearings into it conducted by Senator Edward M. Kennedy became the basis for the 1981 American laws governing research on human subjects, Dr. Siegler said.
It was preceded by other domestic scandals. From 1963 to 1966, researchers at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island infected retarded children with hepatitis to test gamma globulin against it. And in 1963, elderly patients at the Brooklyn Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital were injected with live cancer cells to see if they caused tumors.
Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City.
People of Ecuador and Around the World Made a Difference!
All Latin American news sources are reporting the good news that the military has freed Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and the attempted coup is over.
Thousands of people gathered in Quito in support of the president and against the coup.
The Organization of American States made a strong statement and heads of state of members of UNASUR planned on travelling to Ecuador if necessary.
Even US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said "We express our full support for President Rafael Correa, and the institutions of democratic government in that country."
So your calls and e-mails had an effect!
Congratulations and Viva Ecuador!
Thousands of people gathered in Quito in support of the president and against the coup.
The Organization of American States made a strong statement and heads of state of members of UNASUR planned on travelling to Ecuador if necessary.
Even US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said "We express our full support for President Rafael Correa, and the institutions of democratic government in that country."
So your calls and e-mails had an effect!
Congratulations and Viva Ecuador!
Final results give Chavez slim Venezuela vote win
By Marianna Parraga
CARACAS | Wed Sep 29, 2010 2:59pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez's party just beat a newly united opposition bloc for the popular vote at a weekend parliamentary election that split the country down the middle, final official results showed on Wednesday.
The National Electoral Council said his ruling Socialist Party took 5.45 million votes or 48.9 percent of ballots cast in Sunday's poll, compared with 5.33 million votes or 47.9 percent for the Democratic Unity umbrella group.
The president has said the presence of a rejuvenated opposition in the 165-seat National Assembly will not hinder his legislative agenda and promised to accelerate his socialist reforms in South America's biggest oil producer.
The focus is now on the next presidential election, when the opposition will hope to win by maintaining their newfound unity, finding a candidate with national appeal, and developing a policy platform that goes beyond simply being anti-Chavez.
The final results gave Chavez's party 97 seats, two short of the three-fifths it would need to grant the former soldier decree powers letting him bypass parliament. Democratic Unity had 65 seats, and smaller parties took the other three.
The opposition is concerned Chavez may now rush through new legislation in the three months before the newly elected members of parliament take their seats on January 5.
The 56-year-old president has enjoyed a virtual carte blanche in the National Assembly since opposition parties boycotted the last parliamentary poll five years ago.
On the political front, Chavez is determined to give more power to local grass-roots groups where loyalty to him is more assured than in parliament. He has also nationalized two dozen banks and brokerages over the last year, and may have his eye on making further inroads into the financial sector.
(Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Mohammad Zargham)
CARACAS | Wed Sep 29, 2010 2:59pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez's party just beat a newly united opposition bloc for the popular vote at a weekend parliamentary election that split the country down the middle, final official results showed on Wednesday.
The National Electoral Council said his ruling Socialist Party took 5.45 million votes or 48.9 percent of ballots cast in Sunday's poll, compared with 5.33 million votes or 47.9 percent for the Democratic Unity umbrella group.
The president has said the presence of a rejuvenated opposition in the 165-seat National Assembly will not hinder his legislative agenda and promised to accelerate his socialist reforms in South America's biggest oil producer.
The focus is now on the next presidential election, when the opposition will hope to win by maintaining their newfound unity, finding a candidate with national appeal, and developing a policy platform that goes beyond simply being anti-Chavez.
The final results gave Chavez's party 97 seats, two short of the three-fifths it would need to grant the former soldier decree powers letting him bypass parliament. Democratic Unity had 65 seats, and smaller parties took the other three.
The opposition is concerned Chavez may now rush through new legislation in the three months before the newly elected members of parliament take their seats on January 5.
The 56-year-old president has enjoyed a virtual carte blanche in the National Assembly since opposition parties boycotted the last parliamentary poll five years ago.
