CIA Allegedly Using Drug Money to Overthrow Ecuador President Rafael Correa

Blacklisted News
Matías Rojas

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is using drug money to fund Rafael Correa’s opposition in the coming 2013 Ecuadorian elections, intelligence sources have revealed to Chilean independent media. The accusations do not stand alone. In October, former UK diplomat Craig Murray said that the CIA had tripled its budget to destabilize the government of Ecuador.

The allegations were made public by President Rafael Correa on November 3rd on national television, just days after his official visit to Chile to meet with President Sebastian Piñera.



For translation, click on the CC (captions) widget, choose Spanish, then select Translate and English (or preferred language).

Correa reaffirmed information that appeared in an article written by Chilean independent media outlet Panoramas News, revealing that the CIA and DEA stations in Chile were running a narcotics trafficking network through that country with the full knowledge of Chilean authorities and police.

One of the sources quoted by Chilean media, a former police officer in the Policia de Investigaciones (PDI) by the name of Fernando Ulloa, said that 300 kilograms of cocaine were entering Chile monthly under the escort of members of his own institution, the Carabineros, and the Chilean Army. In May 2011, Fernando Ulloa met with then Chilean Minister of Interior Rodrigo Hinzpeter in La Moneda to inform him about the drug network. After more than one year, the Piñera’s government had done nothing to investigate the case.

The scandal resurfaced again after 10 Chilean cops were detained with links to a minor drug smuggling ring, not connected to the one Ulloa was exposing. Although Chilean television was more open to talk about police corruption, Ulloa was only interviewed by two TV networks, where he accused Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter of covering up the larger narcotics ring he was investigating before being kicked out of his job as PDI inspector.



The links to US intelligence emerged after an anonymous source from the Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia (ANI) told Panoramas News that the smuggling of 300 kilos of cocaine was in fact a highly sensitive CIA/DEA operation that would help to raise money to topple the government of Ecuador. The operation is similar to the one carried out by the Agency in Central America during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, the source said.

The director of Panoramas News, journalist Patricio Mery Bell, was planning to hand over the information to Rafael Correa while the Ecuadorian President was visiting Chile, but he was strangely accused of beating a woman after she stole his cell-phone. The cell-phone memory contained a video testimony of Mery’s intelligence source, destined to be passed to Correa, but it ended up in the hands of the police after the mysterious incident.

Once he was in Ecuador, President Rafael Correa connected the dots and decided to go public with the information. He quoted Murray’s early warnings about the CIA’s intent to “fund, bribe or blackmail media and officials”, originally written in the former diplomat’s own blog, adding that the Agency was dealing drugs just as Oliver North had done during the Contra support effort.

In an interview with NTN24, journalist Patricio Mery added more details to the case, relating the cover-up of the CIA drug dealing operation to the deaths of two different people in the last seven years: former soldier Fabian Vega, who was found hung in the northern city of Calama in 2005, and young citizen Nestor Madariaga Juantok, found death with two bullets in the port of Valparaiso in 2006. Both were ruled as suicides.



For translation, click on the CC (captions) widget, choose Spanish, then select Translate and English (or preferred language).

Mery also gave the name of the alleged CIA liaison with the Chilean Navy, former captain Jesus Saez Luna, who is now being held in a penitentiary after he mysteriously escaped from Navy custody. Saez Luna was described in his arrest as the biggest drug dealer of the coastal city of Viña del Mar, with networks in Santiago de Chile and the Bio-Bio southern region of the country. Known as “El Marino”, the former captain utilized “military intelligence” tactics to avoid detection by police, according to the Chilean newspaper La Segunda.

The case is being depicted as “Chile-Contras”, in reference to the history of CIA narcotics trafficking in Nicaragua. This is just another example of how drug money is used to fund covert operations, such as the ones we have seen in Syria, with whole guerrilla armies and opposition forces being financed to overthrow countries that aren’t part of the Anglo-American establishment and don’t bow to American corporate interests.

Assange: Reelected Obama a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Russia Today

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sees no reason to celebrate the reelection of US President Barack Obama. The US aggressively pursued and “persecuted” the whistleblower site under a Democratic administration, he explained.

“Obama seems to be a nice man, and that is precisely the problem,” the 41-year-old told AFP, speaking from his room in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. “It's better to have a sheep in wolf's clothing than a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said. “All of the activities against WikiLeaks by the United States have occurred under an Obama administration.”

Assange was equally critical of the Republican, saying it “has not been an effective restraining force on government excesses over the last four years.” "There is no reason to believe that will change – in fact, the Republicans will push the administration into ever greater excesses," he added.

The WikiLeaks founder sounded hoarse, but refused to comment on his health. Last month, Ecuador said it had requested a meeting with British officials to discuss claims that Assange was losing weight and suffering vision problems.

Assange claimed asylum in the embassy in June to escape extradition to Sweden for questioning over sex crimes allegations. He denies the charges, and believes that if extradited he would then be sent to the US, which regards him as an enemy of the state, where he would face prosecution and possibly the death penalty.

WikiLeaks angered Washington in 2010 by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified US documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world. Washington retaliated by forcing companies to cut off WikiLeaks’ sources of funding.

Iran vs the Empire: Fighting dollarization

PressTV
Eric Walberg

The West's attempts to destroy the Iranian economy through heightened sanctions-including most imports, oil exports and use of banks for trade operations-is having its affect. According to Johns Hopkins University Professor Steve Hanke, Iran is facing hyperinflation, with a monthly inflation rate of nearly 70% per month and its national currency, the rial, plummeting in value against western currencies. Iran is the latest casualty to be placed on his Hanke-Krus Hyperinflation Index, which includes France (1795), Germany (1922), Chile (1973), Nicaragua (1986), Argentina (1990), Russia (1992), Ecuador (1999) and Zimbabwe (2007), countries which experienced price-level increases of at least 50% per month.

Hanke, relishing his role as the world’s expert on this nightmarish phenomenon, has "played a significant role in stopping more hyperinflations than any living economist, including 10 of the 57 episodes" on his Index. He writes that Iran has three options: spontaneous dollarization (people unloading rials on the black-market for dollars, as happened in Zimbabwe), official dollarization (the government withdrawing the currency in favor of dollars, as in Ecuador), or a currency board issuing a new domestic currency backed 100% by-you guessed it-dollars. Hanke insists that the foreign currency does not have to be US dollars. Pitcairn Island, for instance, uses New Zealand dollars.

