Ecuadorian father denies son was rebel

QUITO, Ecuador (CNN) March 24 -- A day after a Colombian official identified one of the people killed by a Colombian military strike on a rebel camp in this country as Ecuadorian, the dead man's father denied his son was a member of the rebel group.

Guillermo Aisalia said his 38-year-old son Franklin, who was killed in the March 1 attack, was not the man seen standing next to two rebels in a picture distributed by the Colombian military.

"I've never met that man," Aisalia told reporters Monday in Quito.

Attorney General Alfredo Alvear said that fingerprint tests confirmed the body, which has been taken to Bogota from the rebel camp, was Aisalia's.

Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos on Sunday confirmed the military raid that killed about two dozen Colombian rebels in Ecuadorian territory also killed a citizen of Ecuador.

On Saturday, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa had warned that it would be an "extremely grave" development to learn if foreign troops were responsible for the "murder" of an Ecuadorian citizen.

"When it is confirmed, we will take appropriate action," the president said in a statement on his Web site.

Ecuador cut diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian soldiers and police bombed a camp inside Ecuadorian territory March 1. The attack also killed Raul Reyes, the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Colombia called it the most significant blow to the leftist group in more than 40 years of warfare.

The action provoked a diplomatic crisis as two of Colombia's neighbors -- Ecuador and Venezuela -- moved troops toward their borders with Colombia. Yet the crisis largely defused when the presidents of the three nations met and shook hands a few days later in the capital of the Dominican Republic.

Ecuador and Venezuela condemned the raid and all three countries affirmed that no country has the right to violate the territory of another.

Ecuador has not re-established diplomatic ties with Colombia, and tension mounted in recent days as the family of Franklin Aisalia suspected that he was killed in the raid.

The Colombian government initially identified his body as that of a FARC rebel.

Cuban literacy method "Yes, I Can" it benefits the Ecuadorians

From Cuba News Headlines, 24 March 2008
According to Granma news daily, it is the Amazonian territory of Pastaza, where nearly 97 people from the Tsuraku community received certificates last week.

Ecuador already has a province free from illiteracy thanks to the Cuban literacy method ‘Yo si puedo’ (Yes, I Can).

Since 2004, when the Cuban program began to be put into practice in Ecuador, more than 83.000 Ecuadoreans have learned to read and write while 26 cantons of the Coast, the Mountains and the Amazonian region have been declared free from illiteracy.

Currently, eight Ecuadorean municipalities, including four of Peztaza, are already in the second stage of the literacy program.

Thus far, some three million people in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Oceania have learned to read and write using the Cuban method.

Colombia confirms one Ecuadorian among dead in cross-border raid

Monster and Critics, March 24, 2008

Bogota - Colombia on Sunday confirmed that an Ecuadorian was among the more than 20 killed in a cross-border airstrike against leftist Colombian rebels in Ecuador, an admission that is likely to further strain already tense relations between the two countries.

Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said one of the bodies brought back to Bogota after the March 1 attack had been identified as an Ecuadorian citizen, but warned Ecuador not to take any drastic action as a result.

'I have told President (Rafael) Correa and the Ecuadorian authorities to keep a watchful eye and to not be robbed of their good faith by a few criminals,' Santos told reporters in Bogota.

The controversial strike, which targeted Raul Reyes, the second- in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), prompted a serious crisis in relations between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Both countries mobilized troops along their borders with Colombia and broke diplomatic ties, but the tensions appeared to have eased in the last two weeks amid reconciliatory moves from all sides at a summit in Rio de Janeiro and in talks at the Organization of American States in Washington.

But Ecuador's President Rafael Correa warned Saturday that the crisis could be reopened if it was confirmed that an Ecuadorian was indeed among the dead in the strike.

Santos again defended Colombia's attack as 'legitimate acts of war, legitimate acts in defence of democracy.'

Colombian commandos entered Ecuador's territory after the initial airstrike and retrieved the bodies of Reyes and another man initially identified as a FARC member known as Julian Conrado. Forensic examinations had now revealed the second man to be an Ecuadorian, Santos said.

Ecuador warns tension with Colombia could worsen

QUITO (Reuters) March 22, 2008 - Ecuador's President Rafael Correa warned on Saturday that diplomatic tension with Colombia will rise if an Ecuadorean was among the dead in a bombing raid on a rebel camp inside its territory this month.

Correa broke off diplomatic ties with Bogota after the March 1 Colombian attack on a guerrilla camp in Ecuador that killed more than 20 people, including a top rebel commander.

The conflict briefly awoke fears of war in the Andean region when Ecuador and Venezuela ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, but tempers cooled at a regional summit that led to a handshake between the three countries' leaders.

Despite an apology from Colombia, Correa has not reopened formal relations and said on Saturday he would look for ways to further punish his neighbor if it became clear an Ecuadorean was killed in the raid.

"It would be extremely grave if it is proven that a Ecuadorean died," the left-wing president said on a radio program. "We will not let this murder go unpunished."

He did not specify what type of action he might take.

Colombian planes bombed the camp belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia just inside Ecuadorean territory on March 1, killing over 20 people including the rebel's second in command, Raul Reyes.

Most Latin American countries joined Ecuador in condemning the attack.

Correa ordered an investigation after family members claimed one of the bodies belongs to an Ecuadorean locksmith called Franklin Aizalia.

Colombia's civil war often spills over into neighboring countries. Ecuador and Colombia share about 400 miles border that is difficult to police.

ECUADOR: Manta Air Base Tied to Colombian Raid on FARC Camp

By Kintto Lucas
MANTA, Ecuador, Mar 21 (IPS) - Military and diplomatic sources see a link between the Manta air base, operated by the United States in Ecuadorean territory, and this month’s bombing raid by Colombia on a FARC guerrilla camp in Ecuador.

The U.S. air force was granted a 10-year concession in 1999 to use the base, located in the port city of Manta on Ecuador’s northern Pacific coast, in its counter-drug trafficking activities in the region.

A high-level Ecuadorean military officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS that "a large proportion of senior officers" in Ecuador share "the conviction that the United States was an accomplice in the attack" launched Mar. 1 by the Colombian military on a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) camp in Ecuador, near the Colombian border.

FARC’s international spokesman Raúl Reyes and 24 other people were killed in the bombing raid, which prompted Quito to break off diplomatic relations with Colombia, although ties were restored several days later.

"Since Plan Colombia was launched in 2000, a strategic alliance between the United States and Colombia has taken shape, first to combat the insurgents and later to involve neighbouring countries in that war," said the officer. "What is happening today is a consequence of that."

Plan Colombia is a U.S.-financed and supported counterinsurgency and anti-drug strategy carried out by Bogotá.

The information gathered by IPS from military and diplomatic sources indicates that the Manta air base played a role in locating, and carrying out reconnaissance of, the FARC camp in Ecuador.

Ecuadorean Defence Minister Wellington Sandoval said there should be an investigation of whether the Manta air base was used for the attack on the rebel camp in Ecuador. According to the agreement signed by Washington and Quito, it is the Ecuadorean armed forces that should carry out such a probe.

The Manta air base lease clearly stipulates that the base can only be used for counter-narcotics operations.

Sandoval said he cannot provide any information until an investigation has been conducted.

The military source who spoke to IPS said that what should be verified "above all are the flights from the base in the 20 days prior to the bombing, who was on them, the routes they took, and what they were investigating. This data should be complemented by other inquiries and information."

