Javier Ponce, Poet and Defence Minister, Takes On The CIA In Ecuador

By José Steinsleger

The process of popular and social emancipation has started to gather force in Ecuador. In April, after a joint Colombian-U.S. military operation against a FARC camp in Ecuadorian territory, President Rafael Correa entrusted the writer Javier Ponce Cevallos with steering the Ministry of Defence.

If the appointment was nitric acid for the Creole oligarchy and the conservative sector of the armed forces, imagine the unease in the CIA and Southern Command of the imperial army.

From the time of the military coup orchestrated by the CIA in July 1963, 22 governments, military, interim and democratic, never dared to question the power of “the company” in Ecuador.

Philip Agee, the famous agent who left the CIA in Mexico (1968), worked in Ecuador from 1960 to 1963. In his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Agee revealed the identity of about a hundred informants situated in the most exalted levels of the Andean country.

At the end of 1989, the U.S. journalist, Seymour Hersh, revived the case of President Jaime Roldós who died in 1981 together with his wife and General Marco Subia, Defence Minister. The plane on which they were travelling exploded in mid-air a few months after the military confrontation between Ecuador and Peru.

At the beginning of 2001, a popular uprising defeated the Christian Democratic President, Jamil Mahaud, mentor of dollarisation and the U.S. military base in Manta. Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez was proclaimed the “national saviour”. Elected in January 2003, Colonel Gutiérrez became another sepoy of the CIA. Another revolt overthrew him in April 2005.

On accepting charge, Javier Ponce showed his courage and patriotism. The post has consequences. In January 2007, the Defence Minister, Guadalupe Larriva, and her daughter of 17 years died in a helicopter crash near the Manta base. The accident aroused suspicion similar to that caused by the death of Roldós, as critical of the militarist policy of Ronald Regain in Central America as Larriva was of Plan Colombia in the Andean region.

Javier Ponce joined the unorthodox Left early. He knows the social movements and popular organisations in Ecuador better than these they do and his books cannot be ignored in understanding the country.

More than the three published novels, the essay ‘And morning found them in power’ is a sad and beautiful reflection on the difficult them of “identity”. In ‘Seated between two chairs’ Ponce combs through 40 years of his experience in social development programme. He criticises rigorously, not without humour, the small world of international cooperation, the NGOs and the European financial advisers who come to help the “good savage”.

According to a report published by a Quito newspaper, Army Intelligence receives between $16 and $18 million annually from the CIA for “information exchange”. In the past, the poet-minister declared that the national police was “practically financed and controlled by the North American embassy in this capital”.

About the bombing of the FARC camp, the minister added that the CIA and some military commanders fully knew what would happen that day and hid the information “to mislead the political establishment”.

The distinguished Ecuadorian, Benjamín Carrión (1897–1979) wrote: “If we cannot, neither should be a political, economic, diplomatic and even less – much more than even less –military power, we can be a great cultural power, because our history authorises and encourages us to do so”. Proposal which, I’m sure, Javier Ponce has engraved on his forehead.

Source: La Jornada

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Ecuador Asks Ingrid To Show Some Gratitude

Letter sent by the Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, to the former Franco-Colombian hostage, Ingrid Betancourt, on July 10.

“We have seen your comments to the BBC London on the 9th of July where you expressed your support to the attack perpetrated by the Colombian armed forces on March 1 on my country, Ecuador.

“We were profoundly surprised and pained by these statements which support and seek to justify an illegitimate and illegal act which was recognised as such and rejected by all the governments of the Americas, including by the Colombian government itself, which publicly asked pardon for going against the fundamental principles of international and inter-American rights.

“It hurts us that you have precisely echoed these statements and versions of the Colombian government with respect to the supposed lack of collaboration of my government… it has even claimed that Ecuador is a sanctuary for FARC who we have criticised for their methods, to whom we have never ceased to call for the unconditional liberation of all the hostages and against the presence of which we fight every day in the north of our country with high human, material and financial costs.

