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 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

Paraguayan Senate impeaches leftist president, causing international uproar

RussiaToday



Thousands have been protesting the impeachment of leftist Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, many clashing with police. A number of Latin American countries called the impeachment illegitimate.

The the Senate of Paraguay voted to impeach President Fernando Lugo with 39 legislators in favor and four against. Lugo was immediately succeeded by his vice president, Federico Franco, who was sworn in in Congress.

News of Lugo’s impeachment sparked anger amongst thousands of his supporters who had gathered outside the Congress building in the country’s capital, Asuncion. Some of them reacted by tearing down fences, while police tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas and water cannons.
Lugo said he was submitting to Congress' decision, but added that the history of Paraguay and its democracy had been “wounded.”

“Today I retire as president, but not as Paraguayan citizen,” he stated.
Latin America's resounding reaction

Paraguay's neighbors responded by calling the motion illegitimate.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez responded by saying his country does not recognize Paraguay's new, “illegitimate government.” He told reporters that his ally Fernando Lugo "preferred the sacrifice" of stepping aside, and said the trial was a setup.

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa also said his country would not recognize any government in Paraguay other than Lugo's.

"This goes beyond This goes beyond Fernando Lugo. It goes beyond Paraguay. It's about true democracy for all of our America," Correa said on television," Correa said on television.

Cuba split leaves summit without declaration

CARTAGENA, Colombia (AP) — A summit of nearly 30 Western Hemisphere leaders has ended without a joint declaration due to divisions over Cuba and Argentine claims to the Falkland Islands.

“There is no declaration because there is no consensus,” said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as the summit’s closing news conference.

Washington, backed by Canada, stood fast against widespread demands to include in the meeting’s final declaration language specifying that Cuba be included in future hemispheric summits.

They had also balked at backing Argentina’s claims to the British-held Falkland Islands.

“All the countries here in Latin American and the Caribbean want Cuba to be present. But the United States won’t accept,” President Evo Morales of Bolivia told reporters late Saturday. “It’s like a dictatorship.”

Morales and other leftist leaders have been insistent that this weekend’s meeting in this Caribbean colonial port, which wrapped up at midday yesterday, will be the last regional summit under Organisation of American States auspices unless Cuba is invited in the future.

But Santos said the leaders agreed to meet again in 2015 in Panama.

“Hopefully within three years we can have Cuba” at the summit, Santos said.

US President Barack Obama’s peers lectured him Saturday over his unflagging opposition to Cuban participation due to US objections to the communist-governed Caribbean island’s lack of democracy.

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.