On Mar. 13, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said she had had "a conversation with (U.S.) Ambassador Linda Jewell who ensured us that the planes (at the base) were not involved in any way" in the bombing of the FARC camp.

But the military source said that "the technology used, first to locate the target, in other words the camp, and later to attack it, was from the United States."

Sandoval declared that "equipment that the Latin American armed forces do not have" was used in the Mar. 1 bombing.

"They dropped around five 'smart bombs'," the kind used by the United States in the First Gulf War (1991), "with impressive precision and a margin of error of just one metre, at night, from planes travelling at high speeds," said the minister.

The military source said that "an attack with smart bombs requires pilots who have experience in such operations, which means U.S. pilots. That’s why I think they did the job and later told the Colombians ‘now go in and find the bodies’, which is when Colombian helicopters and troops showed up" at the site of the raid.

According to the official version of events that the Colombian government gave an Organisation of American States (OAS) fact-finding commission that visited both countries, 10 "conventional" bombs were dropped from five Brazilian-made Super Tucano aircraft and three U.S.-made A-37 planes.

The A-37s dropped bombs guided by GPS (Global Positioning System) and the five Super Tucanos have the technological means to launch bombs at targets with a five-metre margin of error, said the OAS delegation’s report.

But according to the sources who spoke to IPS, the U.S. role in the incident could have been even greater.

The military officer said the bombing raid in Ecuadorean air space was actually led by "U.S. pilots, possibly from DynCorp," a U.S.-based private military contractor that has contracts under Plan Colombia.

The aircraft took off from the Tres Esquinas air base in the southern Colombian department of Caquetá, said the source.

"The planes used to fumigate coca crops or to attack the guerrillas are piloted by serving members of the U.S. military or (former) military men at the service of companies like DynCorp," said the officer.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on Mar. 15 that his government would not allow "any foreign soldier, whether regular or irregular, to affect the soil of our fatherland. That is why there will be no more foreign bases after 2009."

U.S. usage rights for Manta expire on Nov. 12, 2009.

A committee in the Constituent Assembly that is rewriting the Ecuadorean constitution approved the chapter on territorial sovereignty on Mar. 17.

One of the articles states that "Ecuador is a territory of peace. The establishment of foreign military bases, or foreign installations for military purposes, is not permitted. National military bases cannot be leased to foreign security forces."

In its refusal to renew the air base lease, Ecuador can argue "many causes: direct or indirect participation (by U.S. forces from Manta) in the bombing; negligence for failure to detect the FARC camp with their technology, first of all, and the attack, in second place; and, in case they did detect the camp and the raid, for failing to inform authorities in the partner country, Ecuador," said a diplomatic source who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity.

Another reason that could be set forth is the direct support that the U.S. Southern Command, under which the U.S. armed forces at the Manta air base operate, has provided the Colombian military.

Admiral James Stavridis, the commander of the Southern Command, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Mar. 6 that he was monitoring the movement of Ecuadorean and Venezuelan troops to the Colombian border.

Stavridis said that with continuous U.S. support, Colombia has won "hard-fought successes" in the armed conflict. He added that "this key strategic ally" was making irreversible progress towards peace and against "terrorism."

He also told the Senate Committee that the FARC had been reduced from 17,500 guerrillas in 2002 to around 9,000 today.

In July 2001, retired colonel Fausto Cobo, former director of the Ecuadorean army’s Escuela de Guerra (war collage), had told IPS that "Manta, for the purposes of Plan Colombia," is a "U.S. aircraft carrier, on land."

By April 2001, when work began on the expansion of the Manta air strip, an average of 100 troops were taking part in up to three missions a day in F-3 reconnaissance planes.

A diplomatic source from the United States told Britain’s Financial Times at the time that by October the number would go up by 200, and by 200 more within the following few months.

After the expansion of the air strip, bigger, more sophisticated aircraft began to be used for reconnaissance missions.

Manta is one of the four "forward operating locations" (FOLs), along with Curaçao, Aruba and El Salvador, that make up the U.S. network of counter-narcotics bases in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In August 2006, the Expreso de Guayaquil newspaper reported that Colombian pilots were operating alongside Ecuadorean pilots on flights out of the Manta air base.

The commander of an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) squadron based out of Manta, Rich Boyd, told the Guayaquil newspaper that one of the AWACS aircraft was operated by a Colombian air force officer.

But Boyd said that each country's sensitive and confidential information is protected, because the Colombian officer exits the cockpit when the plane is in Ecuadorean air space, and the Ecuadorean pilot leaves when the plane overflies Colombia.

According to Boyd, three of the U.S. military’s 27 AWACS were at the Manta base. Each one has a price tag of one billion dollars -- nearly double the entire 2005 budget of the Ecuadorean air force. (END/2008)

Ecuador's Yasuni Park: Oil Exploration or Nature Protection?

