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Rafael Correa was elected president of Ecuador last year with a big majority, and received an even bigger--an overwhelming--majority (80%) recently, on a referendum to re-write the Constitution. Correa is a U.S.-educated leftist economist, closely aligned with Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and a key player in the Bolivarian Revolution (big movement for Latin American self-determination, social justice, democracy). The very corrupt, very entrenched rightwing/fascist elite--allied with rightwing paramilitaries, major drug traffickers and the Bush Junta/global corporate predators--have, of course, locked in their power in many ways--through corrupt political parties, in the courts, the bureaucracy and the legislature, in banking institutions and throughout Ecuadoran society. They have their hands on most of the levers of corrupt, behind-the-scenes power, and are using them to blockade Correa's Bolivarian reforms. Ecuador, like Argentina and many other South American countries, was ravaged by U.S. "free trade" (global corporate predation) and World Bank/IMF loan sharks. Correa has the overwhelming mandate of the people to clean this up, and to put Ecuador on a better footing, economically. The Constitutional reform will help him do this. That's why 80% of the people support it.
Correa is very clean, and very pro-Bolivarian (democratic). During his campaign, he would jokingly take off his belt and lash it at the corrupt rightwing elite who destroyed Ecuador's economy (his name, Correa, means "belt"). Who he beat in the election was the biggest banana plantation owner in Ecuador--symbol of the past, of big landowner oppression of workers and peasants. Correa has two main mandates: free Ecuador from ruinous "free trade"; clean the corruption out Ecuadoran government, at every level.
What occurs with rightwing elite control, time and again--for instance, right now in Colombia (which has a long border with Ecuador)--is that gangsters, drug traffickers, and criminal enterprises of every kind take over. We're seeing this in the U.S., with the Bush Junta--and so many filthily corrupt Congress members and Bush officials, and their corporate counterparts, sucking of the U.S. taxpayer. When you don't have government "of, by and for" the people, the greedy take over at all levels.
So this horrible shark fin traffic--a consequence of corrupt rightwing rule, that Correa was elected to remedy--is no surprise. Correa has hardly had time to deal with all of the vast corruption that preceded him. The re-write of the Constitution by stakeholder groups has only just begun. He's dealing with a corrupt legislature. Many entrenched, and very corrupt enterprises, are still at work, and they are no doubt allied with the criminal gangs, the rightwing paramilitaries and the extremely corrupt Colombian government across the border.
The rightwing paramilitaries in Colombia--guilty of horrendous atrocities against union leaders, poor peasants and political leftists, and of major drug trafficking--are very closely tied to the Uribe government (chief of the military, former intelligence chief, and many Uribe office holders including relatives). These are Bush's pals. The US "war on drugs," in so far as it was ever legitimate (and not just a police state boondoggle, here and in Colombia) has been 'turned' by the Bushites into a war on the poor, and, through the rightwing paramilitaries, a war democracy in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Recent scandals in Colombia have revealed a rightwing paramilitary plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez and other democratic leaders in the Andes region (Correa and Morales) and destabilize their governments, so that rightwing dictatorships can be reestablished, to exploit the rich oil, gas, minerals and other resources of the region, and prevent the poor from benefiting from them.
Situations like this one on the coast--where fishermen have been profiting from criminal activity--are ripe for destabilization efforts. (One "riot" already occurred, according to these Sea Shepherd press releases.) This is similar to conditions in Venezuela, with regard to the oil industry, when Hugo Chavez was first elected. After failing at a violent military coup against Chavez, the rightwing elite (with support from the Bush Junta and global corporate predators) then instigated an oil professionals' strike, aimed at crippling the country and toppling the Chavez government. The USAID pays for and instigates these kinds of activities.
So this matter is not limited to its environmental implications. It is a much bigger fight for clean government, the rule of law and economic fairness. WHAT is going on, in the Ecuadoran fishing industry, that has driven fishermen into illegal activity? WHAT has been going on in the government (massive thievery, vast corruption, no doubt) so that there are no resources to help the fishermen--even though Ecuador is rich in natural resources? Where are profits from Ecuadoran resources going? (--not to the poor people who live there, obviously).
Correa also opposes the vastly corrupting U.S. "war on drugs." The "war on drugs" corruption feeds into these other criminal enterprises. He has vowed not to renew the lease to the U.S. military base in Ecuador. The Bolivarians see quite clearly what the U.S. "war on drugs" is doing: It is driving poor peasant farmers off the land, and into urban squalor, so that the big drug traffickers and U.S. and other foreign corporations can grab and exploit the land and its resources. It is pouring billions of dollars in military aid into the wrong hands, in Colombia, a potential launching pad for U.S.-backed rightwing juntas. It is brutalizing the poor--destroying food crops and animals--and damaging human DNA with aerial spraying of U.S. chem pesticides, and furthermore by unleashing murderous rightwing paramilitaries against the poor. It is militarizing what would be a mere civilian problem (coca leaf growing--a local traditional medicine herb, grown for thousands of years for that purpose) if it were not for the big drug cartels, which the "war on drugs" somehow never manages to curtail. And it is a gross violation of the sovereignty of Latin American countries. The rightwing elites invite the U.S. military, and billions in military aid, into their countries, for their own benefit--to give them weapons for oppressing the poor, and, in many cases, to FOSTER criminal activities in which they are engaged.
Illegal trade in endangered species is just one of them. Slave labor and sweatshop labor ("free trade") is another. Drugs are another. Illicit arms dealing is another.
I think the Bolivarians will win this fight. They have the overwhelming will of the people behind them--and are, in many ways, far better and stronger democracies than our own (where the will of the people has been thwarted by both parties). In this situation, in Ecuador, I would be on the alert for Bush/USAID $$ to the fishermen, for more "riots."
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