“We suffered with you your long captivity and the day of your liberation gladdened us but I have to expresses straight on that it pains us that you have not appreciated the efforts made for your liberation and your support of the bombing of our country and the violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“We do not understand what is the fault of the Ecuadorians in the fratricidal war wrecking Colombia for decades for which you justify the bombing of our country. If it is do with infiltration – despite our efforts – of guerrillas into Ecuadorian territory, then we are to understand that we are guilty of being vulnerable where Colombia has its southern frontier and of being neighbours of a country in permanent civil war.

“Ecuador has made, and will keep making, all efforts in the framework of internal, inter-American and international rights to offset the very negative impact of the Colombian conflict of which we are victims, not the cause. We will keep receiving with open arms Colombians, who in their hundreds of thousands come to Ecuador in search of peace and civic security which they have not found in their country.

“Though we have never sought any recognition of our humanitarian efforts and solidarity with the Colombian people, a little gratitude for so much effort would have pleased us.”

Source: Ecuadorinmediato

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Unlike Uribe, My Hands Are Not Stained With Blood: Ecuador President

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, gave this interview to the Spanish website, Público, before his European tour to explain his country’s position on the current crisis with the neighbour from Hell, Colombia.

Q: The British writer Richard Gott thinks that Colombia is the principal destabilising element in the region. Do you share his opinion?

RC: Not just now but for a long time. Colombia is the only country that has paramilitaries, guerrillas, drug traffickers, extensive coca cultivation and large areas of the country that the State does not control. Paramilitarism and narco-politics don’t exist in Ecuador. Neither do we cultivate coca. These are exclusively Colombian. I say this with regret of a fraternal people, but Colombia today is the greatest centre of instability in Latin America and it hurts us all… The problem is on the other side of the frontier… we are victims of the Colombian conflict. We are neither its authors nor accomplices.

Q: Do you feel that a media war has been unleashed?

RC: Not just a feeling, it is real. We know whom we confront: a militarist country, a President with an imperfect past, with enormous support from intelligence agencies from beyond the region and with an impressive propaganda machinery. We have faith that truth and justice will triumph. Already we have achieved that in Latin America where Colombia has been roundly defeated in politics, diplomacy and information.

Q: What does Colombia pursue in accusing the neighbouring countries of collaborating with FARC?

RC: The militarist politics of Uribe started since he took over the presidency. First, overturning the strategy of his predecessor, Andres Pastrana, who embraced Manuel Marulanda (FARC chief). Uribe came with his hard line and wanted everyone to do the same. He is like a little emperor who follows the dictates of his boss. It is obvious that his political and economic powers are based on the fight against FARC. Peace does not suit Uribe because fighting the guerrillas gives a sense of security to the Colombian electorate. Worryingly, that conflict is spilling over.

Q: But before the March 1 bombing there was respect in the relations between the two countries.

RC: Uribe has always shown lack of respect for Ecuador to the point of fumigating our territory and his planes frequently violate our air space. In any case, there is a question without answer about the bombing of March 1. They had tabs on the Raul Reyes group while it was on Colombian soil. Why did they wait till they passed over to Ecuador before killing them?

Q: Why?

RC: Perhaps to involve Ecuador in a conflict that is not it’s. Perhaps to intimidate, perhaps to force us to participate in Plan Colombia. What Uribe did not bank on was our answer, the condemnation from the states of the Organisation of American States. His plan failed because we did not fall into his trap.

Q: During the Group of Rio summit in Santo Domingo (in Dominican Republic) you showed your hands to Uribe and told him to look at it well because they were clean, without blood. What did you refer to?

RC: Uribe has tried to link us, not only my government but also the armed forces, of support to FARC. Later he made out that my presidential campaign had been financed by the guerrillas. It is despicable. It is wretched that this man, after having violated all international rights, accused us of supporting a guerrilla group, the actions of which we have rejected thousands of times. I spoke of the hands for that. Precisely to make out the difference with Uribe’s position who has had so many scandals for his links with narco-trafficking. There are books that explain it. There are videos in which he appears to meet with paramilitaries. His militarist politics is not going to end with conflict; he is going to exacerbate it and leave behind as outcome thousands of deaths. My hands are clean and without blood. I cannot say that of President Uribe.

Q: He keeps making the charge that you knew of FARC’s activities in your territory. He claims that on 16 occasion he warned you of the presence of guerrilla bases in your territory and that you took no notice. Is it true?