by Agneta Enström, Special to CorpWatch March 20th, 2008

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib Manuela Omari Ima, a Waorani woman from the Ecuadorian Amazon, was born in the Yasuni National Park, a 2.5 million acre primary tropical rainforest at the intersection of the Andes, the Amazon and the Equator. That intersection is also the heart of a struggle between two plans: one for oil exploration and another that would permanently protect one of the most biologically diverse regions of the planet. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared Yasuni a biosphere reserve in 1989, after biologists found that a mere 2.5 acres of this forest contained as many tree species as in the United States and Canada combined. It is also home to jaguars, woolly and spider monkeys, and harpy eagles -- the most powerful bird of prey in the world. Some of the species in Yasuni, however, live on the brink of extinction: including more than 20 globally threatened mammal species such as the white-bellied spider monkey and the rare golden-mantled tamarin. The animals, birds and plants are not the only species whose numbers are shrinking rapidly. At the time of her birth, Omari Ima, who is now in her mid-thirties and is chair of Amwae, the Waorani women’s organization, says that there were some 16,000 Waorani. “Today, there are no more than about a thousand of us left,” says Omari Ima. “It is, simply, a struggle for survival.” One of the key reasons for this, she says, was the arrival of multinational oil companies in the latter part of the 20th century, which represented her tribe’s first and forced contact with industrial civilization. Soon displaced to a controlled existence in a reservation, Omari Ima’s family and tribe was divided, just as the rainforest itself soon became divided by roads and oil fields. A new plan, yet to be funded, could bring a halt to this exploration, but some damage has already been done. Petrobras Wins Yasuni Contract Yasuni sprawls over two countries -- Ecuador and Peru -- both of whom see the Amazon as a potentially lucrative source of income. In August 2004, when Brazilian president Lula da Silva came on a state visit, the Ecuadorian government granted an environmental license for Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned corporation, to drill for oil in Block 31. Also known as the Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini (ITT) oilfields, ITT is believed to hold up to a billion barrels of oil, almost a quarter of the country’s total known reserves. At today’s oil prices, this could mean revenue of over $700 million a year. (The Peruvian government has just approved environmental impact studies for two areas -- known as Blocks 67 and 39, that have been acquired by U.S.-based Barrett Resources and Repsol of Spain.) Explosion in Bolivia One evening in June 2005, 45-year old Emilio Uceida and his two sons were out on a fishing trip by the river next to their home in Chapare-Surubí, in the Bolivian Amazon. The area is being explored for oil and gas by Repsol-YPF, a Spanish company, which has contracted with Skanska to oversee technical matters. A spark from a cigarette lighter used by one of the men in the boat caused gas that had drifted over the river from an exploration site to ignite, causing the father and his sons to catch fire. Emilio and his 13-year old son Edgar burned to death, while theother son, 18-year old Mario Uceida, received such life-threatening burns that he remains in hospital care to this date. His condition is critical and doctors say that he will remain an invalid for the rest of his life. According to Repsol-mata, a Spanish activist group, Skanska and Repsol refused to allow the Bolivian authorities into the area for a criminal investigation for a whole week after the incident. When the various authorities and organizations from the Cochabamba province later visited the area to inspect the oil field, they were denied access to the exploration sites. Repsol-mata claims that Repsol-YPF also threatened to report the Uceida family for “sabotage,” which has scared Emilio Uceida’s family into silence. Armed with these new contracts from Quito, Ecuador’s capital, the companies have attempted to win over the people of the forest. Alicia Cahuiya, another Waorani woman who lives in the town of Pujo, says the companies offered the indigenous villagers items such as soccer clothes and candy in return for permission to drill for oil on their land. “The companies have often bought villagers off with small gifts, because the villagers have not understood what was going on when the company representatives came calling,” she says. “Later, when people have become sick from contamination caused by the oil extraction and begun to protest, the military have rushed in to support the companies.” Exploration Begins With the tacit permission of the villagers, Petrobras started to set up the infrastructure for oil exploration on the outer edges of Yasuni, such as the construction of a harbor along the edge of the Napo River in March of 2005. They hired a Swedish construction company named Skanska, which has numerous similar contracts in the region such as in Brazil and Bolivia, to do the work. Skanska currently works in Ecuador with Tecpecuador and Petrobras in Block 18, and in Bolivia it continues to do controversial work with Repsol. Local authorities soon started to complain about Skanska’s work in the area. Environmental inspector Marcos Baños, head of the environmental authority for the Amazonian province of Orellana, says that Skanska behaved in a suspicious manner. Baños says that company representatives have visited the authority to offer to perform “projects.” “I considered it extortion,” says Baños. And Raul Vega, an official in the provincial environmental office in the oil town of Coca, says that the company refused to cooperate with them. “The Skanska boss Oswaldo Contreras was the first Skanska person we contacted,” Vega explains, “and he refused to give us the information we required. If they had only shown us they’d done an environmental study, we would have given them a permit, but it was not until a subsequent occasion that Skanska submitted any information. That information, however, turned out to be false. The company claimed it had conducted an environmental study, which was a complete and utter lie.” The construction was halted after a few months. Petrobras’ permit was revoked and the company was asked to conduct an environmental feasibility study. Local Complaints Skanska and Petrobras’ joint operations were also sharply criticized by environmental groups and local communities in Ecuador for the initial exploration work conducted in 2005. Acción Ecológica, a Quito-based environmental group that opposes oil exploration in the Amazon, says that they conducted an on-the-ground inspection in Chiru Isla, a Quichua indigenous village inside Yasuni and along the Napo river. The inspection revealed that five families out of 20 experienced poisoning due to dumped diesel and oil in the watercourse from where the villagers got their drinking water. All the members of these families became seriously ill, suffering from headaches and vomiting. The investigation by Acción Ecológica also revealed that waste from latrines on Skanska’s construction site had been dumped in the surrounding water courses. This is in violation of Ecuador’s health laws, and causes a major hazard for the local population. The Chiru Isla villagers, who fear repression and therefore prefer to remain anonymous, also say that Skanska hired people from the local population to perform dangerous jobs, like carrying heavy equipment and climbing at the construction site without protection -- but never paid them. Skanska is also accused of having purchased food supplies like bananas and yucca in the villages, but failing to pay. The company disagrees. One of Skanska’s regional managers in the Amazon basin is Milton Diaz, an Argentinian oil exploration veteran who has worked in the industry for many decades. He dismisses the complaints: “People here in the bush should be grateful to industry instead of just complaining and making unreasonable demands,” he says. Private Security Diaz also says that the indigenous people are a threat to Skanska. “People here are slightly backward. You never know when the barbarians are going to start shooting arrows from the bushes. At Skanska, we also have a strict security culture. Personally, I never go unarmed in the bush.” The Skanska engineeers pay for armed private security guards, but the company also has an agreement with the military for support under a special security council set up by the government of Ecuador in January 2006 called GESPETRO - Grupo Especial de Seguridad Petrolera (Special Group on Oil Security). GESPETRO is charged with coordinating security for the companies involved with oil extraction such as Petrobras. The contracts include stipulations that the oil companies are to supply the military with infrastructure, food, fuel, living quarters and emergency medical care in exchange for protection. Similarly, the companies are obligated under the contracts to inform the Napo military base of community projects and programs that the company provides to the civilian population. Alicia Cahuiya says that effectively the land belonging to her people in Yasuni has now been occupied by the companies’ oil fields and the military: “Every step we take is watched, and if we voice a protest, Repsol turns the military on us,” she says. “If we do not comply, they threaten or beat us. There have even been cases where the military have killed Waorani people and thrown the bodies in the rivers.” Attorney Bolivar Beltran, from Fundación Lianas, says that the contract violates Chapter V of Ecuador’s constitution, as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal People. Both assure indigenous peoples a set of cultural and self-determination rights, such as the right to be part of all decision-making on issues concerning their lands. Standard Practice? Pablo Fajardo, a lawyer for the Ecuadorian network Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia (FDA), says that this is standard practice. “The population is being exposed to serious health hazards and illness related to oil spills and deliberate waste dumping while they often live in fear of the companies, whose power is expressed through threats and violence,” he says. “By using armed private forces, the companies try to control and stifle local resistance at any price. This is what it’s like in the entire region, and all companies working with oil are forced to deal with this reality.” Back in Sweden, Noel Morrin, Skanska’s sustainability manager at the company headquarters in Stockholm, claims that the company is not breaking laws or violating its own ethical code of conduct. But some Skanska officials say that they are concerned about the allegations in Ecuador. Peter Gimbe, the senior vice president for communications in Stockholm, says that headquarters has little insight into local conditions and that they are investigating the complaints. An Uncertain Future Today the future of the ITT fields remain uncertain. The new government of Rafael Correa initially considered the possibility of creating a consortium with Ecuadorean state-owned oil companies to develop the ITT fields. Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA and Argentina’s Enarsa expressed interest in taking part in any future consortium. In May 2007 Correa put forward an innovative idea: his government would refrain from exploiting Yasuni in exchange for receiving at least $350 million annually from the international community. The idea was promoted heavily by the government, with vice-president Lenin Moreno Garces staging an event during the Live Earth concert last year. TV cameras broadcast him joining nearly 100 people to spell out the words “Live Yasuni” from a forest clearing. Organizations like the Wallace Global Fund have committed $100,000 to the initiative. A number of other groups including Acción Ecológica, Amazon Watch, Earth Economics, University of Maryland, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Pachamama Alliance, and World Resources Institute, have put their weight behind it as well, but the plan has yet to get firm commitments for the full sum of money. Editor’s Note: CorpWatch is a recipient of funding from the Wallace Global Fund. This article was commissioned without any input from the Fund.