On the political front, Chavez is determined to give more power to local grass-roots groups where loyalty to him is more assured than in parliament. He has also nationalized two dozen banks and brokerages over the last year, and may have his eye on making further inroads into the financial sector.
(Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Mohammad Zargham)
Behind the Coup in Ecuador – The Rightwing Attack on ALBA
By Eva Golinger
Translation: Machetera
The latest coup attempt against one of the countries in the Bolivarian
Alliance For The People of Our America (ALBA) is attempt to impede
Latin American integration and the advance of revolutionary democratic
processes. The rightwing is on the attack in Latin America. Its
success in 2009 in Honduras against the government of Manuel Zelaya
energized it and gave it the strength and confidence to strike again
against the people and revolutionary governments in Latin America.
The elections of Sunday, September 26th in Venezuela, while victorious
for the Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV), also ceded space to
the most reactionary and dangerous destabilizing forces at the service
of imperial interests. The United States managed to situate key
elements in the Venezuelan National Assembly, giving them a platform
to move forward with their conspiratorial schemes to undermine
Venezuelan democracy.
The day after the elections in Venezuela, the main advocate for peace
in Colombia, Piedad Córdoba, was dismissed as a Senator in the
Republic of Colombia, by Colombia’s Inspector General, on the basis of
falsified evidence and accusations. But the attack against Senator
Córdoba is a symbol of the attack against progressive forces in
Colombia who seek true and peaceful solutions to the war in which they
have been living for more than 60 years.
And now, Thursday, September 30th, was the dawn of a coup d’etat in
Ecuador. Insubordinate police took over a number of facilities in the
capital of Quito, creating chaos and panic in the country.
Supposedly, they were protesting against a new law approved by the
National Assembly on Wednesday, which according to them reduced labor
benefits.
In an attempt to resolve the situation, President Rafael Correa went
to meet with the rebellious police but was attacked with heavy objects
and teargas, causing a wound on his leg and teargas asphyxiation. He
was taken to a military hospital in Quito, where he was later
kidnapped and held against his will, prevented from leaving.
Meanwhile, popular movements took to the streets of Quito, demanding
the liberation of their President, democratically re-elected the
previous year by a huge majority. Thousands of Ecuadorans raised
their voices in support of President Correa, trying to rescue their
democracy from the hands of coup-plotters who were looking to provoke
the forced resignation of the national government.
In a dramatic development, President Correa was rescued in an
operation by Special Forces from the Ecuadoran military in the late
evening hours. Correa denounced his kidnapping by the coup-plotting
police and laid responsibility for the coup d’etat directly upon
former President, Lucio Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez was a presidential
candidate in 2009 against President Correa, and lost in a landslide
when more than 55% voted for Correa.
During today’s events, Lucio Gutiérrez declared in an interview, “The
end of Correa’s tyranny is at hand,” also asking for the “dissolution
of Parliament and a call for early presidential elections.”
But beyond the key role played by Gutiérrez, there are external
factors involved in this attempted coup d’etat that are moving their
pieces once again.
Infiltration of the Police
According to journalist Jean-Guy Allard, an official report from
Ecuador’s Defense Minister, Javier Ponce, distributed in October of
2008 revealed “how US diplomats dedicated themselves to corrupting the
police and the Armed Forces.”
The report confirmed that police units “maintain an informal economic
dependence on the United States, for the payment of informants,
training, equipment and operations.”
In response to the report, US Ambassador in Ecuador, Heather Hodges,
justified the collaboration, saying “We work with the government of
Ecuador, with the military and with the police, on objectives that are
very important for security.” According to Hodges, the work with
Ecuador’s security forces is related to the “fight against drug
trafficking.”
The Ambassador
Ambassador Hodges was sent to Ecuador in 2008 by then President George
W. Bush. Previously she successfully headed up the embassy in
Moldova, a socialist country formerly part of the Soviet Union. She
left Moldova sowing the seeds for a “colored revolution” that took
place, unsuccessfully, in April of 2009 against the majority communist
party elected to parliament.