RC: It’s an incredible smear. All my orders are registered. It is so crude and ridiculous that we have decided not to answer these. We don’t know very well why he does so. When relations improve with him, something strange happens and he tries to do you in the back. There is something not quite right in his head… He has a terrible psychotic behaviour.

Q: Is it true that Reyes had contacts with the French to negotiate the release of Ingrid Betancourt when the bombing happened?

RC: Uribe does not like peace and not even the liberation of the hostages for Betancourt is a potential presidential candidate. It is true that we knew that there was to be contact in a neutral third country to free them (the hostages) in Ecuadorian soil. President Chavez also asked me if we could receive the hostages in our territory because handing them over on the Colombia-Venezuela frontier had become very dangerous. We were in that process. Reyes headed the process to liberate the hostages and that is precisely why they went for Reyes.

Q: The crisis has revealed huge cracks in the Ecuadorian military intelligence that caused changes in the military top brass. What reforms will be undertaken?

RC: There is something seriously wrong with our intelligence services. We still don’t have concrete facts but we can certainly say that we suffer from infiltration by the CIA and the agency works for Colombia.

Q: There are those who criticise you for your naivety for having waited so long to change the military leadership, loyal to the previous regime.

RC: They are probably right. And also for having believed in Bogota. If you want to say so, we underestimated the threat of an external attack since by now things have been resolved with Peru and we had good relations with Colombia. But we underestimated that over there was Uribe.

Abridged. Source: Público

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Ecuador Flushes Out The Nest of Spies

Ecuador’s armed forces have revealed they are less loyal to their own country and have more ties to the U.S. military than what was previously imagined. This has come to light after the March 1, 2008, attack on a camp of the Colombian guerrilla group, FARC, in Ecuadorian territory by Colombia.

Though the Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, was kept in the dark of the details of the attack, its military it appears knew of it in advance and hid facts from him. Correa is now determined to cleanse the military and the national police of foreign influence. His Defence Minister has been replaced and the existing joint chiefs of staff have had to resign.

The influence of the U.S. Southern Command started with the handing over of Ecuador’s Manta base in November 1999 (for a ten-year lease, which the current President says he will not extend) and has had negative effects in the armed forces.

A high-ranking Ecuadorian military official said the institution was going through a crucial time in which there were only two exits: “either the military reasserts its nationalist politics or submits to U.S. imposition” and “the independent and progressive sectors need to retake control of the institution and restrict the power of a group that answers to the former President Lucio Gutiérrez”.

The changes in the Ecuadorian armed forces started after the 1995 war with Peru but deepened after the indigenous-military rebellion of January 21, 2000 which produced an internal schism in the armed forces and the start of the U.S. influence. The former chief of the Southern Command, Charles Wilhem, said in 2000 that one of Washington’s objectives was to “reorient” the Ecuadorian armed forces.

To achieve this, it was necessary to eliminate the progressive elements and to change the military’s social relations with different social sectors such as the indigenous people and also to deepen links between the U.S. and the Ecuadorian armed forces. President Correa denounced in a recent weekly radio address that the CIA “has fully infiltrated some of the organs of Ecuador’s military intelligence”. This infiltration also extends to the national police, whose chief has also had to go.

Days before, Correa removed the director of the Army Intelligence, Mario Pazmiño, for hiding information from him which, according to the President, led to military and diplomatic errors in dealing with the recent conflict with Colombia. Pazmiño’s downfall was the result of complaints from his superiors whom the Colonel ignored. He headed the intelligence wing for a decade, acting very much on his own, maintaining dossiers on others and without answering to his superiors.

Pazmiño started his career during the government of León Febres Cordero and was deeply linked to the security organs of the USA and Israel. A retired officer, Jorge Brigot, who had participated in the uprising of 2000, accused Pazmiño of being linked to Legíon Blanca (White Legion), an ultra-Right group which made death threats against journalists and human rights defenders.

The new Defence Minister, Javier Ponce, poet, journalist and President Correa’s private secretary before assuming this post, said people in the area where a FARC camp was bombed by Colombia had said that the day before the attack, military intelligence officers had asked them to leave the place as there would be clashes. Days after the bombardment, the Colombian magazine, Cambio, said Ecuadorian intelligence agents were linked to the finding of the camp.