'Farc rebels' arrested in Ecuador

BBC, 7 March, 2008

Ecuador has moved soldiers towards its border with Colombia

Ecuador says it has arrested five alleged members of the Colombian rebel group Farc inside its territory.

Defence Minister Gustavo Larrea said the suspected rebels were detained by the army during a search of farms and houses close to the Colombian border.

It comes amid a growing crisis over a Colombian raid inside Ecuador in which a senior Farc leader was killed.

On Thursday Nicaragua said that like Venezuela and Ecuador it was breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said "we are breaking off relations because of the political terrorism" carried out by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

He made the announcement in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa at his side.

Mr Correa is on a tour of Latin American capitals to rally opposition to Colombia's cross-border raid on Saturday.

The situation shows that everyone needs to be vigilant about the use of border areas by terrorist organisations like the Farc Condoleezza Rice Pride fuels tensions Borders a sensitive issue

Venezuela and Ecuador have already broken off diplomatic ties and moved troops to their borders with Colombia following the raid in which Raul Reyes, a prominent member of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), and at least 23 other rebels were killed.

Announcing Ecuador's arrest of five alleged rebels, Mr Larrea said that they had been detained very close to the Colombian border.

"The guerrillas were detained in the Chanangue river, which leads to the San Miguel River, located very few metres from the Colombian border."

He said that they had been discovered by an army patrol searching homes for any signs of residents sheltering guerrillas.

Condemnation call

Tensions throughout the region have risen since Colombia's raid in which Reyes died.

Venezuela says 9,000 soldiers have been moved to the border with Colombia, while Ecuador says 3,200 of its forces have been deployed.

President Ortega is an ally of Ecuador's President Correa

Latin American leaders have urged calm and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for a "diplomatic resolution" to the crisis.

Colombia has apologised to Ecuador but said the raid was necessary.

"The situation shows that everyone needs to be vigilant about the use of border areas by terrorist organisations like the Farc," Ms Rice told a news conference in Brussels after a meeting of Nato foreign ministers.

The presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela have called for clear international condemnation of Colombia's actions.

Regional meeting

An opportunity for talks could arise in the Dominican Republic, where regional leaders are gathering for a meeting of the Rio Group.

Latin American presidents, including those from Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, are expected to meet on Friday.

The Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution saying that Colombia had violated the "principles of international law" by crossing into Ecuador, but stopped short of an outright condemnation.

The 34 OAS member states agreed to set up a commission of inquiry led by OAS head Jose Miguel Insulza to investigate the incursion and scheduled a meeting of OAS foreign ministers for 17 March.

Colombia has waged a four-decade conflict with left-wing rebels who finance themselves through the cocaine trade and by kidnapping hostages for ransom or political gain.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had become involved in mediation efforts to free Farc-held hostages in Colombia, securing the release of six this year.

He branded the Colombian raid a "war crime", adding that Bogota, which receives billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight drug-trafficking, was just a "lackey of United States imperialism".

He dismissed Colombian claims that a laptop found during its raid on the rebel camp in Ecuador held files indicating that Venezuela had given the Farc $300m (£150m).

Correa: Colombia's strike ruined hostage release

BY FRANCES ROBLES
Miami Herald, March 6, 2008

High-profile hostage Ingrid Betancourt was going to be freed this month thanks to contacts with slain Colombian rebel leader Raúl Reyes, but a Colombian military strike against him botched her liberation, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Thursday in Nicaragua.

After Correa's announcement Thursday afternoon, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia.

''We are breaking off relations because of the political terrorism being carried out by the government of [Colombian President] Alvaro Uribe, not because of the Colombian people,'' said Ortega, who during Nicaragua's 1980s civil war often sent troops to attack rebel camps in neighboring Honduras.

Correa visited Nicaragua on his fourth stop in a tour to whip up anti-Uribe fervor in protest of Saturday's cross-border strike by Colombia into Ecuador. The Colombian military strike killed Reyes, a top Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia leader.

In an angry news conference in Managua, Correa said that under Uribe's premise that a government is justified in bombing another in the interest of national security, all of Latin America would be warranted in attacking Colombia. They could start by bombing not just Colombia's Senate, but its presidential palace, long accused of protecting right-wing paramilitary death squads.

''What country on the continent most shelters illegal groups, paramilitaries, guerrillas, narcotraffickers? Colombia!'' Correa said. ``Colombia most shelters what you denounce, Alvaro Uribe. Don't be a hypocrite.''

Ecuador has found itself on the defensive since Saturday's attack, because computers seized at the site revealed that a member of Correa's Cabinet secretly met with Reyes, a leader of a four-decade insurgency that finances terrorism through the drug trade and ransom. Correa said the meeting was to secure the release of Betancourt, and that Uribe was aware of the efforts.

Betancourt and 11 others were going to be released a few at a time beginning this month, he said. Betancourt's husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte, said he believes Correa is telling the truth.

''The times we have thought that her release is coming, something always comes up; there's always a trick, a problem, an obstacle by Uribe,'' he said. ``I'm filled with anguish. France said it, and Ecuador also said it: They killed the person who was the contact who was negotiating the release of the hostages.

``If the FARC decides to play hard . . . they should release Ingrid right now to shut Uribe's mouth and prove that Correa was really after her liberation.''

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told CNN en Español that Uribe had no information that Ecuador was holding talks for a possible hostage release.

Correa's allegation was also a blow to the families of other hostages held by the FARC, who hold out hope that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will be able to negotiate more releases, despite Reyes' killing.

''Uribe does not want the hostages freed,'' said Jo Rosano, whose son Marc Gonsalves, an American defense contractor, has been held for five years. 'Uribe will stand right in front of us and say, `I'll do whatever I can,' and then he goes the other way and does whatever he wants. Uribe would just as soon see the hostages dead.''

In a meeting with news directors Thursday, Uribe apologized for bringing troops into Ecuador and said it won't happen again, but he said Ecuador must do a better job of keeping rebels out.

''What does one do when bandits are shooting from the other side and the government doesn't do anything?'' Uribe asked, according to The Associated Press. ``It's my job to defend 43 million Colombians.

''I accept that it will not happen again,'' Uribe said. ``We will not repeat these operations if they guarantee they will not shelter them.''

Santos, the defense minister, said the military has documented 39 cases in which Colombia was attacked by rebels firing from Ecuador. In 2005, rebels in Ecuador launched an assault on an isolated army base in the southern town of Teteyé, killing 22 soldiers.

In the past 12 months, 16 communiqués about FARC incursions have been sent through the binational border commission, Santos said in a speech to Congress. Another eight diplomatic notes were sent to the Foreign Ministry warning of a FARC presence, he said, the most recent Feb. 25.

Santos said they either deny it or ignore the communiqués.

''What has been Ecuador's attitude before these communications?'' Santos asked. 'On the one hand, an answer like saying, `This isn't true. We don't accept that.' And they become belligerent. Or the other answer is simply to maintain silence.

''Deep down the debate is why do they allow terrorist groups to attack our people from their territory?'' he said.

Santos said Ecuador complains that Colombia does not control the border, but whenever Colombia proposes a joint operation, Ecuador refuses.

Ecuador's Defense Ministry says it has dismantled 117 FARC guerrilla camps in the past four years, including 47 last year alone. Eleven guerrillas were arrested last year, and five FARC rebels were captured in Ecuador near the border Thursday, the country announced.