The inflation doctor admits vaguely that there are "foreign factors," without a hint of criticism of not only the sanctions, but the active subversion of Iran through everything from support of Iranian terrorists, assassinations of leading scientists, right up to war (the US encouraged Iraq to invade Iran in 1980). He emphasizes "Iran's complex system of subsidies, capital controls, and multiple exchange rates," but most of all "massive overprinting of money," though he complains that "the Central Bank of The Islamic Republic of Iran has not reported any such statistics for some time." As if a country living through a state of emergency is likely to divulge such sensitive information.

He coolly dismisses consumers' expectations influencing prices, since "fear surrounding military tensions is nothing new for Iranians". Indeed, the US has been targeting Iran for destruction ever since it threw off its colonial chains in 1979-a dangerous example for other, especially Muslim countries. It is miraculous that Iran has done so well economically since the revolution, given the unremitting victimization it has experienced. One can only marvel at the stubborn courage it has shown to build an Islamic society in the teeth of opposition by the world empire and even by other Muslim nations allied to the empire.

We indeed may ask why Iran's inflation rate has jumped so dramatically precisely in recent times. Of course, it is because of the sanctions. And why the sanctions? Is it really fears that Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, despite professions to the contrary and membership in the IAEA? No. Besides Iran’s role in inspiring the current 'Islamic Reawakening' in the Middle East, there is another very important reason, one which flies in the face of Hanke's 'three options' for Iran.

Those ‘options’ all amount to one: accept US-dollar dictatorship. Iran has been trying to trade oil in non-US dollar currencies since 2008, when it opened its Oil Bourse. Iraq did this in 2000, and the US reaction was invasion-dollarization at gunpoint. The point of the sanctions today is a last-ditch attempt by the US to force Iran to comply with the US world order, as epitomized by continued acceptance of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Hanke insists it is not necessary for Iran to use US dollars as its substitute currency, which in any case would be ridiculous under the circumstances. However, the alternative of using, say, New Zealand dollars finesses the reality that all currencies are tied to the US dollar, as the de facto international reserve currency. This has been the case in reality since the 1930s, when the world abandoned the gold standard. Acknowledging this fact, over 20 countries call their legal tender 'dollars'.

Whether the government moves quickly to raise the white flag, as in Ecuador, or belatedly, as in Zimbabwe, or insists on printing pretty new paper scrip tied 100% to the US dollar through an exchange board, as did Argentina, merely confirms the obvious. In past cases, such as Chile, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe, the message was, ‘your socialist policies are unacceptable.’ In Iran's case, the message is, ‘take dollars for your oil.’

Hanke's monetarist credo-printing money causes inflation-ignores the underlying causes of inflation. As he admits, Iranians have faced war fears for over three decades. The exchange controls and subsidies, "government monopolies, price controls, and Soviet-style economic planning," which Hanke calls "wrong-headed," are not the cause of inflation, but a way for the government to keep it under control. However, at a certain point, the "foreign factors" become so egregious that even such measures fail. That is what has happened now, as sanctions have created extreme pain for the average Iranian. Bare shelves and panic in the face of invasion threats means that the currency will devalue, however many rials the government prints.

This is what happened in Germany in 1922, when it was forced to export everything to buy the gold to pay the extortionate reparations. It ended by resorting to Hanke’s currency board and marks issued against gold, but the underlying cause-the extortion practiced by Britain and France-only ended when Hitler took power and canceled the reparations. The devastation cause by "foreign factors" led in that instance to the rise of fascism.

It Begins: Ecuador Demands Repatriation Of One Third Of Its Gold Holdings

Zero Hedge

Tyler Durden

One week ago, when we reported the news that the Bundesbank had secretly pulled two thirds of its gold from London years ago, we said the following:

... Germany has done nothing wrong! It simply demanded a reclamation of what is rightfully Germany's to demand.

And here is the crux of the issue: in a globalized system, in which every sovereign is increasingly subjugated to the credit-creating power of the globalized "whole", one must leave all thoughts of sovereign independence at the door and embrace the "new world order." After all this is the only way that the globalized system can create the shadow cloud of infinite repoable liabilities, in which we currently all float light as a binary feather, which permits instantaeous capital flows and monetary fungibility, and which guarantees that there will be no sovereign bond issue failure as long as nobody dares to defect from the system in which all collateral is cross pledge and ultra-rehypothecated... for the greater good. Until the Buba secretly defected that is.

And this is the whole story. Because by doing what it has every right to do, the German Central Bank implicitly broke the cardinal rule of true modern monetary system (never to be confused with that socialist acronym fad MMT, MMR or some such comparable mumbo-jumbo). And the rule is that a sovereign can never put its own people above the global corporatist-cum-banking oligarchy, which needs to have access to all hard (and otherwise) assets at any given moment, on a moment's notice, as the system's explicit leverage at last check inclusive of the nearly $1 quadrillion in derivatives, is about 20 times greater than global GDP. This also happens to be the reason why the entire world is always at most a few keystrokes away from a complete monetary (and trade) paralysis, as the Lehman aftermath and the Reserve Fund breaking the buck so aptly showed.

We are confident that little if anything will be made of the Buba's action, because dwelling on it too much may expose just who the first country will be (or  already has been) when the tide finally breaks, and when it will be every sovereign for themselves. Because at that point, which will come eventually,not only Buba, but every other bank, corporation, and individual will scramble to recover their own gold located in some vault in London, New York, or Paris, or at your friendly bank vault down the street, and instead will merely find a recently emptied storage room with humorously written I.O.U. letters in the place of 1 kilo gold bricks.

It appears that the story, which has refused to go away, was not covered sufficiently fast, and precisely the worst case scenario - at least for the "asset-lite" status quo - is slowly but surely starting to materialize. From Bloomberg:

Ecuador’s government wants the nation’s banks to repatriate about one third of their foreign holdings to support national growth, the head of the country’s tax agency said.

Carlos Carrasco, director of the tax agency known as the SRI, said today that Ecuador’s lenders could repatriate about $1.7 billion and still fulfill obligations to international clients. Carrasco spoke at a congressional hearing in Quito on a government proposal to raise taxes on banks to finance cash subsidies to the South American nation’s poor.

So yesterday: Germany... today: Ecuador... tomorrow: the World?

Because while Ecuador, with its 26.3 tonnes of gold, may be small in the grand scheme of gold things, all it takes is for more and more banks to join the bandwagon and demand delivery in kind from official repositories (i.e., New York and London), and the myth that is the overcollateralization of hard money by central banks will promptly come to an abrupt, bitter and, likely, quite violent end.

