Former president of Ecuador wants Correa to resign and be arrested

Colombia Reports, July 18

The former president of Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez, wants his successor Rafael Correa to resign and be arrested, because of the "clear evidence" the current President received money from Colombia's largest rebel group FARC in his 2006 campaign.

Correa has come under pressure after news agency AP showed a video wherein FARC commander 'Mono Jojoy' confirmed Colombian accusations that the guerrilla group financially supported Correa while running for the 2006 presidency.

"The video is authentic," Gutierrez said in an interview with Canal UNO, adding that the recording has "outraged the Ecuadorans."

"Faced with so much indignation, we demand the resignation of Rafael Correa, .... he has to resign and the competent authorities have to issue an arrest warrant against him," said Gutierrez.

"People are wondering where he got that [money for] a multimillion dollar campaign," the former Head of State said, adding that using "dirty and blood-stained money" Correa "committed electoral fraud" in the April elections he lost to Correa.

Correa himself says the video is fake and is part of a "systematic campaign" to "destabilize progressive government."

"Let them investigate the stupidity that they showed yesterday [as part as] this campaign that, not just on Ecuadorean-Colombian level, but on a regional level, where there is an onslaught of the right wing and all their instruments and weapons, among them the media, to destabilize the progressive governments."

Correa's administration appointed a commission to research the video wherein FARC commander Mono Jojoy tells a group of guerrilla the FARC financially supported the 2006 presidential campaign of Correa, something the Colombian government had said for more than a year.

The commission will investigate both the Colombian bombing of a FARC camp on Ecuadorean soil on March 1, 2008 as the information gathered from computers found in that camp and that was shown in the 'Mono Jojoy' video, Correa said.

"They can investigate whether the candidate or campaign ever got as much as 20 cents from the FARC or any other foreign source," he added.

Meanwhile, the Colombian government made no official statements following the controversy the video generated.