ETERNAL VIGILANCE

Ecuador Is Latest in Chavez Revolt

South American nationalists have had it with bankers, globalists

By Richard Walker
December 4, 2006 | American Free Press

Ecuador has become the latest Latin American nation to join in a revolutionary populist-nationalist shift that is sure to send shivers down the backs of bankers, internationalists, oil executives and Bush officials.

In what is being called the “Pink Tide” Ecuadorians elected a new president, Rafael Correa, an American-educated economist who is opposed to free trade with the United States. He has pledged to reduce the level of foreign debt payments his country is forced to make to international bankers, including the World Bank whose representatives he says he will expel from the country.

His electoral success mirrors the growing populist trend across Latin America and puts Ecuador alongside Venezuela, as well as Chile, Brazil, Bolivia and Nicaragua, which have all elected populist-nationalist presidents in the past 12 months.

Correa, 43, has an economics doctorate from the University of Illinois and is a relative newcomer to politics but he shrewdly exploited anti-American sentiment throughout his election campaign. He described President Bush as “dimwitted” and applauded the recent attacks on him by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. He also lambasted his opponent, Alvaro Noboa, 56, for being pro-U.S. and a friend of wealthy interests in Washington.

Noboa, a banana billionaire, proved an easy target for Correa in a country where Venezuela’s Chavez is seen as a hero and Bush is viewed as a villain. Noboa was making his third run at the presidency and presented himself as a Bibleloving friend of the Kennedys and Rockerfellers. He also trumpeted his wealth and his ownership of 114 companies. During his campaign, he handed out free computers and even gave away cash.

Correa accused him of trying to scare the electorate by telling voters that if they did not elect him international companies and financial institutions would turn their backs on Ecuador.

As electioneering wound down, Correa did downplay some of his tough rhetoric. In particular he avoided earlier threats he had made to dissolve the country’s assembly and reduce foreign debt payments.

Both candidates promised a lot, each vowing he would build hundreds of thousands of homes for the poor and increase the $36 monthly “poverty bonus” to the 1.2 million Ecuadorians living beneath the poverty line. Noboa went so far as to demonstrate his generosity and upright character by reading from the Bible at some of his rallies and handing out medicines.

Both candidates knew they were dealing with an electorate that had seen eight presidents chased from office in 10 years, the last two after widespread street demonstrations. Correa was able to cleverly portray himself as a new face — a man not tainted by the corruption that has characterized the country for almost three decades. He was also fortunate that he was well known for his work with the poor through educational programs he hosted.

BANKERS SCARED
A clear signal that global bankers were concerned about the likelihood of Correa getting elected came with the intervention of U.S. investment bankers, Goldman Sachs, in the run-up to the election. Goldman Sachs made it clear it was siding with the billionaire Noboa when Goldman executives publicly warned Ecuadorians not to vote for Correa. In a public statement, Goldman Sachs said: “We anticipate that the gridlock and confrontation between the executive and the legislature will reach new heights under a Correa administration.”

Some observers have since argued that Goldman Sachs’s meddling only helped Correa because it strengthened his case that Washington was prepared to use any means to influence the election result, even if it meant scaring the electorate about Correa’s proposed economic policies.

For Washington, the election result is now seen as yet another blow to U.S. influence in the region and exemplifies a growing disenchantment with the Bush administration.

Throughout the election, Correa exploited Bush’s unpopularity around the world, making his opponent’s support for the United States “a vote for George Bush.”

In a strange twist of irony, the moment the election result was announced, Linda Jewell, the U.S. ambassador in Quito, the country’s capital, phoned Correa to congratulate him and remind him of the historic ties between their two nations. Her overture to him came days after he announced he would not sign the lease on the U.S. military base at Mantra when it came up for renewal in just over two years.

CHANGE IS UNSTOPPABLE
Washington likes to portray the political change in Latin America as the malevolent influences of Chavez and Fidel Castro, but that may be a convenient, if not a skewed analysis.

Some study groups believe the populations of many Latin American countries simply want change and the desire is so strong that it is almost unstoppable.

For example, the Center for Economic Policy and Research speculates that the election result in Ecuador was proof of ordinary people “going over the heads of the political establishment” as a way of dragging themselves out of poverty created by decades of corruption.

If that analysis is accurate, U.S. influence will further decline because it was U.S. political meddling and corporate greed that, in many instances, degraded many economies across that continent.

In other words, the days of neo-liberal economic policies in Latin America sponsored by such global speculators as David Rockefeller may soon be just a faded memory.