Assange slams Obama's claims of advocating freedom of speech

PressTV

The founder of the WikiLeaks website has ridiculed US President Barack Obama’s claim of supporting free speech in the Middle East while persecuting his group for publishing leaked US diplomatic cables.

Speaking Wednesday in a New York event via a video feed from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he is holed up for fear of being extradited to the US by British officials, Julian Assange mocked President Barack Obama for defending free speech in Muslim nations during his Tuesday address to the UN General Assembly as he underlined his own case of being targeted by US authorities for exercising his right of free speech.

Assange reportedly insisted that Obama has "done more to criminalize free speech than any other US president."

"It's time for President Obama to keep his word... and for the US to cease its persecution of WikiLeaks," he said.

Assange described as 'audacious' the US government efforts "to take credit for the last two years of progress," given the history of US sponsorship of toppled Arab dictators.

Assange further emphasized, "It must have come as a surprise to the Egyptian teenagers who washed American teargas out of their eyes (during the revolution that toppled US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak) to hear that the US supported change in the Middle East."

Citing Obama's rhetoric at his UN address glorifying the freedom of expression, Assange also pointed to the reported treatment of US soldier Bradley Manning in a US prison, where he was allegedly held in isolation, stripped and left unclothed for hours in his cell, as well as the harsh condemnation of Wikileaks by senior American officials.

The remarks came at a packed gathering of diplomats on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly and hosted by Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who announced that he would meet with his British counterpart William Hague on Thursday to again demand a safe passage to Ecuador for Assange by the UK.

Patino also blamed British authorities for violating Assange’s rights, reiterating that he may have to remain in the embassy in London for up to ten years.

Assange sought refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London three months ago from extradition to Sweden and eventually to the US, where he has been harshly condemned by top officials for leaking classified American military and diplomatic documents that reveal targeting of Iraqi civilians by invading American troops as well as backing despotic rulers in the Middle East and elsewhere, among other things.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald has reportedly published “declassified US air force counter-intelligence reports,” that refer to Assange and Wikileaks as "enemies of the United States," placing him and his website in a similar legal category as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. 

UN Security Council has no authority to support revolution in Syria – Lavrov

Russia Today

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

The UN Security Council has no right to support a revolution or foreign intervention in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned. Any plan to withdraw government troops while fighting continues is untenable, and naïve at best, he added.

The demand for President Bashar al-Assad to resign as a precondition to resolving the Syrian crisis is a completely unrealistic approach, Lavrov said during a public appearance at the Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs.

“There are different attitudes towards the Syrian regime. But while fighting in the streets continues, it is absolutely unrealistic to say that the only way out is for one side to unilaterally capitulate. It is not a matter of ideology, we don’t support any political figures in Syria. We just reason from what is realistic,” Lavrov said to the students of the diplomatic university.

Harking back to the summit in Geneva in June, Lavrov noted that despite differing opinions on the conflict, all the participating countries agreed to work for a “free, stable, independent and democratic” Syria. However, “our western partners and some nations in the region are almost openly pushing for outside intervention,” said Lavrov.

“Outside intervention should be positive. Every international player should push for both sides of the Syrian conflict to cease violence,” stressed Lavrov. “Saying that the government should be the first to pull out its troops from towns and then the opposition is not a viable plan.”
The Russian foreign minister added that those foreign players who insist on inciting the opposition forces “are not working in the interests of the Syrian people. They are motivated by their own geopolitical interests.”

Lavrov cited the fact the Security Council dismissed a vote on the Geneva accord as evidence that a number of countries were not working for the Syrian people.
Ecuador, Assange’s rights must be respected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s rights as a political refugee must be respected, Lavrov said, adding that under international law, it would be illegal for UK police to storm the Ecuadorian embassy.

“As long as he is inside Ecuadorian territory, I think no one will try any rash actions, and the rights of the refugee [Assange] must be respected. No one can challenge the judicial process. But when the Ecuadorian embassy is threatened with being stormed, just like the Winter Palace was, I think it’s a little outside the rule of law,” Lavrov said in his talk to the students, alluding to the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace during Russia's 1917 revolution.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June. The whistleblower is currently in the center of an international stalemate insofar as Ecuador has granted him asylum but the UK has pledged to arrest him if he sets foot outside the building.

Assange estimates that he could potentially get out of the Ecuadorian embassy in a year’s time if Sweden drops the extradition order against him. The 41-year-old Australian is wanted for questioning over charges of sexual assault and rape in Sweden.

Assange has said that if Sweden drops the extradition order against him he could potentially leave the embassy in a year’s time. The 41-year-old Australian is wanted for questioning over charges of sexual assault and rape in Sweden.

Commenting on the WikLeaks whistleblowing scandal that precipitated Assange’s asylum request, Lavrov said that the information in the WikiLeaks cables “brought to light how governments relate to their partners, and what they think of them.” The document dump hadn’t harmed or threatened the safety of any particular government, he said.

“It was curious,” Lavrov said. “But nothing more. Many of our impressions were simply confirmed.”

The British Siege of the Ecuadorian Embassy: Déjà Vu: Anglo-American disregard for International Law

Global Research
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

When Iranian student activists occupied the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 as a result of the Iranian Revolution, the US and Britain condemned the Iranian provisional government of Prime Minister Bazargan even though it was not responsible. The US, UK, and their allies ranted and raved about the sanctity of foreign diplomatic missions, calling the activists “terrorists” and “anarchists.” Today, however, they endorse the storming of embassies and consulates themselves. It is also important to note that Anglo-American disregard for diplomatic sanctity is conducted at the official level while the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran was not an official act executed or sanctioned by the Iranian government.

In regard to British threats to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy to the United Kingdom in London, the focus should not be on Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks. The real focus of the British government’s threats should be on something much bigger and more important than one man. The real issue at hand is the total disregard for international law that has clearly emerged in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.

The United States and Soviet Union never violated the diplomatic sanctity and extraterritoriality of one another’s diplomatic missions by storming them with their state security forces, even during the tensest periods of the Cold War. Embassies were consistently and securely used to relocate spies, defectors, and dissidents around the world. Many ruthless regimes and dictators during the Cold War even observed the international laws that protected the diplomatic sanctity of the diplomatic missions of other countries, even if their own dissidents sought refuge in the embassies and consulates of other countries.