Hodges headed the Office of Cuban Affairs within the US State
Department in 1991, as its Deputy Director. The department was
dedicated to the promotion of destabilization in Cuba. Two years
later she was sent to Nicaragua in order to consolidate the
administration of Violeta Chamorro, the president selected by the
United States following the dirty war against the Sandinista
government, which led to its exit from power in 1989.
When Bush sent her to Ecuador, it was with the intention of sowing
destabilization against Correa, in case the Ecuadoran president
refused to subordinate himself to Washington’s agenda. Hodges managed
to increase the budget for USAID and the NED [National Endowment for
Democracy] directed toward social organizations and political groups
that promote US interests, including within the indigenous sector.
In the face of President Correa’s re-election in 2009, based on a new
constitution approved in 2008 by a resounding majority of men and
women in Ecuador, the Ambassador began to foment destabilization.
USAID
Certain progressive social groups have expressed their discontent with
the policies of the Correa government. There is no doubt that
legitimate complaints and grievances against his government exist.
Not all groups and organizations in opposition to Correa’s policies
are imperial agents. But a sector among them does exist which
receives financing and guidelines in order to provoke destabilizing
situations in the country that go beyond the natural expressions of
criticism and opposition to a government.
In 2010, the State Department increased USAID’s budget in Ecuador to
more than $38 million dollars. In the most recent years, a total of
$5,640,000 in funds were invested in the work of “decentralization” in
the country. One of the main executors of USAID’s programs in Ecuador
is the same enterprise that operates with the rightwing in Bolivia:
Chemonics, Inc. At the same time, NED issued a grant of $125,806 to
the Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE) to promote free trade
treaties, globalization, and regional autonomy through Ecuadoran
radio, television and newspapers, along with the Ecuadoran Institute
of Economic Policy.
Organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and
Pro-justicia [Citizen Participation and Pro-Justice], as well as
members and sectors of CODEMPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación
Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador [Indigenous Enterprise Corporation of
Ecuador] and Fundación Qellkaj [Qellkaj Foundation] have had USAID and
NED funds at their disposal.
During the events of September 30 in Ecuador, one of the groups
receiving USAID and NED financing, Pachakutik, sent out a press
release backing the coup-plotting police and demanding the resignation
of President Correa, holding him responsible for what was taking
place. The group even went so far as to accuse him of a “dictatorial
attitude.” Pachakutik entered into a political alliance with Lucio
Gutiérrez in 2002 and its links with the former president are well
known:
“PACHAKUTIK ASKS PRESIDENT CORREA TO RESIGN AND CALLS FOR THE FORMING
OF A SINGLE NATIONAL FRONT
Press Release 141
In the face of the serious political turmoil and internal crisis
generated by the dictatorial attitude of President Rafael Correa, who
has violated the rights of public servants as well as society, the
head of the Pachakutik Movement, Cléver Jiménez, called on the
indigenous movement, social movements and democratic political
organizations to form a single national front to demand the exit of
President Correa, under the guidelines established by Article 130,
Number 2 of the Constitution, which says: “The National Assembly will
dismiss the President of the Republic in the following cases: 2) For
serious political crisis and domestic turmoil.”
Jiménez backed the struggle of the country’s public servants,
including the police troops who have mobilized against the regime’s
authoritarian policies which are an attempt to eliminate acquired
labor rights. The situation of the police and members of the Armed
Forces should be understood as a just action by public servants, whose
rights have been made vulnerable.
This afternoon, Pachakutik is calling on all organizations within the
indigenous movement, workers, democratic men and women to build unity
and prepare new actions to reject Correa’s authoritarianism, in
defense of the rights and guarantees of all Ecuadorans.