''Ecuador is preparing all the proof to demonstrate we have constantly guarded our borders and have not protected the FARC,'' Ecuadorean Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said at a news conference in Miami.

Correa also criticized a video of the operation released by the Colombian Defense Ministry, which showed the troops stayed in Ecuador until the next day and its prosecutors carefully cataloged evidence.

''Are they crazy?'' Correa said. ``That shows this was not an incursion -- it was an invasion.''

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to consider putting Venezuela on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. She also wants Ecuador investigated.

Such a designation would have minimal impact on Venezuela, because it would allow the country to continue selling oil to the United States. However, the effect would be severe on Ecuador, which gets U.S. aid and special market access for its products.

Miami Herald Washington correspondent Pablo Bachelet, El Nuevo Herald staff writer Juan Carlos Chávez and special correspondent Jenny Carolina González in Bogotá contributed to this report.

"To the Ecuadorian People" - message from the Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana

TO THE ECUADORIAN PEOPLE
from the Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana

The military invasion in the early hours of Saturday March 1, 2008 into Ecuadorian territory, a fact unprecedented in the country's history, expresses the desperate and militarist position of Bush and Uribe, to introduce the blood and fire of Plan Colombia and force Ecuador to become part of it. Moreover, it torpedoes the humanitarian campaign led by President Hugo Chavez and by the command of the FARC to release several prisoners and bring peace to Colombia.

This assault on the sovereignty and the crime committed, rather than legitimising and strengthening the war plan Uribe, has created a great social alliance from across the continent against the Project led from Washington, to control the region and appropriate its large natural and economicresources.

The CCB recognises and salutes the dignified position of President Rafael Correa, and demands from the governments and peoples of Latin America an alliance in defence of sovereignty. In this sense, we condemn the sad and despicable attempt of the Uribe government, which is linked to drug trafficking, as demonstrated by Newsweek magazine, to link officials from the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela, with the FARC. Why not argue this in order to invade Ecuador?

And we began to see in full action a government in total servitude to Washington (and which receives more military aid from the USA than anyone, after Israel and Egypt), which only seeks to replicate on our continent, under its auspices and stewardship, the role that Israel plays as persistent offender against its Lebanese and Palestinian neighbours in the Middle East.

The bellicose and inhumane positions of the spokesmen of the White House, who supported the invasion, confirm certain claims that the attack was prepared for weeks, and that it would have benefited from specialised information provided by the Manta Base and the Tres Cruces Base in Colombia, leaving no doubt that it was Imperialism who led the brutal attack. Under these conditions, what's keeping the Manta base in the hands of our aggressors? The government of President Correa must advance the suspension of the Agreement of the Manta base, while denouncing and ignoring all international treaties and secrets that previous governments have implemented to allow the use of our territory for the military and conspiratorial purposes of the gringos against our own people.

It should not be called a hoax. It is not now an action to topple Chavez or create problems for Correa, but a long-term conspiracy orchestrated by the United States aimed at seizing the oil of Venezuela and Ecuador, Bolivia's gas and the biodiversity of the Amazon. Using Uribe as the mercenary who does the dirty work, the United States can explode in a war that it might not even have to intervene in directly.

The CCB asks that the government of President Correa guarantee the life and physical integrity of the guerrillas of the FARC who survived the military attacks, and to grant them political asylum, as a token of his position in favour of the humanitarian agreement. Failure to do so and to hand them to Colombia, would be like dictating their death sentences.

Finally, we join the call to actively participate in the marches for the defense of national sovereignty, peace and the rejection of paramilitarism and state terrorism driven by the Plan Colombia.

All out on March 6 at 11. am in Foch plaza and at 6pm in Av. De los Shyris.

Bolivarian Continental Coordination - Ecuador Chapter

Ecuador Tax Chief: Coca Cola Unit Now Paying Back Taxes

QUITO -(via CNNmoney.com) March 5 - Ecuador Bottling Company Corp., a unit of the Coca Cola Co. (KO), has started to pay back taxes the government says it is owed, the chief of the Internal Revenue Service, or SRI, Carlos Marx Carrasco, said Wednesday.

"The company failed to pay around $20 million between 2000 and 2004, but it is changing its behavior and it has started to pay," Carrasco told Dow Jones Newswires.

According to Carrasco, the company paid less than it should have in income taxes and for a consumption tax.

Initially, the company didn't accept the debt and began legal proceedings, but it has changed its decision and has begun to pay, Carrasco said.

The company wasn't available to comment.

Separately, the SRI on Tuesday closed for seven days Industrial Molinera, a company owned the banana tycoon and former presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa.

The company is accused of not giving information required to SRI, and according to Carrasco if the information is not delivered to SRI, the company could be closed permanently.

The SRI has also accused a local unit of America Movil (AMX) of paying fewer taxes than it should have. According to a special audit, this company owes around $150 million to the SRI.

Ecuador to OAS: Colombia's Aggression

Washington, Mar 4 (Prensa Latina) Ecuador summons members of the Organization of American States OAS in this capital to condemn the aggression of Colombia to its territory, and asked for an urgent meeting of Foreign Ministers to analyze the crisis.

When taking part in an OAS extraordinary session to debate the subject, Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Relations Maria Isabel Salvador requested an urgent meeting of consultation with FM for March 11.

The head of diplomacy of that South American country denounced the violation of the territory and the sovereignty of a State perpetrated by another State.

Ecuador broke diplomatic relations with Colombia after the incursion of Bogota army, which culminated with the death of the guerrilla leader Raul Reyes and other 20 people.

That attack was a deliberate act that attempts against the international right and the bilateral agreements, thus Colombia must be considered an aggressor country, Salvador expressed.

Office of inspector in Ecuador Chevron pollution suit burglarized

via money.aol.ca, 03/04/08

QUITO, Ecuador - A court-appointed engineer in charge of determining whether Chevron Corp. caused environmental damage in the Ecuadoran jungle said Wednesday his offices were burglarized and three computers with information about the case stolen.

Richard Cabrera said his Quito office was broken into. Two desktop computers, a laptop, two printers and a digital camera were missing after the break-in, he said.

"It may be common criminals," he said.

"I don't blame any of the parties in this matter, that we'll leave" to the authorities.

Cabrera is preparing a report for a class-action suit filed against the San Ramon, Calif.-based company by 30,000 jungle settlers and natives. They are seeking $6 billion in cleanup costs for the jungle region where Texaco Petroleum Co. spent three decades extracting oil before it merged with Chevron in 2001.

Cabrera said he plans to hand in his final report on the alleged environmental damage in the last two weeks of January. The burglary "will not be an obstacle to my work," he said.

"I'm moving forward."

The suit alleges billions of litres of toxic wastewater were dumped in the jungle. Chevron denies the allegations and says Texaco, which ended its operations in 1992, followed Ecuadoran environmental laws in a $40-million cleanup, which the government approved in 1998.

Chevron has said Cabrera, who was appointed in June, is unqualified and the company has not received a fair trial in the Andean country, where President Rafael Correa has openly backed the plaintiffs.

A spokeswoman at Chevron's office in Ecuador said the company had no comment on the burglary. She spoke on condition of anonymity.

In November, Cabrera filed a letter with the court saying: "My life and the lives of my family, the lives of the technicians and other assistants in the report are in grave danger."

He said he felt "under pressure, watched."

