ECUADOR: THE EXPULSION OF THE AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED STATES
For Marcel D. Feraud
Ex Consul General of Ecuador in Miami
The newspaper El Pais in Spain, published a few cables strung through the website Wikileaks, in which the United States Ambassador in Quito advises his government on alleged corruption in the leadership of the National Police of Ecuador, with the added difficulty that President Rafael Correa have known the particular.
This publication, far from motivating an investigation of the allegations, resulting in a diplomatic note of rigor, Rafael Correa took to expel the ambassador, without further ado, giving 24 hours to leave the country.
This outburst of President Correa, true to his temperament visceral and unreflective, is also a clever ploy to hush up the case and block a serious investigation of corruption that gave rise to diplomatic cables. Similarly there should be weighed in this decision, the imminence of the referendum of May 7, to which position should show a "haughty and sovereignty "against the" empire. "
How far remained the national interest, especially when the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister brandished as a justification for such reaction, the repair of honor of the President. Despicable attitude, the latter, which favors upon subjective evaluation, the honor of an individual against the welfare of an entire people who suffer from the deterioration of relations with its main trading partner.
All this while inside, Rafael Correa governs smoothly and runs an authoritarian political project, without ceremony, whose only apparent purpose is its indefinite stay in power. To achieve this goal has already taken the first steps as having been sworn in in 2007 for a period of 4 years, with the script called Constituent Assembly, having adopted the new Constitution, was re-elected in 2009 for a new period of 4 years, until 2013, this time with possibility did not exist before, immediately re-election. Note that the first two years of government "do not count" so they could stay in power up to 10 years, provided that, in order to continue implementation of the citizen's revolution has not decided to raise a constitutional reform approve the re-election indefinitely.
The persecution and prosecution to the media and journalists is bread every day in Ecuador. Has been demonized in the press in the same way that stigmatizes finger at "corrupt banking" and "partidocracia" last September 30, an uprising of the troops exacerbated by police regiment other presidential outburst was classified as a coup that gender love unfortunate casualty of a witch hunt and fifty prisoners prosecuted for a nonexistent crime.
Meanwhile, reports of corruption against the government are rejected and fail to go through the judicial armor deployed around the government.
This scenario produces the publication of the embassy cable that caused his immediate expulsion. Without doubt, in Ecuador today, the rule of law inherent in democracy, is overtaken by authoritarianism. Legal certainty and accountability at a disadvantage to fight corruption.
