Yearbook 2010
Ecuador. According to
COUNTRYAAH, a serious political crisis broke out in Ecuador
on September 30. Eight hundred police officers barricaded
themselves in the police headquarters in the capital, Quito,
in protest of a law that, in accordance with the
government's general cuts in public spending, would reduce
police salaries in the form of bonuses. President Rafael
Correa personally went to the police headquarters to talk to
the rebels. After two hours of fruitless discussions, Correa
went to the nearby police hospital, which was then
surrounded by police and the president was prevented from
leaving the building for ten hours, including by using tear
gas. At one point, Correa appeared in the window and he, at
the same time as he ripped off his tie and exposed his
chest, rebelled the police to shoot him if that was what
they were looking for. At lunchtime, he announced to local
media that he was undergoing a coup attempt. In the end,
Correa was rescued by a special unit of military and police
officers who broke through the ranks of the rebellious
police forces with the help of, among other things, snipers.
A total of five people were shot dead and 16 were seriously
injured. The drama sparked speculation as to whether it was
really a real coup attempt, as Correa claimed. Several
factors indicated that this was not the case; Although
Quito's international airport was blocked by a number of Air
Force officers in connection with the events, the rebellious
policemen were largely not supported by either the military,
the other police or the political opposition.
The aftermath of the events of September 30 meant that
investigations were launched to investigate to what extent
political forces had been behind. President Correa accused a
paramilitary police group, Grupo Armado Policial (GAP), of
sparking the uprising, and former President Lucio Gutiérrez
of Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP) for exploiting it.
However, the government could not provide any evidence for
these claims. At the same time, Police Chief Patricio Franco
assured that the police force as a whole, apart from a few
individuals, remained steadfastly loyal to the President and
the Constitution.
In March 2012, the native organization CONAIE conducted a
700km long protest march to Quito. CONAIE stated that the
aim was not to overthrow Correa - which CONAIE had already
recommended to the people to vote on - but to ensure that
the indigenous people were included in water and oil
projects for advice. Correa was irreconcilable with the
march, accused CONAIE of being in the right wing, and
mobilized a counter-march. The protests ended without
violence, but nonetheless marked that Correa was losing
track of an important sector of the population as his closer
economic engagement with China.
In August 2012, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sought
political asylum at Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid
being extradited to Sweden and possibly the United States.
Assange still lives at the embassy as Ecuador and the UK
have failed to find a diplomatic solution to the problem.
In October, a court issued an order frozen $ 200 million.
US $ in values of the North American oil company Chevron.
Previously, a judgment was passed ordering Chevron to pay $
18.2 billion US $ in damages to the native people of the
Ecuadorian Amazon for the devastation Chevron's oil recovery
had inflicted on the environment. Earlier this month,
Chevron had dropped an appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court that
would impede the recovery of the damages. In November, a
judge in Argentina seized Chevron's values in line with
the Ecuadorian ruling.
In February 2013 elections were held for parliament and
the presidential post. Correa was re-elected in the first
round of elections with 57.1% of the vote. His PAIS alliance
got 100 out of the new parliament's 137 seats and thus
absolute majority.
In June 2013, North American intelligence analyst Edward
Snowden requested political asylum in Ecuador. It was
Snowden who had revealed the US global espionage on the
Internet a month before. That prompted Robert Menendez,
chairman of the North American Foreign Affairs Committee, to
declare that if Ecuador met Snowden, "it would seriously
affect Ecuador's trade with the United States. We do not
reward countries for bad behavior ”. That prompted Correa to
declare that Ecuador would grant $ 23 million. US $ annually
for human rights education in the United States, equal to
the value of the country's trade agreement with the United
States. He continued: "Ecuador will not be pressured by
anyone and will not place trade interests on our
principles". Ecuador issued a temporary travel document to
Snowden, but for unpublished reasons it was withdrawn again,
and the president declared that it was a mistake. Ecuador
may have been threatened with far more severe retaliation by
the United States. Just a month later, the Bolivian
president's plane was held back in Europe for 14 hours
because the United States thought Snowden was aboard. |