California-based environmental organization Amazon Watch called on Chevron to publicly denounce "this apparent harassment."

"This is a deeply disturbing incident," said Atossa Soltani, Amazon Watch's executive director said in an e-mailed statement.

Police in Quito confirmed the robbery report. The judge hearing the case, German Yanez, said he was unaware of the robbery.

After wending through U.S. federal courts for a decade, the legal battle shifted in 2003 to a makeshift courtroom in the Ecuadoran village Lago Agrio. A ruling is expected sometime next year but the appeals process could last up to three years after that.

RAFAEL CORREA - REFLECTIONS BY COMRADE FIDEL

RAFAEL CORREA

REFLECTIONS BY COMRADE FIDEL

via CubaNews

I remember when he visited us, months before the electoral campaign when he was thinking of running as a candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador. He had been the Minister of the Economy in the government of Alfredo Palacio, a surgeon with professional prestige who had also visited us as Vice President, before becoming the President in an unexpected situation that took place in Ecuador. He had been receptive to a program of ophthalmologic operations that we offered him as a form of cooperation. There were good relations between our two governments.

A while earlier Correa had resigned from the Ministry of the Economy. He was unhappy with what he called administrative corruption instigated by Oxy, a foreign company that explored and invested important sums of money, but was holding on to four out of every five barrels of oil that it extracted. He didn’t talk about nationalization, but about taxing them heavily; these taxes would be assigned in advance to specific social investments. He had already approved the measures and a judge had declared them to be valid.

Since the word “nationalize” had not been mentioned, I thought he felt apprehensive about the concept. It didn’t surprise me because he had graduated as an economist with much acclaim from a well-known U.S. university. I didn’t bother getting into much depth; I bombarded him with questions from the arsenal accumulated in the struggle against the Latin American foreign debt in 1985 and of Cuba’s own experience.

There are high-risk investments that use sophisticated technology and that no small nation like Cuba or Ecuador could take on.

Since this was already in 2006 and we were determined to promote the energy revolution, --ours was the first country on the planet to proclaim this as a vital issue for humankind-- I had dealt with the subject particularly emphatically. But I halted, as I understood one of his reasons.

I related to him the conversation I had had a while ago with the president of REPSOL, a Spanish company. This company, associated with other international companies, would undertake an expensive operation to drill the ocean floor, more than 2000 meters down, using sophisticated technology, in Cuba’s jurisdictional waters. I asked the head of the Spanish company: How much is an exploratory well worth? I ask you this because we would like to participate, even if it is for one percent of the total cost and we would like to know what you want to do with our oil.

Correa, for his part, had told me that for every one hundred dollars taken out by the companies, only twenty remained in the country; it didn’t even get into the budget, he said; it was left in a separate fund for just about anything other than improving the living conditions of the people.

I abolished the fund, he told me, and directed 40 percent towards education and health, technological and highway development, and the rest towards buying back the debt if the price was favorable, and if not, investing it in something more useful. Before, every year we had to buy a portion of that debt which was becoming more expensive.

In the case of Ecuador –he added– oil policies verged on treason against the country. Why do they do it? I asked him. Is it because they are afraid of the Yankees or due to unbearable pressure? He answered: If they have a Minister of the Economy who tells them privatization would improve efficiency, you can just imagine. I didn’t do that.

I encourage him to go on and he calmly explains. The foreign company Oxy is one that has broken its contract and according to Ecuadorian law it requires an expiration date. It means that the oil field operated by this company must go over to the State, but because of Yankee pressure the government does not dare to occupy it; a situation is created which is not contemplated by the legislation. The law just states that an expiration date must be set, and nothing more. The judge at the court of first instance at that moment was the president of PETROECUADOR and he made it happen. I was a member of PETROECUADOR and they called an emergency meeting to expel him from his position. I didn’t attend and they couldn’t fire him. The judge declared the expiration date.

What did the Yankees want? I asked him. They wanted a fine, he quickly replied. Listening to him I realized that I had underestimated him.

I was in a hurry because of a great number of commitments. I invited him to sit in on a meeting with a large group of highly qualified Cuban professionals who were leaving for Bolivia to be part of the Medical Brigade; it had staff for more than 30 hospitals including 19 surgical positions that could do more than 130 thousand ophthalmologic operations per year; all in the manner of free cooperation. Ecuador possesses three similar centers with six ophthalmologic positions.

Dinner with the Ecuadorian economist took place into the morning hours of February 9, 2006. There were scarcely any view points that I didn’t cover. I even spoke to him about the very harmful mercury that modern industry scatters throughout the planet’s oceans. Consumerism was of course a subject that I emphasized; the high cost of the kilowatt/hour in the thermoelectric plants; the differences between socialist and communist forms of distribution, the role of money, the trillions spent on advertising which people had no choice but to pay for in the prices of goods, and the studies made by university social brigades who discovered, among the 500 thousand families in the capital, the number of elderly folk lived alone. I explained the stage of university courses for all that we were involved in.

We became friends even though he perhaps received the impression that I was self-sufficient. If that happened, it was truly not my intention.

Since that time I have observed his every step: the electoral process, focusing on the concrete problems of Ecuadorians and the people’s victory over the oligarchy.

In the history of our peoples there are many things that bring us together. Sucre was always a highly admired figure, along with The Liberator Bolivar; as Marti said, what he hasn’t done in America remains to be done, and as Neruda exclaimed, Bolivar awakens every hundred years.

Imperialism has just committed a monstrous crime in Ecuador. Deadly bombs were dropped in the early morning hours on a group of men and women who, almost without exception, were asleep. That has been deduced by all the official reports right from the beginning. Any concrete accusations against that group of human beings do not justify that action. They were Yankee bombs, guided by Yankee satellites.

Absolutely no one has the right to kill in cold blood. If we accept that imperial method of warfare and barbarism, Yankee bombs directed by satellites could fall on any group of Latin American men and women, in the territory of any country, war or no war. The fact that this happened on undisputed Ecuadorian territory is an aggravating circumstance.

We are not an enemy of Colombia. Previous reflections and exchanges demonstrate how much of an effort we have made, both the current President of the Council of State of Cuba and I, to abide by a declared policy of principles and peace, proclaimed years ago in our relations with the rest of the Latin American states.

Today, with everything at risk, we have not been transformed into belligerent people. We are determined supporters of that unity among peoples which Marti named Our America.

If we keep quiet we shall become accomplices. Today they would like to have our friend, the economist and President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, seated in the dock; this is something we couldn’t even conceive that morning of February 9, 2006. At that time it seemed that my imagination was capable of embracing all kinds of dreams and risks, but never anything like what has occurred in the early morning of Saturday March 1, 2008.

Correa has in his hands the few survivors and the rest of the bodies. The two which are missing prove that Ecuadorian territory was occupied by troops that crossed the border. Now he can cry out like Emile Zola: J’accuse!

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 3, 2008.

8:36 p.m.

Ecuador´s Correa on LatAm Tour

Quito, Mar 4 (Prensa Latina) Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa started Tuesday a tour of five Latin American countries to denounce Colombia´s military aggression to this country.

Correa will visit Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama and the Dominican Republic, to explain the position of Ecuador after Colombia launched a cross-border raid against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The Ecuadoran government broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia, after Bogota accused its neighbour of colluding with the guerrilla FARC.

