Ban Ki-moon commends Ecuador's efforts on democracy

[Judi Lynn]

Ban Ki-moon commends Ecuador's efforts on democracy

New York, Feb 16 : UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday commended the efforts undertaken in Ecuador to consolidate democracy following last year's unrest, while also lauding advances related to indigenous issues, human rights and the environment. In joint press conference with President Rafael Correa in the capital, Quito, Ban said he had come to show support for Ecuador when it is still recovering from the events of Sep 30.

Correa had to be taken to the hospital at that time after being hit by tear gas during a demonstration in Quito related to Government measures aimed at cutting some benefits for public servants such as police officers.

“At the time, I expressed my support for Ecuador’s democratic institutions and its elected Government. I am here now to stand with the Government and people of Ecuador,” Ban stated. “I trust that with dialogue, Ecuador will continue to strengthen its institutions… advance development… and forge solidarity.”

He saluted Correa’s efforts to bring stability to the country since taking office four years ago, as well as the country’s engagement on human rights, stating that its open invitation to UN human rights experts is a “model” for other countries to follow.

More:
http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-148286.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. I'm so glad to see all this positive news from Ecuador!

The UN Sec Gen lavishly praises Ecuador--for its stability (esp. in view of recent rightwing efforts to torpedo the government) and its great progress in democracy and human rights. The leftist Correa government has been the most stable government that Ecuador has had in many decades. (Prior to Correa, the government was collapsing every few months or so, as I recall.)

I can't help but think that Ban Ki-moon has gone out of his way to support Correa and Ecuador in view of the recent ruling against Chevron in an Ecuadoran court, after 18 years of litigation--that Chevron owes the Amazon rainforest and 30,000 Indigenous people $8 billion for cleanup of toxic oil pits that cover an area the size of Rhode Island and for health care for those made ill by the pollution.

Chevron has announced a "take no prisoners" policy of defiance against the ruling. It would be hilarious, if it weren't so disgusting, that Chevron has called the Ecuadoran court "corrupt" when it was Chevron that moved the lawsuit to Ecuador, from the U.S., a decade ago, because they thought that they could corrupt the court in Ecuador more easily than the U.S. court, at the time. They thought they could easily bribe and bully the courts for a favorable ruling, in the unstable Ecuador of that period. Now that Ecuador is stable, democratic and non-corrupt, Chevron has filed suit against the litigants in the U.S. (a RICO suit--unbelievable!) because, after a decade of Bush Junta judicial appointments, and Obama's appointment of Eric Holder as A.G.*, the U.S. justice system is now as corrupt as any rightwing fascist-run "third world" country has ever been in the past.

Chevron is judge-shopping--a practice that is frowned upon by the legal profession and despised by honest judges. They are now counting on the filthy U.S. justice system, and its supportive, filthy political system, to spare them any accountability in Ecuador. But there is more to it than this. When a U.S.-based transglobal monster like Chevron wants to destroy a little country, they have vast resources with which to do so, and the full backing of the U.S. government with all of its destructive resources--the CIA, the USAID, the DEA, the NSA, the Pentagon, et al--plus allied resources, such as U.S. banksters, E.U. banksters, the IMF/World Bank, and other monsters like Exxon Mobil, Drummond Coal, Chiquita, Blackwater, Dyncorp, Occidental Petroleum, BP, you name it. They all have a big stake in smashing uppity little countries that assert their sovereign right to enforce their law against these transglobal monstrosities that are answerable to no one and loyal to no country or people.

I suspect that Ban Ki-moon knows that there is a war on--or rather a new front in the war against leftist democracy in Latin America--with Ecuador as the current take-down target.

The article also mentions the Colombia/Ecuador conflict.

"Ban also discussed many of those issues in a meeting with Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino that also covered developments in the Middle East, including in Egypt and Tunisia, and the improved relations between Ecuador and Colombia."

The history of this is that Ecuador was targeted by the U.S. (Bush Junta) with a murderous psyops plot to simultaneously end all hopes for peace in Colombia's 70 year civil war (war is so lucrative and convenient for many purposes) and to bring down the Correa government with charges that Correa is a "terrorist lover." A third purpose was to start a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela.

Colombia was being run as a criminal enterprise, at the time, by Bush Cartel pet, Alvaro Uribe, whom I believe was trying to consolidate the cocaine trade and using all the resources of the Colombian government, and $7 BILLION from us U.S. taxpayers in military aid, to take over the FARC guerrillas' coca fields and cocaine trade, to destroy any independent operations, and to concentrate this trillion dollar trade in his own hands. A collateral purpose was to prepare the ground for U.S. "free trade for the rich" by mass murder of trade unionists and others, and brutal displacement of 5 million peasant farmers from their lands. In this context, the U.S./Colombia conducted a brutal bombing raid on a FARC guerrilla hostage and peace negotiation camp just inside Ecuador's border, slaughtering 25 sleeping people, in March 2008. This almost brought Ecuador to war, but Venezuela, by backing up Ecuador, probably prevented it (which is why Lula da Silva called Hugo Chavez "the great peacemaker" after this incident).

Out of this incident came the "miracle laptop"--an alleged FARC guerrilla computer, which Colombia said contained evidence that Correa and Chavez were "terrorist lovers" (were helping the FARC to obtain a "dirty bomb," giving the FARC money, taking money from the FARC, blah, blah, blah--a wild incoherent set of charges). This turned out to be bogus, of course (probably the work of Rumsfeld's OSP). But it kept Ecuador and Colombia in a state of hostility until recently.