This suggests Pazmiño’s links with the Colombian military. The link goes back to at least 2004 when a FARC leader, Simón Trinidad, was captured in Quito and the a U.S. embassy official welcomed it as an example of cooperation between the police of the two countries and the U.S. secret services.

Even at the peak of the crisis involving the Ecuadorian military, there were joint seminars with the Southern Command on “Challenges and Strategic Opportunities” for the two militaries. A U.S. spokesman said the event would be an opportunity for the Ecuadorian armed forces to define a national security strategy”.

Days before this, on March 31, Ecuadorian military officials attended a ceremony in Colombia for handing over an advanced control centre set up by the Southern Command for the Colombians.

The new Ecuadorian Defence Minister says nothing will be achieved by hiding facts and that the military needs to revise its structures and practices. President Correa is setting up a civil-military commission to explore CIA’s infiltration of the military and the police and says he will root it out.

Sources:
Vamos a Cambiar El Mundo
Ecuadorinmediato

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Sleep Easy: The War That Wasn't Isn't On

March 8:
• Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa says the crisis with Colombia is over now that principles, justice and international rights prevail over power. Latin America can now sleep in peace.

• Squirming right through a summit of Latin American leaders in the Dominican Republic, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia publicly apologised to the Ecuadorian leader, hugged Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and shook hands with the Nicaraguan leader, Daniel Ortega.

• President Cristina Fernández of Argentina said men accused women of getting hysterical but it would be better if the male leaders behaved as rationally as did women. (El País)

March 7:
• Hundreds of thousands of people, much more than expected, took to the streets of Bogotá and 20 other Colombian cities in protest against continuing paramilitary and state-sponsored violence, kidnapping and disappearances despite the best efforts of the Colombian government and the mainstream media to sabotage the event. The march was also a way of remembering the victims of the state-paramilitary coordinated violence that has displaced 4 million Colombians, and whose land (an estimated 6 million hectares) has been grabbed by the oligarchy and ranchers. (Telesur)

• Unlike the march of February 4 against FARC guerrillas, there was no help from the government, businesses or the press. Many Colombian cities could not hold marches because of paramilitary death threats to organisers and in at least one instance armed attack.

• The Colombian authorities, at the asking of the presidential palace, are putting all sorts of obstacles in allowing Ilda Collazos,the first wife of the slain FARC leader, Raúl Reyes, from getting hold of his body and giving him a decent funeral. She was married to him in the Seventies when he was a Nestlé employee. (La Jornada)

• The Colombian Defence Minister says five "intelligent" bombs were launched from high-velocity aircraft in the attack on FARC camp and does not rule out the participation of the USA. There are strong rumours the attack was launched from the U.S. Manta base in Ecuador. (La Jornada)

• President Correa says Alvaro Uribe knew that Ingrid Betancourt, the high-profile Franco-Colombian hostage, and 11 others were to be released soon.(La Jornada)

• Nicaragua has broken off ties with Colombia and it has its own maritime dispute with Colombia. (La Jornada)

March 6:
• Hugo Chavez has said he might nationalise some of Colombia’s businesses operating in Venezuela and look to selling off Venezuelan businesses in that country. (El Mundo)

• The Colombian guerrilla group handed over to the Red Cross yesterday four tourists it had kidnapped in January this year from a tourist spot on the Pacific coast. (El País)

• Rafael Correa, has said it is impossible to maintain contacts with someone like Uribe who has lost his credibility because of his lies and says the more the Colombian government speaks, the more it contradicts itself. (Aporrea)

March 5:
• The recently slain Colombian guerrilla leader, Raúl Reyes and another of his colleague, Olga Marín, also killed in the weekend raid in Ecuadorian territory, had had secret talks 10 years ago in Costa Rica with a U.S. state department official during the presidency of Bill Clinton, according to a memorandum declassified and published by the U.S. National Security Archive. The documents cited Reyes as praising the then Colombian President Andrés Pastrana and his gratitude for “the opportunity to be able to speak directly” with the U.S. government. (National Security Archives)

• Lucía Morett Álvarez, a 26-year-old Mexican student conducting research on Colombia’s civil war and among the three to survive the raid, said there were two rounds of bombing involving aircraft and helicopters. (La Jornada)