In Lima, Peru, Correa will meet Tuesday with his Peruvian counterpart Alan Garcia, who condemned Monday the violation of the Ecuadorian sovereignty by the Colombian military forces.

On Wednesday, the Ecuadoran head of State will fly to Brasilia, to hold talks with his Brazilian colleague Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Later, Correa will go to Venezuela and Panama, and then to Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, to attend the Rio Group meeting on Friday.

The Ecuadoran leader intends to denounce the deliberate violation of his country´s national sovereignty by the Colombian military forces that bombed a provisional guerrilla FARC camp in Ecuadoran territory.

Correa also slammed Monday what he called shameless attitude by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who, he said, tries now to turn the attention from the violation of Ecuador"s sovereignty with unfounded information.

The Ecuadoran president will request an international mission to visit the cross-border raided area, in the Amazonian province of Sucumbios, to confirm the blatant violation of Ecuador´s national territory.

Ecuador´s Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador travelled to Washington Monday night to attend a meeting of the Organization of American States.

Salvador will explain her country"s position regarding the dangerous events occurred Saturday in the bordering zone.

Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America

CounterPunch, March 4, 2008

A Response to the Murder of Raúl Reyes in Ecuador

Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America

By JAMES J. BRITTAIN
and R. JAMES SACOUMAN

A few weeks after the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan state called on the Colombian government to respect the need for peace and negotiation with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), the administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) supported an extensive armed air and land assault against the insurgency movement--not within Colombia's borders but rather on the sovereign territory of Ecuadorian soil.

On 1 March, 2008 the Colombian state, under the leadership of Uribe and Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón (and his cousin Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos), illegally deployed a military campaign within Ecuador, which resulted in the deaths of Raúl Reyes, Julian Conrado, and fifteen other combatants associated with the FARC-EP. Such actions are a clear display of the (US-backed) Colombian state's open negation of international codes of conduct, law, and social justice.

The actions of Saturday 1 March took place days before a major international demonstration scheduled for 6 March, 2008. Promoted by The National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes (MOVICE), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and countless social justice-based organizations, March 6th has been set as an international day of protest against those tortured, murdered, and disappeared by the Colombian state, their allies within the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and the newly reformed Black Eagles. Recently, President Uribe's top political adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria, proclaimed that the protest and protesters should be criminalized. In addition, paramilitaries in the southwestern department of Nariño (not far from where the illegal incursions were carried out in Ecuador), have threatened to attack any organization or person associated with the activities scheduled for Thursday.

It is believed that the Uribe and Santos administration is utilizing the slaughter of Comandante Raúl Reyes and others as a method to deter activists and socially conscious peoples within and outside Colombia from participating in the March 6th events. Numerous state-controlled or connected media outlets, such as El Tiempo (which has long-standing ties to the Santos family), have been parading photographs of the bullet ridden and mutilated corpse of Raúl Reyes throughout the country's communications mediums. Such propaganda is clearly a tool to psychologically intimidate those preparing to demonstrate against the atrocities perpetrated by the state over the past seven years.

Over the past two months, numerous researchers, scholars, and lawyers have supported the call to declare the FARC-EP a legitimate force fighting against the corrupt Colombian state. In January 2008, Ecuador's Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador argued that the FARC-EP should no longer be depicted as a terrorist organization. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez too announced that the FARC-EP are far from a terrorist force but are rather a real army, which occupies Colombian territory and shares in a Bolivarian vision for a new Latin America. Mexican deputy Ricardo Cantu Garza also has promoted the recognition of the FARC-EP as a belligerent force legitimately fighting against a corrupt and unequal sociopolitical system. As prominent US attorney Paul Wolf argued,

the FARC-EP are a belligerent army of national liberation, as evidenced by their sustained military campaign and sovereignty over a large part of Colombian territory, and their conduct of hostilities by organized troops kept under military discipline and complying with the laws and customs of war, at least to the same extent as other parties to the conflict. Members of the FARC-EP are therefore entitled to the rights of belligerents under international law there is no rule of international law prohibiting revolution, and, if a revolution succeeds, there is nothing in international law prohibiting the acceptance of the outcome, even though it was achieved by force.

From Copenhagen to Caracas, numerous state officials have denounced the description of the FARC-EP as a terrorist organization. Progressive officials and administrations in Mexico, Ecuador, and Venezuela have rather opted for the status of belligerent or irregular forces to more accurately depict the FARC-EP domestic and geo-political stance. Disturbingly, in the face of this evidence and the FARC-EP's consistent promotion for a humanitarian prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the state in a demilitarized zone in southwestern Colombia, the Uribe and Santos administration has moved ever farther away from supporting an end to the civil war within Colombia by opting for systemic violence.

Over the past several years, different aspects of the FARC-EP's real social, political, and cultural activities for progressive social change have been censored or marginalized by the private press or governments in support of the Colombian state. Nevertheless, after researching the FARC-EP and the country of Colombia for years, Garry Leech argued that "while there is little doubt regarding the global reach of terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, there is no evidence that the FARC is anything but one of the armed actors in Colombia's long and tragic domestic conflict".

In actuality, the FARC-EP are actors within the strategic confines of Colombian society that aim their directives at domestic social change. In light of such realities, how can this insurgency be a terrorist threat to external nation-states? Coletta A. Youngers responds to this question by describing how

the U.S. government now views the Latin American region almost exclusively through the counterterrorist lens, though the region poses no serious national security threat to the United States little evidence has been put forward to substantiate such claims, and whatever activity is taking place there appears to be minimal.

While Youngers does not trivialize its revolutionary tactics, she clearly argues that the FARC-EP cannot be correctly framed within the concept and rhetoric of global terrorism. Youngers argues that the insurgency is not a direct political threat to administrations within the United States, Canada, the European Union and any other foreign nation-state in the fact that the FARC-EP activities "are targeted inward, not outward," hence, "applying the terrorism concept to these groups negates their political projects".

Characterizing the FARC-EP as a foreign terrorist organization dramatically alters the dynamics of the peace process in favour of a killer state. Stipulating that the FARC-EP is terrorist results in the inability for legal peace negotiations to take place between the FARC-EP and any government that subscribes to the categorization. Promoting the FARC-EP (and their supporters) as terrorists "puts them on the list of targets to be assaulted by the US military machine" and "thus subject to total war," according to James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer. The terminology of terrorism is perfect for imperialist ideology and expansionism. It is a very open-ended reference that "allows maximum intervention in all regions against any opposition" and "that any group engaged in opposing militarism, imperialism (so-called "globalization") or local authoritarian regimes could be labelled "terrorist" and targeted", thus legitimizing external invasion or attack.

Internal and external condemnation of the Colombian state has fallen upon the deaf ears of the Uribe and Santos administration. After years of increased violations of civilian human rights, the ongoing suppression of trade-unionism, assassinations of left-of-centre activists and politicians, and a political reality that has witnessed 75 governors, mayors, and Congressional politicians alleged or found guilty of having direct links to the paramilitary--including Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón and his cousin Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and President Uribe's brother Santiago and their cousin Senator Mario Uribe--now the Colombian state has deemed it necessary to illegally encroach upon those nations that deviate from their ideological model of political and economic centralization. Not only has the Uribe administration criticized their neighbours but after the actions realized on 1 March, 2008 it is clear that the Colombian state, with the full backing of the United States, will impose its own ideological goals and values, through force, regardless of the democratic rights and privileges of conventional electoral law and procedure.

