Ecuador: WikiLeaks cables show US how used 'democracy promotion' to push corporate interests

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuador: WikiLeaks cables show US how used 'democracy promotion' to push corporate interests
Monday, September 1, 2014
By Linda Pearson

Ecuador's pro-US neoliberal president Lucio Gutierrez was ousted in 2005. Since then, relations between Ecuador and the United States have deteriorated, with the Andean nation’s increasing rejection of US hegemony.

The government of Rafael Correa, first elected in 2006, has broken from the neoliberal doctrines Washington has imposed on Latin America. It has embraced regional integration, moving closer to its neighbours and further away from the US.

Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks show how hard the US fought to control Ecuador's future post-Gutierrez.
They show a key element of US efforts to control Ecuador’s political and economic direction in the post-Gutierrez years was the US Embassy’s “democracy promotion” activity.

So-called “democracy promotion” came to prominence as a method for maintaining US hegemony in the 1980s.

Professor William I Robinson says a shift occurred when Washington policy-makers realised the traditional method of supporting authoritarian client states tended to produce just the sort of movements for radical change the US wanted to avoid. An example was the rise to power of the left-wing Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

~ ~ ~

This article is the second of a series exploring diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Ecuador published by WikiLeaks. They are based on research of around 1000 WikiLeaks cables from the end of the Gutierrez administration onward, most of which have not been reported on in the English-speaking press before. Read part one here:[font https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57183

More:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57240

[sadoldgirl]

1. As far as I read

all of these are older efforts to influence Ecuador.
In November 2013 SoS Kerry announced that the time for the Monroe Doctrine was over.

Have there been efforts by the Embassy since then to influence that country's policies?

I hope not, but would not be surprised if they did.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Embassy actions are usually kept quiet, as in secret, unless they are revealed

through unexpected break-throughs like Wikileaks, or obtained years and years later, when documents can be declassified and obtained through the Freedom Of Information Act, and often those documents are NEVER disclosed to the public. Never.

Here's one article which might throw some light:

WikiLeaks shows how US threatened Ecuador
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
By Linda Pearson

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established at The Hague in 2002 to investigate and prosecute individuals alleged to have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

Between 2002 and 2009, the Bush administration implemented sanctions on military aid and Economic Support Funds (ESF) assistance against states which refused to sign “Article 98” agreements with the US. Under such agreements, states agreed not to transfer US nationals to the ICC without the consent of the US government.

~snip~
Ecuador was one of 12 Latin American countries that refused to sign an Article 98 agreement and was consequently subject to sanctions.

Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks detail the variety of underhanded tactics employed by the US Embassy in Quito to persuade Ecuador to sign. It also shows the embassy’s concerns about the “unintended consequences” of ICC-related sanctions for other US policy objectives.

The US’s global push for Article 98 agreements was born out of the Bush administration’s fear that US leaders and military personnel could face trial at The Hague for war crimes and human rights abuses carried out during the “global war on terror”.

A cable sent on November 17, 2004, from the US Embassy in Quito complained that Article 98 negotiations with Ecuador had “stagnated” and said: “Cognizant that increasing deployments of U.S. forces worldwide makes inking an Article 98 with Ecuador imperative, we are conducting another offensive.”

This “offensive” included urging the Ecuadorian military to lobby the Ecuadorian government for an Article 98 agreement, so that it could regain access US military assistance. The cable said: “we are not missing any opportunities to flog the military over the need for Article 98”.

“Big-ticket items”, the cable reported, “such as A-37 upgrades for air base defence and additional helicopters … are non-starters until we get an agreement”.

According to the cable, the embassy hoped a “joint special forces counter-terrorism operation featuring Blackhawk helos”, which was taking place near Quito, would lead “battalion- and brigade-level officers to push their HQ superiors for similar goodies”.

The cable said: “The foreign affairs ministry continues to believe it can wait us out. It cannot. We are helped by Washington re-opening the second front, calling in Ecuadorian Ambassador Raul Gangotena for meetings with Assistant Secretaries Roger Noriega and Steven Rademaker”.

Another cable sent on November 26, 2004, detailed the embassy’s “game plan” for persuading Ecuador to sign an Article 98 agreement.

This plan was described as “heavy on personal diplomacy and media education” and included hosting “a series of roundtables with interested journalists, hoping to correct Article misperceptions”. It also featured “a possible International Visitor (IV) program for Ecuadorian think-tankers and talking heads, whose support will be vital come ratification time (and who are bashing us now).”

More:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/55410

[Zorro]

2. Oh the horror! "Democracy Promotion" is so so fiendishly diabolical

Imagine the US being interested in promoting US interests. That's not what I would expect from this government!

[Bacchus4.0]

3. Ecuador just signed a free trade agreement with the EU in July

The author may want to revisit that section of his rant. All the quotes from the embassy are vague and provide no context whatsoever. And yes, the US embassies, worldwide, promote US business interests. Its part of their mission.

