Coup Attempt in Ecuador Is a Result of Sec. Clinton's Cowardice in Honduras

[Panaconda]

Coup Attempt in Ecuador Is a Result of Sec. Clinton's Cowardice in Honduras
Posted by Al Giordano - September 30, 2010 at 5:49 pm

By Al Giordano

Oh, crap. Another year, another coup in Latin America. And while today's attempt by police forces in Ecuador went so far as to fire tear gas at elected president Rafael Correa, the military brass in the South American country have sided with the democratic order - its top general is on TV right now strongly backing the elected government - and this one isn't likely to go as well for the anti-democracy forces as last year's did in Honduras.

First, because the Ecuadorean people are far more advanced in social and community organization than their counterparts in Honduras were last year. Second, because the events last year in Honduras caused other center-left governments in the hemisphere to prepare for what everybody saw would be more coup attempts against them in more countries.

Additionally, we can expect in the coming hours that the police leaders responsible for todays events - you don't need to understand Spanish to get a pretty good idea of what went down this morning by watching the above video - will be rounded up and brought to justice, as would happen in any other country, including the United States.

But, kind reader, do you know why this is even happening? Because the same unholy alliance of Latin American oligarchs who can't stomach the rising wave of democracy in their countries - from the ex-Cubans of Miami to the ex-Venezuelans and others who have joined them in recent years - along with international crime organizations seeking new refuges and members of extreme rightist groups in the United States and elsewhere, saw their scheme work in 2009 in Honduras and took note of how quickly, after US President Barack Obama denounced the Honduras coup, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began playing both sides of it.

...

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4138/coup-attempt-ecuador-result-sec-clintons-cowardice-honduras

[Panaconda]

1. Live reports on Ecuador at Dem Now- Today's program

http://www.democracynow.org/

[Lost4words]

2. I totally agree! nt

[blm]

3. Obama's big mistake, imo, was tapping Dem hawks based on their so-called 'experience'

when their 'experience' consisted mostly of siding with the worldview of BushInc and the neocons.

[karynnj]

6. I think Obama bought into what many in the DC punditry believed

They suggested a "two fer" or even a "three fer" with Clinton. They argued that she was a megastar with huge name recognition, who as Secretary of State, would be almost like a President visiting countries, winning over not just the leaders but the people. This was partially hype, but she had visited many countries as First Lady. The second gain was to eliminate the possibility that she could be "Ted Kennedy" to his "Jimmy Carter". Even had she not run against him, there was the potential that she could be a power not completely in line with him. That she had little power in the Senate made this more likely. The third thing would be getting Bill Clinton as an adviser on his side, rather than as a potential loose cannon, as he thought Carter was.

In reality, the first has not yet happened, though many in the media still eagerly await having their "story" really happen. The latter two have worked.

In addition, Obama's own views of foreign policy were pretty vague and I suspect that I willingly let myself believe that they were very similar to Kerry's long articulated views. Part of that was that Kerry was his key foreign policy surrogate in 2008 and many things Obama actually said, Kerry said first. On Hondoras, Obama, at first, seemed to be where Kerry was, but over time he moved to Clinton's position. As President he had ultimate power to define the US positions, so though Clinton and others influenced him, it was Obama's position.

[blm]

14. Obama listened too much to Rahm/Clintonites, too, because corpmedia treats hawks as 'serious' voices

while they target Gore, Biden and Kerry as jokes. Big mistake for Obama WH to let corpmedia push you into giving greater weight to their own handpicked fascist-enabling hawks.

[lunatica]

4. I'm so glad it didn't work!

Watching it live on Telesur it seems it went down within just a couple of hours. I think that was because civilians rushed to their elected President and prevented the police from entering the hospital. All of it because the media journalists with their camerapeople were right there and the entire world watched it in real time. It's a great example of damn good journalism and this time the revolution was televised.

[roamer65]

36. Glad it failed as well.

It is going to be fun reading what Hugo Chavez has to say about it. :evilgrin:

[eridani]

40. As it was in Venezuela in 2002

The key, as Giordano says, is a population with strong social organization. If a country has that, a successful coup will be nearly impossible in our modern world of instant communication. The only other option is a full-scale obliteration of the country by military force, as in Iraq.

[Cal Carpenter]

5. I'd like to post the update III from that article if you don't mind

It provides some interesting information that many here may be unaware of... Glad you posted this article.