• The guerrilla death toll has gone up to 23 with the discovery of more bodies by military teams. (Vamos a Cambiar El Mundo)

• The Opposition Left-wing Colombian grouping, the Alternative Democratic Pole, has criticised the growing U.S. involvement in the crisis and asked that friendly relations with the neighbouring countries be made a priority and said it will work to strengthen the links of friendship with the people of the region. (Vamos a Cambiar El Mundo)

• The Colombian government was spying in Mexico from 2007 on supposed FARC safe houses and sympathisers. The Mexican government has not commented on this. ( El Universal)

• The Colombian military used cluster bombs in Operation Phoenix. (Aporrea)

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Ecuador Crime Scene Evidence Nails Lies of the Colombian President

By Decio Machado

Investigations by the Ecuadorian authorities have shone light on what really happened during the dawn of March 1, when the Colombian armed forces killed between 20 and 22 guerrillas in Ecuadorian territory. Raúl Reyes, number two in the FARC (Spanish acronym of the Colombian guerrilla group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) command structure was killed in the ambush.

Images, testimonies of resident and of three guerrillas found alive, ballistic reports and Ecuadorian military intelligence demonstrate the heap of lies of the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe. According to the Colombian version, the Front 48 of the FARC was being pursued on indication that Reyes would be present in a small settlement called Granada, near the Ecuadorian frontier but still in Colombian territory.

The Colombian Defence Minister, Juan Manuel Santos, indicated that during the operation the Colombian armed forces had been attacked from a FARC camp situated 1,800 metres from the border in Ecuadorian territory. The Colombian air force then located and attacked the guerrilla camp, taking into account the order not to violate the Ecuadorian air space. The Colombian armed forces later went in to ensure control of the place, leaving the Colombian police in charge till the arrival of the Ecuadorian army.

Investigations on the part of the Ecuadorian authorities show there was no combat on the side of the FARC unit which was attacked. With the exception of three of them keeping guard, the 18 killed were asleep in their undergarments; none of the guerrillas had the opportunity of fighting or surrendering. The arms in the camp were piled up. They did not have the chance even to reach for their rifles and grenades; they were massacred while asleep.

The testimonies of the residents of the area, as also the large craters on the camp ground, show that four bombs were launched from Colombian aircraft that entered Ecuadorian territory. According to the investigations of the military intelligence, these were launched from the south of the camp, which is to say that the aircraft had intruded more than 10 km into Ecuadorian territory when the attack began.

After the bombing from these aircraft, several ‘Supertuscan’ helicopters of the Colombian air force came in and from these the attack on the FARC camp in Ecuadorian territory continued. The helicopters landed special commandos who finished off the injured guerrillas. As the bullet wounds in the bodies of the majority of the guerrillas show, many of them were piled up in a part of the camp and killed from behind. Even the photographs taken by the Colombian government of Raul Reyes’ body show he had a shot on the left side of his face.

Information coming from Ecuadorian military intelligence indicates that the country’s air space was not only violated on the dawn of March 1 but also that on the dawn of March 2 there was another incursion of the helicopters with night vision equipment to pick up members of the armed forces and Colombian police still in Ecuadorian territory. The position of the trees brought down by the bombardment, the multiple bullet holes on them, as also the position of the bodies, demonstrate that while the FARC was guarding the camp on the northern side facing the Colombian frontier, the air incursion happened from the south, which indicates that the Colombian air force intruded without permission or notification, contravening all international norms about Ecuadorian air space.

The testimonies of the area’s residents indicate the attack lasted from approximately after midnight till six in the morning of March 1. The precision of the attack also shows the use of important military technology which puts on the table the possibility of the participation of the United States in the massacres, at least in spotting the guerrilla unit.

The testimonies of the people speak of the possibility that the Colombian helicopters had carried four, and not the two bodies of Raul Reyes and Julian Conrado, as indicated by the authorities of the attacking country. For its part, the Ecuadorian military does not rule out the possibility of some more bodies being found in the lush tropical zone where the killings took place.