The world is divided into two: those that are part of a system of empire and those that are not. The warning that British Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has issued to the government of Ecuador that it will assault Quito’s diplomatic mission in London if Assange is not turned over to the British government is in total disregard for international law and signifies a feeling of impunity felt within the system of empire that includes the UK. Cameron’s government is making threats to ignore and breach international law at the behest of Washington, DC. The Ecuadorian government, with the support of all Latin America, has responded by telling Britain that it is not a “British colony.” Quito should have re-worded its comments and said it is not an “American colony or dependency like the UK.”

International Law, Diplomatic Immunity Mean Nothing to the US Empire

It should be clear to all by now that international law is only selectively applied and that double-standards are in exercise. There are two standards in the world too. One set of standards is for those that have to follow the law and the other is for those that are above the law. Some countries see international laws as tools to be manipulated in their favour and cited only when it suits them. The governments of these countries pick and choose when to follow international law and when to apply it. These countries include the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and, first and foremost, the United States of America. These nations act as if it is acceptable and natural for them to have weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), illegally invade other countries, commit crimes against international peace, kill foreign nationals with impunity, and interfere in the affairs of other countries.

Diplomatic immunity and international law means nothing to the individual’s controlling the American Empire. When Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng sought political asylum in the US Embassy to China, the Chinese government did not threaten to violate Washington’s diplomatic immunity. The behaviour of the Chinese government has been in stark contrast to that of the British government’s threats to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

London’s Threats are a Repeat of Washington’s Actions: A Look Back at 2007

No one should be surprised about the US role in the threats to violate the diplomatic immunity of the Ecuadorian Embassy to the United Kingdom. The UK is merely following in the footsteps of the US in violating the extraterritoriality of diplomatic missions. In fact, the US raided an Iranian Consulate in Iraq on January 11, 2007.

The Iranian diplomatic mission that the US stormed was in Arbil (Hewler), the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and had been representing Tehran’s interests in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1992. US forces arrested and detain five Iranian diplomats without charges and ransacked the Iranian mission taking all the Iranian diplomatic files they could get their hands on, including the office computers. Aside from the Iranians, KRG officials have also acknowledged that US forces stole the mission’s files. The US government claimed it was acting on behalf of Iraq, but both the Iraqi federal government and KRG rejected this outright.

Despite their diplomatic immunity, the Iranian diplomats from Arbil would be illegally held until July 9, 2009. To justify its breach of international law, the US would claim that the Iranian diplomatic mission was only a liaison office that was in the process of becoming recognized as a diplomatic consulate. Both Iran and Iraq rejected this. In reality, the Iranian mission in Arbil had not only been operational since the Gulf War ended, but had been given recognition by the new political establishment in Iraq after the ouster of President Saddam Hussein and the Baathist government in Baghdad.

More Anglo-American Double-Standards and Breaches of International Law in 2007

On March 23, in the same year that the US military stormed the Iranian consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan, members of the British military ventured into Iranian territorial waters and were subsequently arrested by the Iranian military for trespassing. Instead of quietly obtaining their freedom, the British government politicized the issue and openly mislead the British public into thinking that the Britons were kidnapped by Iran and had never entered Iranian territory. What happened to the Iranians was illegal, but what happened to the British military personnel was legal under international law.

The treatment of the British “detainees” and “kidnapped” Iranian diplomats was not the same either. While Tehran did use the opportunity to taunt the British government, it eventually freed the captured Britons as an “Easter gift” and sign of Iranian good will. The British press seemed to have a memory lapse that the Britons were prisoners when it saw that the British military personnel showed no signs of duress or stress and that they were well treated by the Iranians (see Annex). Instead the British press began to focus on Iranian political opportunism and began to mock the badly fitted grey civilian dress suits that the Iranians had given the British prisoners as gifts.

Parallel to the arrest of the British military personnel, the Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi was kidnapped in Baghdad by a US-controlled group of Iraqi commandos who handed him over to the CIA on January 6, just a few days before the US raid on the Iranian consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both the raid on the Iranian mission in Arbil and Sharafi’s kidnapping in Baghdad are not isolated incidents; the US government had initiated a campaign to blame Iran and Syria for Anglo-American failures in Iraq when the events happened. As a diplomat, Sharafi was illegally captured. Moreover, the Iranian diplomat was intensely tortured by the CIA through such acts as the piercing of his feet with electric drills (see Annex). In contrast the British detainees were given proper quarters and treated as guests in Tehran. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also acknowledged that Sharafi, who would be freed on April 3, was badly tortured. Two different standards were clearly applied.

America Trying to Impose it Domestic Laws on the Rest of the World

Utter disrespect for any equally applied international standards or law is at play. We see that it is not countries like China and Iran that breach international law regularly, but countries like the US and UK. The matter also goes further, because the United States tries to impose its laws on the rest of the world.

Both the governments of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, amongst others, have condemned the government of the United States for trying to repeatedly impose its domestic laws on the rest of the world. US domestic laws that are imposed internationally are what the enforcement of the US sanction regimes against countries like Iran and Cuba are in essence. The US is even trying to impose the verdicts and rulings of its domestic courts on the rest of the world.

No country has the right to impose its domestic laws on other countries. This is a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of other countries. It an act of arrogance that implies that the rest of the world is part of a single country’s realm. In short this is how an empire acts. This behaviour, however, is also a sign of desperation as the American Empire tries exerting itself with greater force to hide the fact that it is crumbling.
ANNEX: Photographs of the British Military Prisoners of Iran and the Kidnapped Iranian Diplomat

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award-winning author, sociologist, and geopolitical analyst. He is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) in Moscow, and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica in Italy. He has also addressed the Middle East and international relations issues on several news networks including Al Jazeera, teleSUR, and Russia Today. His writings have been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2011 he was awarded the First National Prize of the Mexican Press Club for his work in international journalism.

The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya.
Foreword by Denis J. Halliday.

NYT: Investigate Four Questions Surrounding Assange Case

Editor's Note:  Here's an interesting side note for the Assange/Wikileaks puppet show.

Just Foreign Policy

Until now, major media have allowed U.S., British and Swedish officials to get away with claiming that the British and Swedish legal pursuit of Julian Assange has nothing to do with the prospect of a U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks, even though there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Recent developments in the case have given media an opportunity to revisit the issue.

Join us in urging the New York Times to pursue four basic questions whose answers are crucial to judging claims that there is no connection between the cases, and no danger that Assange would be extradited from Sweden to the United States, by signing the petition below.