Press Secretary
PACHAKUTIK BLOQUE”
The script used in Venezuela and Honduras repeats itself. They try to
hold the President and the government responsible for the “coup,”
later forcing their exit from power. The coup against Ecuador is the
next phase in the permanent aggression against ALBA and revolutionary
movements in the region.
The Ecuadoran people remain mobilized in their rejection of the coup
attempt, while progressive forces in the region have come together to
express their solidarity and support of President Correa and his
government.
Translation: Machetera
The latest coup attempt against one of the countries in the Bolivarian
Alliance For The People of Our America (ALBA) is attempt to impede
Latin American integration and the advance of revolutionary democratic
processes. The rightwing is on the attack in Latin America. Its
success in 2009 in Honduras against the government of Manuel Zelaya
energized it and gave it the strength and confidence to strike again
against the people and revolutionary governments in Latin America.
The elections of Sunday, September 26th in Venezuela, while victorious
for the Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV), also ceded space to
the most reactionary and dangerous destabilizing forces at the service
of imperial interests. The United States managed to situate key
elements in the Venezuelan National Assembly, giving them a platform
to move forward with their conspiratorial schemes to undermine
Venezuelan democracy.
The day after the elections in Venezuela, the main advocate for peace
in Colombia, Piedad Córdoba, was dismissed as a Senator in the
Republic of Colombia, by Colombia’s Inspector General, on the basis of
falsified evidence and accusations. But the attack against Senator
Córdoba is a symbol of the attack against progressive forces in
Colombia who seek true and peaceful solutions to the war in which they
have been living for more than 60 years.
And now, Thursday, September 30th, was the dawn of a coup d’etat in
Ecuador. Insubordinate police took over a number of facilities in the
capital of Quito, creating chaos and panic in the country.
Supposedly, they were protesting against a new law approved by the
National Assembly on Wednesday, which according to them reduced labor
benefits.
In an attempt to resolve the situation, President Rafael Correa went
to meet with the rebellious police but was attacked with heavy objects
and teargas, causing a wound on his leg and teargas asphyxiation. He
was taken to a military hospital in Quito, where he was later
kidnapped and held against his will, prevented from leaving.
Meanwhile, popular movements took to the streets of Quito, demanding
the liberation of their President, democratically re-elected the
previous year by a huge majority. Thousands of Ecuadorans raised
their voices in support of President Correa, trying to rescue their
democracy from the hands of coup-plotters who were looking to provoke
the forced resignation of the national government.
In a dramatic development, President Correa was rescued in an
operation by Special Forces from the Ecuadoran military in the late
evening hours. Correa denounced his kidnapping by the coup-plotting
police and laid responsibility for the coup d’etat directly upon
former President, Lucio Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez was a presidential
candidate in 2009 against President Correa, and lost in a landslide
when more than 55% voted for Correa.
During today’s events, Lucio Gutiérrez declared in an interview, “The
end of Correa’s tyranny is at hand,” also asking for the “dissolution
of Parliament and a call for early presidential elections.”
But beyond the key role played by Gutiérrez, there are external
factors involved in this attempted coup d’etat that are moving their
pieces once again.
Infiltration of the Police
According to journalist Jean-Guy Allard, an official report from
Ecuador’s Defense Minister, Javier Ponce, distributed in October of
2008 revealed “how US diplomats dedicated themselves to corrupting the
police and the Armed Forces.”
The report confirmed that police units “maintain an informal economic
dependence on the United States, for the payment of informants,
training, equipment and operations.”
In response to the report, US Ambassador in Ecuador, Heather Hodges,
justified the collaboration, saying “We work with the government of
Ecuador, with the military and with the police, on objectives that are
very important for security.” According to Hodges, the work with
Ecuador’s security forces is related to the “fight against drug
trafficking.”
The Ambassador
Ambassador Hodges was sent to Ecuador in 2008 by then President George
W. Bush. Previously she successfully headed up the embassy in
Moldova, a socialist country formerly part of the Soviet Union. She
left Moldova sowing the seeds for a “colored revolution” that took
place, unsuccessfully, in April of 2009 against the majority communist
party elected to parliament.