The CIA jettisoned Uribe (but is still protecting and coddling him) in favor Colombia's current leader, former Defense Minister Manual Santos, who immediately made peace with both Chavez and Correa, and responded to Correa's demand that Colombia give Ecuador a copy of the "miracle laptop" contents. Last I read, the disk that Colombia conveyed to Ecuador was so corrupted it couldn't be read. And I don't know where it's gone from there.

In summary, Colombia was being used by the U.S. (Bush Junta) to try to destabilize Ecuador (among other things), and this utterly failed because of the growing unity among South American countries in acting to prevent this kind of U.S. interference. They formed a new institution for this purpose, that summer--UNASUR--and were thus well prepared for the U.S. (Bush Junta) coup attempt in Bolivia in September 2008.

But where does this leave Chevron as to relying on Colombia and the U.S. to bring down Ecuador's democracy? I'd say that Leon Panetta, Clinton and Obama are pursuing a subtler--and potentially more successful--strategy of long term economic attrition (made possible by the Bush Junta-induced worldwide depression), whereby leftist governments can't provide any more improvement in the lives of the poor majority and may even have to retrench on benefits, to ride out the depression. And this is being supplemented by about a billion dollars (our tax money) in USAID funding to rightwing political groups all over the region (and I think, with Pentagon resources, it might be a lot more than a billion--plus covert CIA money), to blame the great depression on the Left and any other ills they can throw into the propaganda campaign (such as street crime in Venezuela, bladdy blah). They also may be funding--or at least stoking up--grievances within the Left, such as the Indigenous groups who didn't support Correa, last year, during the coup attempt. (They have a legit grievance with Correa but, still, did they really think that a successful rightwing coup was going to help them at all? They acted against their own interests.)

And, of course, Chevron, in attacking and sliming Ecuador, is doing the CIA's work for it. It's a two-way street.

The USAID funding and "training" of rightwing political groups has had some success in Venezuela, by putting some obstructive elements into the Venezuelan national assembly. Their aim is to defeat Chavez in 2012--just like the aim of our Scumbag Congress, to defeat Obama--except that the rightwing in Venezuela doesn't have a majority. These kinds of fascist corporate operatives don't have any positive ideas and aren't interested in governing, except in so far as they can enrich themselves with government powers. They believe in "drowning government in the bathtub" as to benefit to the poor majority or curtailing corporate ravages. It's not a responsible or loyal opposition here, or in Venezuela, Ecuador or Bolivia. (By contrast, Brazil seems to have a genuine loyal opposition--that is, one that is not intent on ending democracy.)

I think that Panetta/Clinton/Obama, et al, have made the realistic judgement that the Leftists in South America have too much solidarity to be taken down by the usual methods. They easily took down Honduras (Central America), in what I think was a Bush Junta-designed plot, which unfolded only six months into the Obama administration, but which Obama/Clinton didn't oppose and, on the contrary, helped to succeed (I'm not sure if Panetta was in place yet at the CIA) but this cost them quite a lot good will in Latin America, most damagingly with Brazil, whom they fervently want to set up as a U.S. ally against the rest of the Left in the region. Honduras really pissed off Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, who had worked so hard for Latin American sovereignty and unity, and I imagine that his hand-picked successor feels the same way. In his last speech as president, Lula said, "The U.S. has not changed."

Obama will be trying to pick up the pieces of this mess in his visit to Brazil in March, and put together some viable strategy to help our actual rulers, U.S.-based transglobal corporations like Chevron. It wouldn't surprise me if the Ecuadoran court ruling against Chevron is on his agenda (or Hillary's). It will be interesting to see what Brazil does if Chevron continues to defy Ecuador's legal system. Defending each other's sovereignty has been a huge and important tenet of Lula's regional policy. It is a sovereignty issue.

Naked aggression, threats, bullying, the corrosive effects of the U.S. "war on drugs," numerous coup attempts, and everything else that the Bush Junta could throw at the new Latin American Left hasn't worked, and has only served to solidify them against U.S. interference. Obama/Clinton--with the Scumbag Congress (compliments of Diebold/ES&S) breathing down their necks (and its Miami mafia contingent basically calling for war in Latin America)--need to come up with something, some prize for their more peaceful, long term domination strategy. What will it be? Will they try to get Brazil to, in some way, betray Ecuador on the Chevron lawsuit? (While Chevron sues the litigants here in the U.S., they have also managed to get the matter into an international arbitration proceeding.)

There are many possibilities, but Ecuador is currently the biggest thorn in U.S. Corporate's hide in Latin America. If Obama wants protection from Diebold/ES&S (and their 'TRADE SECRET' power to fiddle U.S. elections), he will do something for Chevron.

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*(Holder will do anything for our Corporate Rulers. He was Chiquita's attorney in their Colombian death squad case. Chiquita execs hired death squads to take care of their 'labor problem." When survivors sued them, Holder got Chiquita execs off with a handslap in a filthy deal with the Bush Junta. More recently, he has colluded on extradition of death squad witnesses from Colombia to the U.S. and complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court, to put them out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors--probably to protect Bush Junta principles, and their pet, Alvaro Uribe, from prosecution for war crimes in Colombia).