We, the undersigned, urge you to work to establish answers to four questions which are crucial to judging official claims that there is no connection between the British/Swedish legal case against Julian Assange and the prospect of a U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks, and that there is no danger that Assange would be extradited from Sweden to the United States:

1. Why won't Sweden agree to question Julian Assange in the U.K.?

2. Why won't Sweden say that it won't extradite Assange to the United States if he voluntarily goes to Sweden?

3. Why won't Britain say that they won't agree to a U.S. extradition request for Assange from Sweden?

4. Why won't the U.S. say that it will not seek Julian Assange's extradition from Sweden?

Assange Fracas: All About Establishing Legitimacy of International Criminal Court?

Daily Bell

Ecuador might take the case to the International Court of Justice, but would first try to convince London that it should allow Assange to travel to the South American country or give him guarantees he would not be extradited to the United States. "We're states with responsible governments that can negotiate directly about this problem. We have always been open to negotiations with the British and Swedish governments," Correa told state-run television on Monday night. Correa's government, however, says there have been no talks since August 15. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: It's a new era of globalization, and these delicate matters should be decided at the highest international levels.

Free-Market Analysis: Is the Julian Assange extradition standoff nothing more than a way of further establishing the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court?

This could make sense. We've been puzzled with the way things have played out regarding Assange but now we believe we may have the key.

If one accepts that Assange and WikiLeaks are at the highest level connected to representatives of a global power elite, then what's going on becomes clear.

This elite seeks to run the world and has been challenged in this effort by what we call the Internet Reformation that has exposed the globalist conspiracy for those who wish to see. As they did long ago when attempting to combat the information made available by the Gutenberg Press, the powers-that-be are once again trying to muddy the proverbial waters, or so it seems to us.

WikiLeaks is perhaps just one of a number of so-called false flag projects that have been developed to confuse people about what is really going on. Anonymous is another one, apparently. So is Occupy Wall Street, which is reportedly funded at least in part by elitist apparatchik George Soros.

All of these entities and many more seek to combat the free-market thinking and disciplined philosophical anarchy that was making it impossible to justify elitist mercantilism.

The elite conspiracy is based on control of government. No government, no conspiracy. So when one studies false-flag events, one must look to see if the individual or group is mouthing radical or fashionable rhetoric while still suggesting public solutions to private problems.

This is one of the dividing lines between elite dominant social themes and the reality of credible and sincere change making.

Occupy Wall Street utilizes much of the rhetoric of "rebellion" and proposes seemingly anti-establishment points of view. But when one unpacks the rhetoric one begins to see that almost all the solutions are government oriented.

The hacker group Anonymous claims to be motivated by Internet anarchism but their targets are often corporate and rarely government oriented. They have surely not taken aim at the West's military-industrial complex.
The elites understand this and only turn to violence as a last resort, preferring to motivate people via fear-based propaganda. But because of the Internet, these scarcity-based memes have become obvious and increasingly transparent.

This does not mean the elites have ceased to try to regenerate these approaches. Julian Assange would seem to be a case in point.

As a young man, Assange went to work for the government after losing a hacking case. Eventually, he wrote for the power-elite controlled Economist magazine and won several prizes.

Somehow, later, in the first decade of the 21st century, he burst full-blown onto the alternative journalism scene with something called WikiLeaks.

We've chronicled, as have many others, the idea that WikiLeaks is a triumph of style over substance. Having a supposedly radical "news" outlet controlled by Western Intel agencies allows the powers-that-be to leak information to the media in a credible way.

And who are Assange's partners in all of this? Why, the traditional mainstream media including such names as theNew York Times and the Washington Post.

Assange is providing credibility to facilities of elite information. The mainstream media, bought and paid for by the power elite, is foundering around the world, but these are the instruments that Assange chooses to work with nonetheless.

We won't go on about this. It's fairly evident at this point who Assange is and how he is being positioned, in our view anyway. For more on Assange, just search the Internet for Assange and the Daily Bell. Or search for Assange and "false flag." There's plenty of information out there.

Again, exposure in multiple times and ways hasn't slowed the Assange promotion. He is tall, blond, handsome and arrogant. He continues to be useful to the power elite in numerous ways. And now it would seem he's going to be used to provide credibility to the International Criminal Court.

A friend of the Daily Bell's pointed this out to us yesterday and it makes a lot of sense. The Soros-funded ICC has not met with a rapturous reception and even many developing country leaders are wary of it.

But if Ecuador can draw in the ICC as a protector of Ecuador against the big British bully that is standing in the way of Assange's legal extradition, it would be a tremendous way of positioning the Court as a friend of the developing world.

Already the Assange extradition is being seen as a struggle between North and South. People have not been able to explain the bad behavior of British officials but it all becomes clear if one looks on it as an elaborate psy-op.

Assange Case Exposes 'International Hypocrisy'

Der Speigel

Ecuador granted political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday.

Ecuador may have granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asylum, but it seems unlikely that he will ever make it to the South American country. More to the point, say German commentators, is the fact that both Ecuador and Britain have granted Assange an even larger soap box.

For almost two years, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has wiggled out of efforts to have him extradited to Sweden where he faces sexual assault charges. Now with the decision of the Ecuadorian government to grant him asylum at its London embassy, Assange got another reprieve. What happens next is far from clear.

The British government has retaliated by threatening to invoke a little used law to remove the embassy's diplomatic status so that it can ship Assange to Sweden. The law was enacted in 1987 after a British police officer was shot outside a Libyan embassy. In doing so it would be violating the principles behind the 1961 Vienna Convention which deemed embassies as extra territorial areas so that diplomats could work undisturbed in foreign countries. Furthermore, London has promised to arrest Assange as soon as he sets foot on British soil, something he would have to do should he wish to travel to Ecuador.

Of course, the high stakes game of chicken isn't just over the Australian's alleged sex crimes. In releasing reams of classified communications, mainly US diplomatic cables and military documents from Iraq and Afghanistan, through his website WikiLeaks, Assange became an instant international outlaw. Assange has said he fears that once in Sweden he will be extradited to the US where he would face serious charges over the release of classified US government documents.

The German newspapers see the latest development in the Assange saga as a political power struggle pitting Great Britain against Ecuador, which is no stranger to human rights abuses. Assange is just a small pawn in that larger game.

