Ecuador to Investigate Rights Abuses

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian/Associated Press

Ecuador to Investigate Rights Abuses
Saturday May 5, 2007 3:01 AM
By GONZALO SOLANO
Associated Press Writer

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador's new leftist government has set up a truth commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses committed over the last 27 years, particularly during the right-wing administration of former President Leon Febres Cordero.

President Rafael Correa said Thursday that the four-member commission - composed of a lawyer, two human rights activists and the father of two brothers who disappeared at the end of Febres Cordero's 1984-1988 government - is intended to ``halt impunity.''

Pedro Restrepo's two sons disappeared in January 1988 and are believed to have been killed by police, who mistook them for Colombian guerrillas. Their bodies were never found.

Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea said the human rights of ``hundreds of citizens were systematically violated.''

Larrea said there have been 327 cases of political assassinations, torture and disappearances that have gone unpunished.




Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6609549,00.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Human Interest Story: Ulises a true hero for Ecuador village

Ulises a true hero for Ecuador village
Matthew Hall | May 6, 2007

PREMIER League players, huh? A bunch of carefree, millionaire, party-boy, rich kids. Well, not all of them. Reading's Ulises de la Cruz spends part of his roughly $1 million a year wage (less than the Premiership average) helping to rebuild his impoverished home town in Ecuador. When Ecuador made the 2002 World Cup finals, he spent his bonus on providing a fresh water supply for the village and now pays for breakfast and lunch for 100 school kids every day. "I want to provide opportunities well beyond the football field," de la Cruz said. "Football isn't the only way out." Ulises, Parrot salutes you.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/football/ulises-a-true-hero-for-ecuador-village/2007/05/05/1177788468576.html