Correa did in fact cancel the military base lease, and also stepped out of the Andean trade agreement just before it expired since the US would not have renewed it anyway.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Really? Washington Post: Ecuador Giving U.S. Air Base the Boot

Ecuador Giving U.S. Air Base the Boot
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 4, 2008

MANTA, Ecuador -- When U.S. officers stationed in this humid coastal city give reasons they should continue their decade-old airborne surveillance mission, they talk not only about fighting drug runners on the open seas but about the $71 million they've spent to renovate and maintain the city's airport, and the $6.5 million they inject each year into the local economy.

But the government of Ecuador has decided, and Washington has apparently agreed, that one of the most important foreign outposts in the United States' war on drugs will close. The 450 U.S. Air Force personnel and contractors stationed at a military base that shares the airport's runway will be leaving next year.

This decision reflects both the prevailing political climate here -- standing up to the United States tends to be widely popular -- and a new economic reality. With major projects underway in Manta by the Venezuelan government and a Hong Kong company, the U.S. dollars don't amount to much.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela stood alongside President Rafael Correa of Ecuador in July to announce a jointly financed $6 billion oil refinery to be constructed on the outskirts of Manta. And Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings has begun building what will be among the largest deep-water ports on the west coast of South America, a $523 million project with piers, cranes, tuna-boat terminals, roads, and the capacity to eventually handle 1.6 million shipping containers a year at the continent's closest point to Asia.

"The U.S. stopped being the benchmark of what is good for Latin America," said Gustavo Larrea, Ecuador's security minister. "Because Latin America did everything that the U.S. asked it to do and wasn't able to get out of poverty, the North American myth lost political weight."

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303289.html

[Zorro]

6. Hutchison pulls out of Ecuador port deal

Hutchison Port Holdings will withdraw from an agreement to operate a port in Ecuador because its government has unilaterally changed the contract terms.

The announcement came a month after Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa reportedly warned Hutchison it could risk losing its US$520 million (HK$4.05 billion) contract if it did not meet the timetable to develop facilities at the Port of Manta.

''Terminales Internacionales de Ecuador SA (TIDE), a member of the Hutchison group, will withdraw from the concession agreement to operate the Port of Manta in Ecuador,'' Hutchison said.

A spokesman declined to give details on the contract changes.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=12403

Oops!

[Bacchus4.0]

7. Um, thats exactly what I posted. Correa terminated the base lease agreement. WTF?? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

8. You claim the US would not have renewed the contract, anyway. You know better than that, of course.

That's not the way it happened, by any means.

Here's an article by New York Times anti-leftist propagandist, Simon Romero:

Ecuador’s Leader Purges Military and Moves to Expel American Base
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: April 21, 2008

MANTA, Ecuador — Chafing at ties between American intelligence agencies and Ecuadorean military officials, President Rafael Correa is purging the armed forces of top commanders and pressing ahead with plans to cast out more than 100 members of the American military from an air base here in this coastal city.

Mr. Correa — who this month dismissed his defense minister, army chief of intelligence and commanders of the army, air force and joint chiefs — said that Ecuador’s intelligence systems were “totally infiltrated and subjugated to the C.I.A.” He accused senior military officials of sharing intelligence with Colombia, the Bush administration’s top ally in Latin America.

The dismissals point to a willingness by Mr. Correa, an ally of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, to aggressively confront Ecuador’s military, a bastion of political and economic power in this coup-prone country of 14 million people. Mr. Correa’s moves mark a clear break with his predecessors, illustrating his wager that Ecuador’s institutions may finally be resilient enough to carry out such changes after more than a decade of political upheaval.

The gambit also poses a clear challenge to the United States. For nearly a decade, the base here in Manta has been the most prominent American military outpost in South America and an important facet of the United States’ drug-fighting efforts. Some 100 antinarcotics flights leave here each month to survey the Pacific in an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with drug traffickers bound for the United States.

But many Ecuadoreans have chafed at the American presence and the perceived challenge to the country’s sovereignty, and Mr. Correa promised during his campaign in 2006 to close the outpost.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/world/americas/21ecuador.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Bacchus4.0]

9. No silly, the Andean trade agreement. Take a bit of time to digest. Check my post again.

Here is what I said: Correa did in fact cancel the military base lease, and also stepped out of the Andean trade agreement just before it expired since the US would not have renewed it anyway.

Save yourself some time by being attentive.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Yep, you caught me! I didn't look closely enough.

I had to get get an article to refresh my memory, found this:

Congress to let U.S. trade benefits for Ecuador expire
WASHINGTON Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:10pm EDT

(Reuters) - Ecuador, which renounced longtime U.S. trade benefits last month, is on the verge of getting its wish when the program expires next week, congressional aides said on Thursday.

Key committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have no plans to move legislation to renew the 22-year-old Andean Trade Preference Act, the aides said.

Ecuador, which angered U.S. lawmakers by flirting with offering asylum to former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, has received duty-free treatment for many of its goods since 1991 under the Andean program.

After a senior U.S. lawmaker threatened Congress would revoke the trade benefits if Ecuador took in Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for revealing details of its intelligence programs, Ecuador responded by renouncing the benefits.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/25/us-usa-ecuador-trade-idUSBRE96O1BL20130725