While the neighbouring states of Ecuador and Venezuela struggle for peace and try to assist the people of Colombia in the quest for an end to the civil war, the Uribe and Santos administration has bypassed judicial realities and governance to impose its own objectives. Careful analysts of the Colombian situation continue to debate whether the Colombian state is pre-fascist or actually fascist. It is certainly neither humane nor actually democratic. The current Colombian state must be transformed, sooner rather than later. Those fighting for peace must condemn the action of this regime. In solidarity, we must protest the policies of the Colombian state and raise our voices in support for a New Colombia which stands for Peace with Social Justice.

James J. Brittain (Assistant Professor) and Jim Sacouman (Professor) are Canadian sociologists at Acadia University in Nova Scotia who have been researching the Colombian civil war and political economy over the past decade. They can be reached at: james.brittain@acadiau.ca

Correa Named Honorary Member of Cuban Economists' Association

Havana, Mar 4 (acn) Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was made an honorary member of the Cuban Association of Economists and Accountants (ANEC) at the during the opening session of the Tenth International Conference on Globalization and Development Problems that began Monday in Havana.

Fander Falconi, secretary of Planning and Development of Ecuador, presented the conference with a report titled "The first year of the citizens revolution in Ecuador," sent by President Correa, who had to suspend his trip to Cuba.

Other speakers included Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Foreign Secretary of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences of the Vatican, and Robert Mundell, Nobel Prize for Economics in 1999, according to a Granma report.

A panel comprised of economists Orlando Caputo (Chile), Jan Kregel (US) and Carlos Perez (Argentina) tackled the current international financial crisis and instability.

Presentations continue on Tuesday on several crucial issues and events, many that have worsened since the beginning of the globalization conferences in 1999, known for their plurality and diversity in ideas from which the difficult economic and social problems facing humanity
are discussed.

Cuban Vice Presidents Carlos Lage Davila and Estaban Lazo Hernandez presided over the opening session of the economist's conference involving participants from 42 countries, 21 international organizations, and economists, professors and students from 101 Cuban
municipalities.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was made an honorary member of the Cuban Association of Economists and Accountants.

Latin America scrambles to defuse crisis in the Andes

By Saul Hudson

CARACAS, March 4 (Reuters) - Latin America scrambled to defuse a three-nation crisis that threatens the region's stability after Venezuela and Ecuador cut diplomatic ties with Colombia and ordered troops to their neighbor's border.

The Organization of the American States, the region's top diplomatic body, will hold a crisis session in Washington on Tuesday to press for a negotiated end to a dispute that erupted after a weekend Colombia raid to kill a rebel inside Ecuador.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa will also start a five-nation tour of the region -- including to leftist ally Venezuela -- to lobby for support against what he calls a premeditated violation of sovereignty.

"This is not a bilateral problem, it's a regional problem," Correa told Mexican television. "Should this set a precedent, Latin America will become another Middle East."

Latin American governments generally lined up to condemn conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for sending troops and warplanes over the border in an attack on a jungle camp that killed a senior FARC rebel.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla and a close leftist ally of Venezuela and Ecuador and who has a territorial dispute with Colombia, accused Uribe of becoming a threat to Latin America.

The region's diplomatic heavyweight, Brazil, demanded Uribe apologize to Correa. It also worked on the crisis with Argentina, whose president will visit Venezuela on Wednesday.

"This conflict ... is beginning to destabilize regional relations," said Marco Aurelio Garcia, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's foreign policy adviser. "We are mobilizing all of Brazil's diplomatic resources and those of other South American capitals to find a lasting solution."

Major powers such as France and the United States, as well as U.S. presidential candidates, also urged diplomacy to defuse the tensions.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has negotiated the release this year of rebel hostages, called the guerrilla leader's death a "cowardly assassination" by a U.S.-backed president who did not want more captives freed.

Chavez and Correa expelled Colombia's diplomats from their capitals on Monday.

Colombia also fueled the tensions by accusing Chavez of funding Latin America's oldest insurgency -- a charge denied by the anti-U.S. president's aides.

Despite the three leaders' brinkmanship and the risk of military missteps, political analysts said a conflict was unlikely on borders that stretch from parched desert through Andean mountains and jungles to the Pacific Ocean.

Chavez, the leader of a growing bloc of Latin American leftist presidents, may fire up his supporters by challenging Uribe but he can ill afford to lose food imports from Colombia as he combats shortages in his OPEC nation, analysts said.

Colombia: Documents show deepening relations between Ecuador's government and rebels

BOGOTA, Colombia, IHT, March 3, 2008: Documents from a computer seized where Colombian commandos killed a senior rebel leader indicate Ecuador's president is deepening relations with Colombia's main guerrilla group, Colombia's police commander said Sunday.

The two documents, copies of which were obtained independently by The Associated Press, were apparently written by the slain rebel commander, Raul Reyes, in the past two months. They are addressed to the high command of his insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

An Ecuadorean government spokesman called the Colombian claims a lie.

Reyes, 59, was killed early Saturday in a raid at a rebel camp just inside Ecuadorean territory. He was the FARC's public voice and represented it before foreign governments, journalists and other emissaries.

The incursion prompted Eduador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, to order troops to the Colombian border and recall his ambassador from Bogota. Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, announced he was dispatching tanks and thousands of troops to the Colombian border.

"These documents raise the question of what the relation of Ecuador's government is with a terrorist organization," Gen. Oscar Naranjo, the Colombian police commander, told a late-night news conference.

Naranjo said that the documents show without a doubt that Reyes "was developing an agenda with Ecuador." He said Colombia would demand an explanation of Correa for a relationship with the FARC that "in our opinion affects Colombia's national security."

A spokesman for Ecuador's internal security ministry, Edmundo Carrera, accused Naranjo of lying.

"They're trying to cover up what they've done," he told the AP.

One of the documents, a word-processing file dated Jan. 18, said Reyes had met with Ecuador's minister of internal security, Gustavo Larrea, and the two had discussed Correa's "interest in making official relations with the FARC."

It did not specify a date or location for the meeting.

The document says Correa is prepared to make changes in his military leadership, that he refuses to back Colombia in its condemnation of the FARC and that the Ecuadorean president wants to get involved in efforts to secure a prisoner swap between the FARC and the Colombian government. Chavez was leading that effort until Uribe tried to cut him off in November.

It says Ecuador's government considers Uribe "a danger to the region" and says Ecuador would like it if the FARC released one of its hostages — a soldier named Pablo Moncayo who the FARC has held for a decade. Correa would then "provide protection to one of ours" would presumably represents the FARC before Ecuador's government.

Photocopies of the documents were provided to the AP by a senior member of Colombia's security forces, on condition he not be further identified because of their sensitivity.

The official said three notebook computers were found during Saturday's raid and that they contained a wealth of documents that Colombian authorities were only beginning to examine. He said U.S. assistance would be sought in analyzing them.

The official said he did not know whether any of the information in the computers was encrypted.

The other document, dated Feb. 28, says a Correa emissary, in a recent meeting, would like a personal meeting with FARC leaders in Quito, guaranteeing transport and security for them.

The January document says Correa will cancel next year permission for U.S. surveillance planes to use a base at Manta, Ecuador, something he has already announced.

U.S. officials have said they are considering locating such a base in Colombia. The Manta lease runs out next year.