Under Bush Jr, the United States lost two ambassadors in South America. The Obama administration has lost another, bringing the total to three.
Those countries are Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. So President Obama’s recent trip to Latin America did little to mend relations.
Even U.S. ally Columbia, is leaning towards Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
Looks like the U.S. just doesn’t get Latin America.
“We are concerned that Iran will try to undertake transactions related to the proliferation of weapons, evading the provisions of Security Council of the United Nations.”-U.S. Embassy cable 226556, September 2009.
The latest documents released by WikiLeaks shows the U.S. fearful of Ecuadorian ties to Iran, and that the U.S. considered Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa as emotionally immature. This was after he threw out two U.S. diplomats in 2009.
He also accused one of the diplomats, Mark Sullivan, as doubling as the head of CIA operations in Ecuador.
The leaked documents also show concern about the ideological unity of President Correa, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
In regards to Iran, dozens of documents show that the United States is obsessed with Ecuador’s efforts to establish strong ties with Iran, including deals with Iran’s Central Bank. The fear is so great that, in February 2010, U.S. officials got Wachovia Bank, which is the largest trade financier in Ecuador, to spy on any of its customers that might be doing transactions with Iran.
Thanks to a WikiLeaks release, tensions between the United States and Ecuador are heating up.
The WikiLeaks document showed that the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Heather M. Hodges, made some not so nice comments about their President. Apparently President Rafael Correa gave her a chance to retract, or explain, her statements, and she allegedly refused. She was then declared persona non grata (unwelcome) in Ecuador, but not officially kicked out.
Now the United States has actually kicked out the ambassador from Ecuador. The U.S. State Department says it’s in retaliation for Ecuador ordering Hodges out of the country, which President Correa disputes. Correa says they simply said she was no longer welcome, but they were not “kicking her out”.
This continues a long list of problems between Ecuador and the U.S. In the past few years the United States was pushing Ecuador to allow U.S. military bases to be set up on their soil. The official reason was to fight drugs in Columbia, but many people believe it was to encircle Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. President Correa responded, in 2009, by saying that the only way the U.S. could build bases in Ecuador, was if Ecuador was allowed to build bases in the United States.
Now we have the WikiLeaks/ambassador fiasco. What’s next, oil? Maybe!
Ecuador has oil! They have been fighting international legal battles to prevent oil companies from coming in and drilling. That’s right, they do NOT want anymore oil pumped out of their ground. Ecuador does have active oil fields, but they don’t want anymore. The oil corporations, backed by governments (Chevron/United States), are saying to bad so sad, you just a piddly country, what you gonna do about it?
So far Ecuador has been petitioning United Nations members, but not getting much support. There’s estimated to be hundreds of millions of barrels of oil still to be drilled and pumped out in Ecuador. And with the price of oil making it more tempting, could President Obama (or any other future U.S. president) be planning some kinda humanitarian military intervention in Ecuador?
On September 30th, there was what some call a U.S. backed coup attempt in Ecuador. It failed. Did the U.S. TV media cover it. No.
According to several western media sources, the violence happened as a result of the Ecuadorian government making tough economic decisions that affected many workers, including police. However, Russia Today interviewed several people who said many of the disaffected groups, involved in the coup, get money from U.S. agencies. Also, police said they were rebelling because their benefits were being cut, but, according to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, benefits have not been cut, and police pay has actually been increased; “Presumably, a certain part of society – in this case, armed people, national police – expressed their discontent with the new law they haven’t even read to the end.”
The Ecuadorian Army put down the coup attempt by, what some say were police officers backed by U.S. interests. President Correa said they have intelligence that shows that several groups went to the United States just days before the coup. Those groups met with right wing political groups in the U.S., where it’s believed they received funding for a coup attempt. Mmmm, isn’t that sponsoring international terrorism, by the very country leading the War on Terror?
There is a state of emergency in Ecuador. The streets are being patrolled by the Army. Question: If so many Ecuadorians didn’t like their President, why did so many unarmed civilians come out in defense of him?
Who is President Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado? He is what greedy neo-con right wingers in the United States hate: An Economist, and Socialist, who fought against (mainly U.S.) creditors, claiming that the many debts against Ecuador were illegal. He also kicked out the World Bank’s Ecuadorian manager. He is the current President of the Union of South American Nations (bet most people in the U.S. don’t know the South American countries united back in 2008). In other words, take out Correa and you kill two birds with one stone.
