Ecuador leader proposes lifting ban on foreign military bases

[Judi Lynn]

2 days ago

Vanessa Buschschlüter
BBC News

Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, has said he wants to change his country's constitution to allow the presence of foreign military bases. He made the proposal 15 years after the last US soldiers left the base of Manta, on Ecuador's Pacific coast, and returned it to the Ecuadorean military.

President Noboa argues that Ecuador needs foreign military help to fight transnational crime gangs which are using the country as a major transit route for drugs smuggled from South American to Europe and the US.

The 36-year-old leader declared war on the gangs in January, but gang-related violence continues to blight cities such as Manta, Durán and Guayaquil. Noboa made the announcement in a video recorded at the Manta base which was uploaded onto X, formerly known as Twitter.

In it, he criticises the decision taken by then President Rafael Correa in 2008 to not only not renew the accord under which the US had leased the Manta base, but also to enshrine a ban on any foreign military presence in the constitution.

More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0ed8vg5x9o

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Ecuador's citizens protested the presence of US forces at Manta Air Force base for years before a progressive President, Rafael Correa, beat the wealthiest man in Ecuador, Alvaro Noboa, for the election and ended US occupation of that base. He told reporters that of course the US would not agree to Ecuadorean military people operating their own base in the United States, which made perfect sense.

Alvaro Noboa controlled the largest banana industry in Ecuador and has been notorious for gross labor violations, as well as using children to work on his plantations.

With this "smooth" move, his son, who did finally win the Presidency after his father lost 5 separate attempts to become elected, has demolished the progress Ecuador's successful President Correa made. Correa was fought viciously every day of his presidency by the Ecuadorean hard right in Guayaquil, of which his brother was a major player, and clearly Washington was able to grab Ecuador's air base back from Ecuador's legitimate control.

Loathsome turn of events. Obviously the protests will be renewed because the population has steadfastly rejected US military presence there from the first.

[Judi Lynn]

1. The effort to retake Ecuador's air force base. Article from 2018:

U.S. Military Returns to Exert ‘Influence’ in Ecuador and the Region
by Pablo Vivanco October 5, 2018 9:39 AM

As Oswaldo Jarrin, Ecuador’s Deputy Defense Minister, spoke to the media about a new binational program using U.S. military planes to surveil the Andean country’s coast, aEcuadorian flag in the backdrop fell, smacking another official square in the head.

Video of the botched press conference made the rounds on social media, with those opposing the reboot of the controversial “flyover” program pointing to the symbolism in the blunder.

Under the “cooperation agreement” signed by the government of President Lenin Moreno with the U.S. earlier this year, a Lockheed P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency will now monitor Ecuador’s coast for three to four days every month to “fight against drug trafficking, organized crime, human trafficking, illegal fishing, and contraband.”

Such an arrangement is hardly new. An almost identical program operated from the coastal city of Manta, Ecuador from 1999-2009, until then-President Rafael Correa decided not to renew the lease.

Under Correa, the Ecuadorian government championed a new constitution that declared Ecuador as “a territory of peace” and barred “foreign military bases”—a fact that his critics cite as evidence of the possible illegality of Moreno’s move. Moreno served as vice president to Correa.

The return of a U.S. military presence in Ecuador is part of a larger push from Washington to reassert its historical role across Latin America and the Caribbean.

More:
https://progressive.org/latest/us-military-returns-to-exert-influence-in-ecuador-and-region-181005/

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In case people have forgotten, Washington used the explanation it had to "protect" Latin America from the terrifying commies as its reason to control bases, run covert and overt operations throughout continuously, and support overthrows and paramilitaries (death squads) against dissidents until Ronald Reagan took credit for ending communism, and they were stuck momentarily without commies to hunt and militarily resist. Immediately the government protesters across the continent and Central America were translated to drug dealers and growers and traffickers! Voila! One day a commie, next day a drug trafficker, and the battle against the voiceless poor majority continued.

Smooth moves, right?

[Judi Lynn]

2. From 2018: Trump Administration Denies Threatening Ecuador Over A Breastfeeding Resolution

July 10, 20185:18 PM ET
Merrit Kennedy

U.S. officials made threats to Ecuador in an attempt to water down a resolution in support of breastfeeding, according to a report in The New York Times.

The news report has garnered strong reaction from the U.S. government. President Trump tweeted that it is a "Fake News story" that "must be called out." A State Department official told NPR that "media reports suggesting the United States threatened a partner nation related to a World Health Assembly resolution are false."

Link to tweet

The tension over the breastfeeding resolution came to a head in Geneva in May, when the decision-making body of the World Health Organization held its annual meeting for government officials and other stakeholders to discuss a range of health policy issues.

The Times story, from reporter Andrew Jacobs, details how what was initially thought to be a noncontroversial resolution, aimed at promoting breastfeeding, allegedly resulted in the U.S. making threats to cut trade and withdraw some military aid from Ecuador.

More:
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/10/627647536/did-the-u-s-threaten-ecuador-over-a-breastfeeding-resolution

[Judi Lynn]

3. U.S., Ecuador talks at White House a first in nearly 2 decades

Feb 12, 2020 3:40 PM EDT



Left: U.S. President Donald Trump greets Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 12, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

- snip -

“This is the culmination of a rebirth and reinforcement of the relationship of our country with an important economic and commercial partner,” José Valencia, Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, said before the visit.

Ecuador has received $72 million from the United States to assist with the influx of people leaving Venezuela. There currently are nearly 400,000 Venezuelans in Ecuador.

Moreno is at a weak moment of his presidency after nearly two weeks of violent protests last year over his decision to end fuel subsidies. He later retracted that decision and reached an agreement with indigenous leaders to cancel an austerity package backed by the International Monetary Fund. But the economy is still growing at a sluggish pace and Moreno’s approval rating has hovered at around 20 percent.

Trump and Moreno were expected to discuss ways to improve access to commercial markets, promote investment, foster academic collaborations, and collaborate on combating issues like drug trafficking, corruption and money laundering. Trump’s trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, planned to participate in the meeting.

More:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/u-s-ecuador-talks-at-white-house-a-first-in-nearly-2-decades

Lenin Moreno was able to worm his way into Ecuador's Progressive Government by pretending to be a progressive politician long enough to convince Progressive President Rafael Correa he was concerned about the people and not another corrupt politician who put business interests and US right-wing politics first. Once he was solidly in place, he ran for the Presidency and won and immediately showed his true colors, to the great detriment of the population.