Hodges headed the Office of Cuban Affairs within the US State
Department in 1991, as its Deputy Director. The department was
dedicated to the promotion of destabilization in Cuba. Two years
later she was sent to Nicaragua in order to consolidate the
administration of Violeta Chamorro, the president selected by the
United States following the dirty war against the Sandinista
government, which led to its exit from power in 1989.
When Bush sent her to Ecuador, it was with the intention of sowing
destabilization against Correa, in case the Ecuadoran president
refused to subordinate himself to Washington’s agenda. Hodges managed
to increase the budget for USAID and the NED [National Endowment for
Democracy] directed toward social organizations and political groups
that promote US interests, including within the indigenous sector.
In the face of President Correa’s re-election in 2009, based on a new
constitution approved in 2008 by a resounding majority of men and
women in Ecuador, the Ambassador began to foment destabilization.
USAID
Certain progressive social groups have expressed their discontent with
the policies of the Correa government. There is no doubt that
legitimate complaints and grievances against his government exist.
Not all groups and organizations in opposition to Correa’s policies
are imperial agents. But a sector among them does exist which
receives financing and guidelines in order to provoke destabilizing
situations in the country that go beyond the natural expressions of
criticism and opposition to a government.
In 2010, the State Department increased USAID’s budget in Ecuador to
more than $38 million dollars. In the most recent years, a total of
$5,640,000 in funds were invested in the work of “decentralization” in
the country. One of the main executors of USAID’s programs in Ecuador
is the same enterprise that operates with the rightwing in Bolivia:
Chemonics, Inc. At the same time, NED issued a grant of $125,806 to
the Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE) to promote free trade
treaties, globalization, and regional autonomy through Ecuadoran
radio, television and newspapers, along with the Ecuadoran Institute
of Economic Policy.
Organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and
Pro-justicia [Citizen Participation and Pro-Justice], as well as
members and sectors of CODEMPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación
Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador [Indigenous Enterprise Corporation of
Ecuador] and Fundación Qellkaj [Qellkaj Foundation] have had USAID and
NED funds at their disposal.
During the events of September 30 in Ecuador, one of the groups
receiving USAID and NED financing, Pachakutik, sent out a press
release backing the coup-plotting police and demanding the resignation
of President Correa, holding him responsible for what was taking
place. The group even went so far as to accuse him of a “dictatorial
attitude.” Pachakutik entered into a political alliance with Lucio
Gutiérrez in 2002 and its links with the former president are well
known:
“PACHAKUTIK ASKS PRESIDENT CORREA TO RESIGN AND CALLS FOR THE FORMING
OF A SINGLE NATIONAL FRONT
Press Release 141
In the face of the serious political turmoil and internal crisis
generated by the dictatorial attitude of President Rafael Correa, who
has violated the rights of public servants as well as society, the
head of the Pachakutik Movement, Cléver Jiménez, called on the
indigenous movement, social movements and democratic political
organizations to form a single national front to demand the exit of
President Correa, under the guidelines established by Article 130,
Number 2 of the Constitution, which says: “The National Assembly will
dismiss the President of the Republic in the following cases: 2) For
serious political crisis and domestic turmoil.”
Jiménez backed the struggle of the country’s public servants,
including the police troops who have mobilized against the regime’s
authoritarian policies which are an attempt to eliminate acquired
labor rights. The situation of the police and members of the Armed
Forces should be understood as a just action by public servants, whose
rights have been made vulnerable.
This afternoon, Pachakutik is calling on all organizations within the
indigenous movement, workers, democratic men and women to build unity
and prepare new actions to reject Correa’s authoritarianism, in
defense of the rights and guarantees of all Ecuadorans.
Press Secretary
PACHAKUTIK BLOQUE”
The script used in Venezuela and Honduras repeats itself. They try to
hold the President and the government responsible for the “coup,”
later forcing their exit from power. The coup against Ecuador is the
next phase in the permanent aggression against ALBA and revolutionary
movements in the region.