By granting Assange asylum, editorialists agree that the South American country is thumbing its nose at the rest of the world and that President Rafael Correa is flexing his muscle on the international stage. Meanwhile Great Britain's forceful response, they say, comes at the expense of established international norms. Julian Assange, they argue, isn't worth the trouble.

The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Whatever one thinks of Julian Assange and his deeds, he is neither Osama bin Laden nor a mafia boss. That's why, carefully put, it was a blunder that the British government challenged Ecuador by referring to a law that allows it to retrieve asylum seekers from embassies in individual cases.... By heading down that path, the British government has done Assange a favor. Now, he can continue working on his own myth."

"That a government such as Ecuador's, of all countries, can now pose as a defender of human rights is shameful, but that is in the end London's fault. Unfortunately, it has also meant that the fact that Assange is accused of raping a woman in Sweden has taken a back seat."

The leftist Die Tageszeitung writes:

"The case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has become an unbelievable example of international hypocrisy. Both of the countries involved, Great Britain and Ecuador, are blameworthy."

"Far from the world's attention, the (Ecuadorian) government is evicting an ex-government worker from Belarus who has enjoyed three years of asylum status in Ecuador. The reason is that six weeks ago, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko was in Quito to sign a number of trade agreements and applied pressure. A short time later the man, Alexander Barankov, was arrested in Quito. Against this background, the flowery words of Ecuador's foreign minister about the huge importance of political asylum don't hold much value."

"Great Britain, for its part, has openly threatened to storm the Ecuadorian embassy with police forces in order to arrest Assange. That makes an absurdity out of its own internationally supported position about the protection of diplomatic representatives and adherence to the Vienna Convention."

"That the British government is prepared to even suggest setting such a precedent is a tough blow. That they are giving Assange so much importance is surprising."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Why does (Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa) have so much sympathy for an Australian named Julian Assange...? Because Correa sees the founder of the whistle blowing platform WikiLeaks as a soul mate. By publishing classified dispatches that have exposed the US above all, Assange has pleased Correa. He belongs alongside Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Cuba's Fidel Castro as the most important opponents of Washington. Secondly the temperamental Ecuadorian smells a chance to play a little world politics and show off the new self confidence of South America."

"Offering asylum is his right. Practically it will be much more complicated. Sweden is pushing for (Assange's) extradition not because of (WikiLeaks) but because of his alleged sexual assaults. From that point of view, he cannot formally be considered to be the victim of political persecution. In any case Correa is allowed to protect his embassy from encroachment by England. Yet he should display just as much respect for his critics at home."

The business daily Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"Julian Assange will likely send a thank you letter to the British government -- though not likely with Ecuadorian stamps. The founder of the whistle blowing platform WikiLeaks, who is hiding in the London embassy of the Andean nation, obtained political asylum in Ecuador. With that, he has received a lot of free PR from the blundering Brits who have catapulted the almost forgotten Australian back into the headlines. And he is even in his favorite roll as David fighting against the Goliaths of the world, mainly the US and Great Britain."

"Great Britain has helped Assange again portray himself as a victim of political persecution…. In truth Assange is fleeing from a long prison term in Sweden. And the Ecuadorian government, above all President Rafael Correa, wants to poke at the unloved US by granting asylum to Assange. The relationship of the two countries has been tense for years."

-- Renuka Rayasam

Ecuador Grants Assange Political Asylum

Der Speigel

Ecuador on Thursday said it would grant political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the country's embassy in London for weeks now. Britain says it still intends to extradite the whistleblower to Sweden, where he faces questioning over allegations of sexual offenses.

After months of house arrest in Britain as he awaited possible extradition to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offenses, politicians in Ecuador have said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be granted political asylum in the South American country. The announcement came during a press conference by Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño in the capital city of Quito. The foreign minister described asylum as a "fundamental human right."

The decision comes in contradition to the stance taken by Britain, which has said it wants to extradite Assange to Sweden.

Assange has been residing at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 19 in order to prevent his extradition. Public prosecutors in Sweden want to question Assange about accusations that he sexually harassed two women during the summer of 2010 and also raped one of them. The Australian citizen has denied the allegations.

The British Foreign Office said in a statement sent over Twitter that it was "disappointed" by the decision in Quito. "Under the law, with Mr. Assange having exhausted all options of appeal, UK authorities are under binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden." The British government said it would carry out its obligation and that the Ecuadorean decision would not change that. "We remain committed to a negotiated solution that allows us to carry out our obligations under the Extradition Act."

Britain Says It Will Still Detain Assange

Earlier, a Foreign Office official said the British government would not permit Assange to leave the country, even if Ecuador provided him with asylum. The official said Assange would be detained by British officials as soon as he left the embassy.

Assange is trying to avoid extradition to Sweden because, he has claimed, he fears the government there will in turn extradite him to the United States, where he could face charges relating to the WikiLeaks release of hundreds of thousands of classified US government documents, most originating from the Pentagon or the State Department. The documents, which were reported on by a group of prominent international media that included SPIEGEL, shed light on the US role in Afghanistan, Iraq and other global hot spots.

Ecuador : 'We Are Not a British Colony'

Patiño said Thursday he had received written notice from British officials that they would "assault" the embassy in London if Ecuador didn't hand Assange over. "We are not a British colony," he said. "Those times are passed." He said any storming of the embassy would be viewed as "hostile and intolerable and, as well, an attempt on our sovereignty which would oblige us to respond with the greatest diplomatic force." The British Foreign Office denied it had made any threats against Ecuador. In a statement, officials said: "Throughout this process we have drawn the Ecuadorians' attention to relevant provisions of our law."

The Ecuadorean foreign minister said that Assange could face a real threat of political persecution as well as the death penalty if he were extradited to the United States due to the publication of the WikiLeaks cables.

Scores of police were sent to provide reinforcement at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on Thursday as the decision was announced.

dsl -- with wires

SOA graduate charged in Ecuador coup attempt

World War 4 Report

A School of the Americas graduate has been charged for last week's unsuccessful coup attempt in Ecuador. Col. Manuel E. Rivadeneira Tello, a graduate of the SOA's combat arms training course, is one of three police officials being investigated for negligence, rebellion and attempted assassination of the president.

Rivadeneira was the commander of the barracks where President Correa was attacked by protesting police. The injured Correa was taken to a police hospital were he held hostage by police who threatened to kill him if he escaped. After 12 hours, 500 elite military troops stormed the hospital and organized a rescue. By the end of the day four people were dead and over 200 wounded.