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Richard Walker is the nom de plume of a former mainstream news producer who now writes for AFP so he can expose the kinds of subjects that he was forbidden to cover in the controlled press.

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Editor's comment: As the Bolivarian Revolution expands across Latin America, we see a new horizon of mutual cooperation among the nations of the world beginning to dawn. And with this comes the forced diminishing of the influence and control of the international bankers and their criminal fascist cohorts in government and corporations.

Is it a wonder then that the people of Ecuador have embraced the new face of Rafael Correa as he promises to take them out of the depths of poverty which is the result of the depredations of the bankers and corporations?

As an example of this mutual cooperation which has become necessary to the survival of the human race if not the planet itself, we offer you, the reader, to see for yourself how Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently addressed the people of the United States in his letter of 29 November 2006 where he points out the following.

In this letter, Ahmadinejad states,

While Divine providence has placed Iran and the United States geographically far apart, we should be cognizant that human values and our common human spirit, which proclaim the dignity and exalted worth of all human beings, have brought our two great nations of Iran and the United States closer together.

Both our nations are God-fearing, truth-loving and justice-seeking, and both seek dignity, respect and perfection.

Both greatly value and readily embrace the promotion of human ideals such as compassion, empathy, respect for the rights of human beings, securing justice and equity, and defending the innocent and the weak against oppressors and bullies.

We are all inclined towards the good, and towards extending a helping hand to one another, particularly to those in need.

We all deplore injustice, the trampling of peoples' rights and the intimidation and humiliation of human beings.

We all detest darkness, deceit, lies and distortion, and seek and admire salvation, enlightenment, sincerity and honesty.

The pure human essence of the two great nations of Iran and the United States testify to the veracity of these statements.

People everywhere have a similar devotion to truth, justice and morality. For these reasons the formation of governments has also become a necessity.

But we must be ever mindful and, as the watchman on the wall, must sound the alarm at the slightest hint of impropriety by our representatives in government or by those who operate the corporate fictions to which government grants license to exist, all of them at the pleasure of the state, i.e. the people.

The people are the rightful beneficiaries of this trust we have placed in govenment and the corporations, both of which have been chartered by the authority we have granted as a sovereign free people. When this trust is violated, it is the duty of the people to remove that government if it fails in its oversight of these fictional creations. Similarly, it is the duty of the government to revoke the charters of corporations which abuse the trust placed in them by the government representatives of the people.

But all of that has been turned on its head in the last 150 years. And now it is the corporations and the government which have betrayed the people. It must be stopped and put right.

Most of the political developments in Latin America in the last 12 months, except for the obviously rigged elections in Mexico, which corruption was met with massive protests by the Mexican people, have pointed to a popular uprising against the globalists and bodes ill for further attempts by the international bankers and corporations to plunder the natural resources of South America.

In the recent election in Ecuador, which received little or no coverage in the U.S. media, the people were given a clear choice, that of Rafael Correa or his opponent, Alvaro Noboa. The people have spoken, and that is a clear signal to the moneyed interests to which Noboa is beholden.

In this all, we again must review the fact that none of this corruption and plunder would be possible without the credit scam of the international bankers and the usury they have perpetrated on the nations and peoples of the world.

We conclude now with an editorial comment from American Free Press.

Stop Meddling, Sam


Most if not all of our problems abroad are the result of our own politicians deviating from the wise advice of George Washington
and the other Founding Fathers who told us we should mind our own
business and let foreign nations mind theirs.

The huge can of worms George W. Bush and other sorry American leaders have created in the Middle East is a good example. Our government has been messing up things over there for decades—ever since our country sold its soul to Israel.

Most Americans do not remember it, but it was the U.S. government that messed up Iran by overthrowing their democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953. And you thought we were committed to promoting democracy in the Middle East?

Then our “super geniuses” at the helm instigated the Iran-Iraq War, which dragged on from 1980 to 1988, with a million men being killed for no good reason.

That war was cooked up because Israel, which has dreams of taking over the entire Middle East, wants to see its neighbors weakened and impoverished. It also helped the oil barons by keeping up the price of oil.

One thing led to another, thanks to Israel and our corrupt leaders, and thus we find ourselves floundering in the never ending quagmire of Middle East murder and mayhem with our obedient troops stuck in the middle.

A growing number of Americans are getting fed up and want to go back to the tried and true old ways of running this country. According to a poll, 42% now feel the United States should mind its own business internationally. We certainly agree, and would like to see that become 92% or more who support an America-first policy — always.

Our enemies might call us isolationist, so be it. But what we really are is “America First.” And what is wrong with that?