Update III: The situation in Ecuador today is further complicated by the disillusion that the very social forces that elected President Correa have with his actions in office. The CONAIE (Federation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) is the leading national indigenous movement with strong alliances with labor and other social forces) held a press conference today to say that it is neither with the police forces nor with President Correa. The CONAIE and its hundreds of thousands of participants is not only responsible for Correa's election, but its mobilizations caused the rapid-fire resignations of previous presidents of Ecuador in this century.

The situation thus also shines a light on the growing rift in the hemisphere between the statist left and the indigenous left and related autonomy and labor movements. The CONAIE is basically saying to Correa, "you want our support, then enact the agenda you were elected on." Whether one sees this as a dangerous game of brinkmanship or something that actually strengthens Correa's hand by placing him in the middle zone ideologically, it is worth seeing this at face value and beware of getting led astray by some of the usual suspect conspiracy theorists of the statist left who are predictably out there barking that the CONAIE is somehow an agent of imperialism, dropping rumors of US AID funding but never seeming to exhibit the hard evidence. Sigh. What Johnny-One-Notes! They wouldn't know nuance if it slapped them in the face. For them, you either line up lock-step with THE STATE (if it is "their" state) or you're a running dog of capitalism. That kind of Stalinist purge mentality should have died with the previous century.

The CONAIE's grievances happen to be very legitimate. Of course, they do not justify a coup d'etat, but the CONAIE is not participating in or supporting the coup d'etat. It is saying to Correa; we'll have your back, when you have ours. This, like the Armed Forces support for Correa, is also a historical first in the region. And the plot thickens...

[HughMoran]

7. You mean the indigenous people aren't just puppets and have legitimate grievances?

NOOO!!! It's the "Stalinist purge mentality should have died with the previous century."!!!

I swear people who say they're "for the people" in these situations actually prefer dictatorship.

[flamingdem]

8. What are their issues? Are they the "professional left" of Ecuador?

It makes sense that they would have a different set of concerns.

[Panaconda]

18. That's very relevant

Contested paths

Issue: 109
Posted: 3 February 06
Angie Gago
bq. A review of James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador (Pluto Press, 2005), £17.99

The authors work within a Marxist framework to explain the tension between state power and the social movements. On the one hand, there is a political elite committed to the neo-liberal recipes of the international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. On the other hand, there is a diverse mass movement that demands a radical transformation of society. Each of the case studies in the book offers certain
specific features.

...

Moreover, Ecuador and Bolivia have experienced similar betrayals following recent mobilisations. The election of Lucio Gutierrez, an ex-army officer discontented with the armed forces who was supported by the main indigenous organisation (CONAIE-Pachakutik), was welcomed as a radical shift in Ecuadorean
politics. The authors argue that it took only six months for Gutierrez to betray the movement and sign an agreement with the IMF. The pattern has been followed in Bolivia, where in the space of five years two presidents have been overthrown. The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), led by Evo Morales, has played a contradictory role. It has benefited from the mass movement, but at crucial moments Morales has sought to hold the movement back. For example, during the mobilisation of 2003, which overthrew President Lozada, he offered critical support to Lozada’s successor Carlos Mesa. But Mesa continued his predecessor’s neoliberal policies, leading to his overthrow in the June 2005 uprising.

What is the underlying cause for this phenomenon? Petras and Veltmeyer offer a sharp critical perspective of the problems that the social movements are facing. They explain that capitalism, in its neoliberal form, has been accompanied by a process of disempowerment of the traditional grassroots movements. Since the 1980s the introduction of deregulation, privatisation and structural adjustment policies has had devastating consequences for living standards.

Therefore the introduction of concepts such as ‘governability’ and ‘civil society’ into liberal discourse was of major importance in counterbalancing the reduction of state services in aid of disadvantaged sectors. Furthermore, descentralisation strategies and ‘participatory budgets’ schemes were introduced. As the authors claim, the overall objective was the empowerment of the poor without the disempowerment of the rich. In fact, they argue that this process was ‘designed to demobilise them, to divert the struggle for state power in one or more directions towards electoral politics, reformist social organisations or local development’ (p9).

...

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=169&issue=109

[Cal Carpenter]

19. Interesting

"They explain that capitalism, in its neoliberal form, has been accompanied by a process of disempowerment of the traditional grassroots movements..."