This is the second coup attempt led by SOA graduates in a little over a year. The June 2009 in Honduras led by SOA graduates Gen. Vásquez Velásquez and General Prince Suazo was successful in overthrowing President Manuel Zelaya. At the time, President Correa expressed concern that this opened the possibility of future coups in the continent acknowledging that he might be a possible target..

The defense of Ecuador's democracy was achieved by its citizens, who poured into the streets in defense of their president. Their voices were joined by an international chorus of support for Correa, including the OAS, UNASUR and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ecuadorans, however, were not convinced that the US was an not involved. A poll indicated that over 50% of Ecuadorans felt that the US had some involvement in the coup.

Both presidents of Honduras and Ecuador had recently challenged the use of their military bases by the US military. President Correa ended a lease to the US to use it's Manta base in 2009, and President Zelaya had indicated his support for turning the Palmerola base used by the US into a civilian airport shortly before he was deposed. Likewise, both countries were members of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) when the coups were attempted. A third ALBA country, Venezuela, was the target of the third attempted Latin American coup of the past decade, in 2002, also led by SOA graduates. (SOA Watch, Oct. 10)

Obama administration fingerprints on Ecuador coup attempt

by Wayne Madsen Oct. 4, 2010 

With Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, coups against unaccommodating Latin American leaders would appear to be back in style. After Honduran President Zalaya’s overthrow in June 2009, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa was the latest target. An outspoken member of the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA), Correa had been giving Washington a tough time. Behind the abortive coup, Wayne Madsen’s investigation not only unveils the modus operandi of the CIA, but also lays bare Mossad’s murky activities inside Ecuador.

Using the standard CIA playbook on toppling democratically-elected governments in Latin America, the Obama administration, which was not happy with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s moves to increase state control over oil companies in the nation and his decision to oust the United States military from its airbase at Manta, appears to have suffered a major defeat in the failed coup attempt in Ecuador by police officers and Air Force personnel who were backed by rightist elements in the National Assembly and business community. Correa was re-elected with an overwhelming majority last year after he gave the U.S. military its walking papers from the Manta airbase. The Pentagon and CIA have been working to topple Correa ever since by pumping money into opposition political parties and other groups through NGOs funded by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

In a statement from Correa after his rescue from the Police Hospital in Quito by a military special operations team, the president warned of a larger conspiracy launched against him by his political opposition, saying the "attempt at destabilization is the result of a strategy that has been brewing for quite some time. A barrage of messages and misinformation have been given to the National Police, which today has been realized through violent actions from a conspiracy attempt."

Correa’s predecessor, the pro-U.S. Lucio Gutierrez, who is wedded to foreign oil company interests in the country, was accused by the government of covertly supporting the police and Air Force mutineers.

Although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a weak statement saying the United States backed Correa, it came one day after Clinton heaped praise on former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the person who helped to craft the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile and the assassination of its progressive president Salvador Allende. In fact, Clinton and Obama had given military and political support to the right-wing junta that ousted democratically-elected progressive President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras in June 2009 and has fought against allowing the ousted democratically-elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to return to his country from exile in South Africa after the CIA-engineered coup against him in 2004.

Clinton’s tepid response to the attempted coup against Correa was in marked contrast to the strong denunciations of the attempted coup and messages of support for Correa that came from Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, and Spain.  And the fact that Correa, like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was briefly ousted in an April 2002 coup organized by the CIA, was held as a virtual hostage at the Police Hospital in Quito for the greater part of a day provided a grim reminder of an old CIA tactic in staging coups in Latin America. Chavez was briefly held hostage on a Venezuelan island in the Caribbean while a U.S.-registered plane stood by to fly him into exile. 

In an emergency Latin American summit meeting in Argentina, Chavez saw the U.S. behind the events in Ecuador. He said, "The Yankee extreme right is trying right now, through arms and violence, to retake control of the continent." Chavez’s own experience with a CIA backed coup and the June 2009 coup, supported by the Pentagon, CIA, and Mossad against his ally Zelaya in Honduras, makes him an expert on CIA and Mossad tactics in the region. Informed sources have told WMR [1] that Correa and Chavez are currently comparing notes on the coups launched against them.

Ecuadorian intelligence will be looking closely at the wereabouts of key CIA personnel stationed at the CIA station at the US embassy in Quito and a smaller CIA station within the US Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Guayaquil. In the 2002 coup attempt against Chavez, the US embassy’s top CIA and DIA officers were discovered to be helping to direct the coup from Venezuelan military installations.

Clinton’s State Department has been casting Ecuador in a bad light throughout the past two years, calling the country "difficult to do business in," the only real priority that the Obama administration cares about due to its total subservience to Wall Street and the fat cat bankers. The State Department’s "Investment Climate Statement" for Ecuador states: "Ecuador can be a difficult place in which to do business. . . There are restrictions or limitations on private investment in many sectors that apply equally to domestic and foreign investors . . . A 2006 hydrocarbons law imposed new conditions in the petroleum sector that have been problematic for many companies, complicated by a 2007 decree that imposed additional restrictions. A 2008 mining mandate stalled mining activity, and a new Mining Law is expected in early 2009. Negotiations for a free trade agreement between the United States and Ecuador, which would have included investment provisions, stopped in April 2006. The current Government of Ecuador has not expressed interest in restarting negotiations."

Correa’s financial policies, as well as his foreign policy that saw him order out the American base at Manta and establish close ties with Venezuela, Iran, and other countries inimical to American and Israeli hegemony, placed a huge CIA and Mossad target on Correa’s back. In June, Ecuador sponsored a resolution at the Organization of American State (OAS) summit in Lima condemning Israel’s attack on the Turkish aid flotilla transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza. Ten nations voted with Ecuador in support of the resolution.

The uprising among Ecuadorian Air Force ranks, with Air Force personnel taking over and shutting down Quito’s international airport, will have Ecuadorian counter-intellligence personnel looking closely at the possible role of Israeli technicians and trainers who support the Air Force’s 26 Israeli-made Kfir combat planes. Israel also reportedly sold Python-3 air-to-air missiles to the Ecuadorian Air Force in 1997.

Mossad also has its hooks into the Ecuadorian National Police, where the main coup plotters received support. Mossad is chiefly tasked with spying on Ecuador’s large Ecuadorian-Arab community. The activities of the Mossad station at the Israeli embassy in Quito before and during the coup attempt will also draw the attention of counter-intelligence officers. Last year, Tel Aviv-based On Track Innovations received a contract to provide an electronic biometric-based electronic identification card system to Ecuador’s Central Registry Office.