The finalisation of the 10-year agreement between Ecuador and the United States for use of the Manta air base, which expires at the end of this year, and which President Rafael Correa is minded not to renew, is also an element in the diplomatic crisis. The Manta air base is a fundamental tool in the structure and strategy of Plan Colombia and though the USA has not made concrete declarations about quitting the base, it is evident that it forms part of its worrying agenda regarding the ‘Citizens’ Revolution’ in Ecuador.

Source: Vamos a Cambiar El Mundo
Related Article: Colombia's Illegal Cross-Border Raid:Gott

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Saving Yasuní National Park

Alejandro Nadal

The Yasuní national park, found in Ecuador at the intersection of the High Amazons and the Andean mountain range, is one of the places with a high index of bio-diversity on the planet: more species of trees are found in each hectare than in all of the United States and Canada. Most importantly, its two million hectares are inhabited by the Huaorani, Tagaeri and the Taramenane, descendants of the original people of America and owners of a millennial culture of life in tropical ecosystems.

Yasuní is probably one of the last and most important battlefields in overcoming the pillage of the extractive industries remaining in the humid tropical forests of the High Amazons. Perhaps it is also the crossroads for our civilisation. But Yasuní also has petroleum and one of the most important fields is Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) with proven reserves of 920 million barrels of petroleum.

President Rafael Correa has proposed not exploiting the ITT reserves so as to preserve the cultural heritage of the native people who inhabit the park and conserve the extraordinary bio-diversity of Yasuní. This is compatible with the objective of contributing to stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere for two reasons. First, unburned crude represents some 115 million tons of carbon that would not be injected into the atmosphere. Second, not opening the Yasuní fields to exploitation will avoid deforestation, which is one of the most important generators of greenhouse gases.

The Ecuadorian economy depends strongly on petroleum: export of crude provides around 45% of the financial income. As such, not exploiting the ITT field is a pricey contribution by Ecuador to international efforts at mitigating climatic heating. In exchange for this, Ecuador asks for an annual compensation of $350 million for the future revenue sacrifices. The calculation is something like this: for each barrel of petroleum extracted in Yasuní, the government will receive between $10 and $15 (the crude in this field is heavy and the extraction costs are high) but Ecuador is only asking for $5 a barrel left untouched in the subsoil. This total is really modest if the current international market price is considered.

The ITT- Yasuní reserves could become a fund of $4.6 billion and the returns from the said fund would serve to lead towards a model of development that does not rest on the destruction of the atmosphere and cultural diversity. The funds would be set aside for programmes around the principles of social and environmental sustainability. The proposal complements the setting up of a trust fund with international guarantees to ensure that the contributions will be returned if the project does not succeed.

The pressures against this proposal are formidable. For a start, Ecuador is one of the prime recipients of Chinese investment and one of the most important objectives, among other activities close to the base of natural resources, is precisely to be found in the extraction of petroleum. On the other hand, the Brazilian state enterprise, Petrobras, has been very active and currently holds an exploration and exploitation concession in the park. Last October, the Ecuadorian government steeply increased the taxes on foreign petroleum companies to adjust for their profits derived from the extraordinary rise in the price of crude. But the suits in U.S. tribunals against the measure did not wait. This is not the first time for this type of discord to be aired in the U.S. courts, only that this time the attack is all-round.

Crude exports have been Ecuador’s economic touchstone for three decades but the gains have been few and poorly distributed. In contrast, the costs are massive. For the people of Yasuní, the infiltration of petroleum involves the contamination of water bodies and of surface water, degradation of the soil, deforestation and unsustainable commercial exploitation, as much as the displacement of communities in the region where they have live for seven hundred years. The exploitation of petroleum is literally a mortal danger as those people lack in defences against the savage colonisation brings. The people of Yasuní, especially the Huaorani, critically depend on the resources of the tropical forest for which the exploitation of the ITT field will very probably be the end of their culture.

Claude Levi-Strauss, the celebrated French anthropologist, wrote in his Sad Tropics that to someone of the original people of the Amazons the real riches lie not in the accumulation of tangible objects as products of the activities by hand but in his heraldry and choreography. Something to reflect on in these times, in which well-being is measured by material and energy consumption… Ecuador’s proposal should be analysed with the attention it deserves.
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Published in La Jornada, Mexico City, on November 28, 2007. Link:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/11/28/index.php?section=opinion&article=033a1eco