The Ecuadoran people remain mobilized in their rejection of the coup
attempt, while progressive forces in the region have come together to
express their solidarity and support of President Correa and his
government.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Coup d'état continues in Ecuador
Chaos broke out in Ecuador when members of the nation’s military and national police forces turned to violence to protest a new law that reduces their pay and benefits.
The coup d'état has not ended and it has not failed, argued author and lawyer Eva Golinger, who is in Caracas, Venezuela. The coup d'état is ongoing, she said.
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he was attacked by police with tear gas. He has been hospitalized due to injuries.
“President Correa in Ecuador has been sequestered by police and military forces. He is in a military hospital where he was taken after he was attacked by the police forces, but he’s now being detained. He is not there anymore n his own will,” said Golinger.
She explained that members of Correa’s government and his supports have attempted to gain access to the President, but the military is denying them access. Meanwhile, opposition groups have spoken out in favor of the Coup d'état and are calling for Correa’s resignation.
“The law that apparently the police were protesting seems to be just be an excuse for some plans that were already underway to execute a coup against Correa,” Golinger said.
In a telephone interview earlier in the day, Correa said there were forces working to assassinate him, but he insisted that even if he is killed his policies will continue in his absence.
Correa’s government and policies have been in conflict with the United States for years, including his rejection of a US based that had been located in the country. Today the US still maintains a presence through the US Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy.
”Some of the groups coming out calling for the president’s resignation are known as groups receiving funding from these US agencies. So, again there is an indications already in just the beginning moments of this coup that’s underway of backing from different US agencies,” said Golinger.
Coup attempts in Latin America in recent years took place in nations that are or were members of the Bolivarian Alliance, which works to oppose US hegemony in the region.
“It seems to be that this is an attempt to deter Latin American integration and independence,” said Golinger.
Author and journalist Marc Saint Upéry in Quito, Ecuador said, if it is indeed a coup d'état it is very poorly organized. He said what is happening is a rebellion by the police forces over the reduction in their benefits and pay. The Correa government has said however that benefits have not been cut, and that pay has actually been increased.
“It’s the kind over reaction which makes real political manipulation. What I don’t see is a real big consideration with strategically thinking. I think if it is a coup d'état, I think it’s a very badly organized coup d'état,” said Upéry.
It has been reported that Correa said there was an attempt on his life.
“That’s not exactly what he said,” said Upéry. “He went to talk to the policemen in one of their camps and there he said, ‘well if you want to kill me, kill me’. The fact is they didn’t kill him.”
But, when the president left some policemen used a noxious gas which did impact him.
“If they wanted to kill him, they could have killed him very easily,” said Upéry.
He explained that he is still not sure what the policemen want, their only demands have been that the law be changed to return the benefits they feel they have lost.
The national army has however issued a declaration in support of Correa and issued a state of emergency, placing them in charge.
“What should happen is that the army intervenes to free the president,” said Upéry.
However, Upéry said that such an incident would be a very delicate because the army does not want to have to take lives or shed the blood of police members.
The people of Ecuador have come out in strong support for the president. The people want the police to stop and the president to be released, even though some do understand the concerns of the police force, said Upéry.
As this goes on, crime has suddenly risen and armed gangs have taken to the streets since there are no ongoing police patrols.
The coup d'état has not ended and it has not failed, argued author and lawyer Eva Golinger, who is in Caracas, Venezuela. The coup d'état is ongoing, she said.
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he was attacked by police with tear gas. He has been hospitalized due to injuries.
“President Correa in Ecuador has been sequestered by police and military forces. He is in a military hospital where he was taken after he was attacked by the police forces, but he’s now being detained. He is not there anymore n his own will,” said Golinger.