Wayne Madsen has written The Handbook of Personal Data Protection (London: Macmillan, 1992); Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999); Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates and Overthrow a Fascist Regime on $15 a Day and co-authored America’s Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II (Dandelion, 2003).

Failed Washington-Sponsored Ecuadorean Coup Attempt

SteveLendmanBlog

Post-9/11, Washington sponsored four coup d'etats. Two succeeded - most recently in Honduras in 2009 against Manuel Zelaya, and in Haiti in 2004 deposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Two others failed - in Venezuela in 2002 against Hugo Chavez, and on September 30 in Ecuador against Rafael Correa - so far. Two by Bush, two by Obama with plenty of time for more mischief before November 2012.

From his record so far, expect it. He continues imperial Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations. In addition, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, North Korea, and other countries are targeted, besides deploying CIA and Special Forces armies into at least 75 countries worldwide for targeted assassinations, drone attacks, and other disruptive missions.

More than ever under Bush and Obama, America rampages globally, Ecuador's Raphael Correa lucky to survive a plot to oust (or perhaps kill) him. September world headlines explained, including by New York Times writer Simon Romero headlining, "Standoff in Ecuador Ends With Leader's Rescue," saying:

"Ecuadorean soldiers stormed a police hospital Thursday night in Quito where President Rafael Correa was held by rebellious elements of the police forces, and rescued him amid an exchange of gunfire...."

AlJazeera explained more in an article headlined, "Ecuador declares state of emergency," saying:

Coup plotters shut down airports, blocked highways, burned tires, and "rough(ed) up the president." They also took over an airbase, parliament, and Quito streets, the pretext being a law restructuring their benefits, despite Correa doubling police wages.

In fact, Washington's fingerprints are on another attempt against a Latin leader, some (not all) of whose policies fall short of neoliberal extremism.

A tipoff was State Department spokesman, Phillip Crowley, saying we're "monitoring (not denouncing) the situation," much like it refused to condemn Zelaya's ouster, instead calling on "all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law, and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter." Most other Latin states demanded his "immediate and unconditional return," whether or not they meant it.

Washington opposes Correa for Ecuador's ties to Hugo Chavez and Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) membership, a WTO/NAFTA alternative based on principles of:

-- complementarity, not competition;

-- cooperation, not exploitation; and

-- respect for each nation's sovereignty, free from corporate and outside control.

Though falling short of these goals, ALBA nations, in principle, pledged:

-- to benefit and empower their citizens;

-- provide essential goods and services; and

-- achieve real grassroots economic growth to improve the lives of ordinary people and reduce poverty.

ALBA membership, however, signals opposition to US hegemony, especially its neoliberal model, dominance, dismissiveness, and one-way trade deals for the Global North over the South, the curse Latin states have endured for decades, besides earlier US-sponsored coups and belligerency.

Fast Moving Developments

Before his rescue, police spokesman Richard Ramirez told AP that "the chief of the national police, Gen. Freddy Martinez, presented Correa with his irrevocable resignation because of Thursday's events."

On October 1, the Russian Information Agency, Novosti headlined, "Ecuador in chaos as police put president in hospital," saying:

Correa remained hospitalized....one person was killed and dozens injured during (street) riots." After Ecuadorean military and special police forces rescued him, Correa told the national radio in a phone interview:

"This is a coup d'etat attempt by opposition forces. They resorted to (violence) because they will not win the election. I call on the citizens to stay calm."

After being attacked by tear gas, he was hospitalized, then prevented from leaving when rebel police and coup supporters surrounded the building. Inside he said, "It seems that the hospital is under siege....(The) conspiracy (was) planned long ago," and he knows where. He added, "I will leave (the hospital) as president, or they will have to carry my corpse out of here."

His government declared a state of emergency. Flights from Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport were suspended, then resumed early October 1. In addition, scattered violence and looting was reported in several Ecuadorean cities, including the capital.

Freed by soldiers, a visibly angry Correa addressed a huge crowd of supporters from the presidential palace, saying:

"Ecuadorean blood, the blood of our brothers has been needlessly spilled. You have mobilized to support the national government....the citizens' revolution, democracy in our fatherland. When we realized we couldn't talk and wanted to leave, they attacked the president. They threw tear gas at us, straight at our faces. They had to take me to the police hospital where they held me hostage. They wouldn't let me leave. They shamed the institution (the police). They will need to leave the ranks."

While still captive, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino urged supporters to "walk peacefully to the hospital, where the president is blocked by (rebel) police officers." On arriving, they shouted, "This is not Honduras. Correa is president. Down with the coup, down with the enemies of the people."

Ecuador remains in flux. As a result, new developments need close monitoring. Writing for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Andres Ochoa said:

Before the coup attempt, "Correa seemed an untouchable figure in Ecuadorian politics. However, his presidency might very well be defined by the outcome of this day, and his political projects may rest on the results."

A Final Comment

On October 1, AFP writer Alexander Martinez headlined, "Ecuador president rescued from police uprising," saying:

Correa "made a triumphant return to the presidential palace after loyalist troops rescued him from a police rebellion amid gunfire and street clashes that left at least two dead" and dozens wounded.

"We got him out, we got him out," Interior Vice Minister Edwin Jarrin told AFP.

"The rescue capped a dramatic day of violence and confusion that began early Thursday" when rebel police assaulted him.

After his rescue, Correa thanked the military and a police special operations unit, saying:

"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 (be) telling you this because I would have passed on to a better life." Supporters are grateful not yet.

Commenting on developments, Latin American expert James Petras explained that Ecuador's "ELITE MILITARY" put down the coup. In 2008, defense minister Javier Ponce "denounced" Washington "for subverting police."

At the same time, there's "legitimate protest by trade unions against Correa's austerity plan, which the right exploited, seeing the pro-Correa forces divided." In addition, some NGOs and "supposed Indian groups who tacitly supported the coup are on the take from America's National Endowment of Democracy (NED) and USAID," the usual suspects with a long disruptive history throughout the region and beyond.

Their operatives weren't on the streets visibly, but they expressed no opposition to coup plotters. Instead, "Their statement called for the government's replacement," meaning it's Obama administration policy - not for Correa's domestic policies, says Petras. It's for his "ties with US arch enemy Chavez and ALBA."

Events remain fluid and fast moving. Stay tuned for more updates.