She explained that members of Correa’s government and his supports have attempted to gain access to the President, but the military is denying them access. Meanwhile, opposition groups have spoken out in favor of the Coup d'état and are calling for Correa’s resignation.
“The law that apparently the police were protesting seems to be just be an excuse for some plans that were already underway to execute a coup against Correa,” Golinger said.
In a telephone interview earlier in the day, Correa said there were forces working to assassinate him, but he insisted that even if he is killed his policies will continue in his absence.
Correa’s government and policies have been in conflict with the United States for years, including his rejection of a US based that had been located in the country. Today the US still maintains a presence through the US Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy.
”Some of the groups coming out calling for the president’s resignation are known as groups receiving funding from these US agencies. So, again there is an indications already in just the beginning moments of this coup that’s underway of backing from different US agencies,” said Golinger.
Coup attempts in Latin America in recent years took place in nations that are or were members of the Bolivarian Alliance, which works to oppose US hegemony in the region.
“It seems to be that this is an attempt to deter Latin American integration and independence,” said Golinger.
Author and journalist Marc Saint Upéry in Quito, Ecuador said, if it is indeed a coup d'état it is very poorly organized. He said what is happening is a rebellion by the police forces over the reduction in their benefits and pay. The Correa government has said however that benefits have not been cut, and that pay has actually been increased.
“It’s the kind over reaction which makes real political manipulation. What I don’t see is a real big consideration with strategically thinking. I think if it is a coup d'état, I think it’s a very badly organized coup d'état,” said Upéry.
It has been reported that Correa said there was an attempt on his life.
“That’s not exactly what he said,” said Upéry. “He went to talk to the policemen in one of their camps and there he said, ‘well if you want to kill me, kill me’. The fact is they didn’t kill him.”
But, when the president left some policemen used a noxious gas which did impact him.
“If they wanted to kill him, they could have killed him very easily,” said Upéry.
He explained that he is still not sure what the policemen want, their only demands have been that the law be changed to return the benefits they feel they have lost.
The national army has however issued a declaration in support of Correa and issued a state of emergency, placing them in charge.
“What should happen is that the army intervenes to free the president,” said Upéry.
However, Upéry said that such an incident would be a very delicate because the army does not want to have to take lives or shed the blood of police members.
The people of Ecuador have come out in strong support for the president. The people want the police to stop and the president to be released, even though some do understand the concerns of the police force, said Upéry.
As this goes on, crime has suddenly risen and armed gangs have taken to the streets since there are no ongoing police patrols.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Retired Military Officers Urge Lifting of Cuba Travel Ban
Laura Rozen, Politico, September 27, 2010
Nine retired U.S. military officers are urging that the U.S. travel ban to Cuba be lifted.
In a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.), retired generals Paul Eaton, Robert Gard, John Castellaw, John Hutson, David Irvine, John Johns, Stephen Xenakis, and retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson argue that Cuba does not pose a threat to the security of the United States. Eaton currently serves as a senior advisor to the progressive National Security Network, and Wilkerson was an advisor to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"We have already seen how the loosened travel restrictions for families visiting relatives in Cuba have begun to build good will and change from within in Cuba," the retired U.S. military officers write. "Lifting the overall travel ban would extend this cultural and economic engagement and … [enhance] our security by removing unnecessary sources of discontent in a country so close to the United States."
Nine retired U.S. military officers are urging that the U.S. travel ban to Cuba be lifted.
In a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.), retired generals Paul Eaton, Robert Gard, John Castellaw, John Hutson, David Irvine, John Johns, Stephen Xenakis, and retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson argue that Cuba does not pose a threat to the security of the United States. Eaton currently serves as a senior advisor to the progressive National Security Network, and Wilkerson was an advisor to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"We have already seen how the loosened travel restrictions for families visiting relatives in Cuba have begun to build good will and change from within in Cuba," the retired U.S. military officers write. "Lifting the overall travel ban would extend this cultural and economic engagement and … [enhance] our security by removing unnecessary sources of discontent in a country so close to the United States."
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