---can't argue with that. Here in the heart of it we have billionaire-financed movements being called 'grassroots'. It's ridiculous.

".. the overall objective was the empowerment of the poor without the disempowerment of the rich.."

That's the crux of it, isn't it? It's liberalism, prevalent on this board obviously, heh..but it's decidedly not leftist and that's what a lot of people don't seem to grasp. Our continuum is so skewed.

I'm tempted to track down a copy of this book. Thanks for posting this.

[flamingdem]

9. For sure the Miami ex-Cubans are implicated in this FAIL

The got Honduras and that whetted their appetites for more. This could get much worse if republicans gain more power in November.

[paulk]

10. she works for Obama

unless he's such a poor leader that his SoS pushes him around...

[blm]

21. my biggest criticism of Obama is that he depends too much on the WRONG 'experience' of the hawks

when their 'experience' the last few decades consists of sharing the same worldview as Bush and the neocons.

[CJvR]

11. Not really sure...

...it was a coup attempt. It seems spectaculary badly organized and carried out, even the Vodka coup in Moscow was better organized than this. If it was a serious coup attempt they would not just shoot teargas at the Prez, they would have given him a 9mm lobotomy while they had the chanse.

[Cal Carpenter]

12. It's weird trying to watch it in real-time

I suppose any coup attempt is chaotic and causes confusion like this, but this seems particularly confusing, and inept..

I believe there are waaaay more questions than answers so far.

[geek tragedy]

13. Yeah, because coup attempts in Latin America were unheard of before 2009. nt

[Cal Carpenter]

15. LOL, did you even read the first 2 sentences of the excerpt?

"Oh, crap. Another year, another coup in Latin America."

I think that makes it clear that the author realizes there have been previous coups in the region.

eta the quote.

[blindpig]

16. k&r

[Greyhound]

17. It's just amazing how many people can read real time news accounts, complete with

background and and historical reference, and still get it completely backward.

(Not to mention that this is unrecced to sub-zero in the early posting, a typical pattern)
:kick: & R

[blm]

20. yep...getting it recc'd was 'hard work'....amazingly enough.

the Dem hawks are always out in force here at DU.

[Greyhound]

22. Still on the bubble, they really don't want this out there, do they?

:rofl:

[blindpig]

24. They don't get it backwards....

in truth, they got it more right then a lot of the liberals and progressives(is there a difference, I dunno), liberalism is very capital friendly and thus the enemy of socialism. They may like some feel good aspects of the socialist program but balk at overthrowing capitalism, which is the only way that these things which they like so much might be fully implemented.

[Greyhound]

38. Muddying definitions and conflating meaning are SOP in thought control. Kick.

[TexasObserver]

23. Unrec for gratuitous attack on Hillary.

[Panaconda]

25. Which specific

point in the article are you disputing?

[TexasObserver]

26. The title and the theme of the it.

"Coup Attempt in Ecuador Is a Result of Sec. Clinton's Cowardice in Honduras" is bullshit.

I expect this kind of nonsense from right wing sites, not DU.

[Panaconda]

27. I see

So you actually aren't disputing any of the specifics. Not surprised.

Thanks.

[TexasObserver]

29. It's complete bullshit. I dispute it entirely.

You posted that steaming pile of crap, so you won't see that.

[Mudoria]

28. Sounds more like some pissed off cops

than anything to do with "Sec. Clinton's Cowardice in Honduras". I'm sure Correa will take this as an opportunity to get rid of some political opponents though.

[TexasObserver]

30. Yes, that's the real reason. The article is one person's irrational attack.

It's fairly typical of those who have a line to push. They seize on every event and torture it until it fits their agenda.

[COLGATE4]

31. Pure, unadulterated bullshit.

Reads like a Glen Beck conspiracy theory, without the chalkboard. The facts however are pretty mundane and are not difficult to follow. Correa's Ecuador is in the hole approximately 3 billion dollars. They need to cut spending, and he has planned a series of austerity measures. Perhaps out of bad timing, he decided to roll out the budget cuts with police bonuses. The police were less than thrilled. Given that Ecuador has a habit of changing governments only slightly less than I change shirts, some of the police decided that it was time to take the matter up directly with the Pres. Ecuadorean style. This misfired rather badly, since the Army remained loyal to Correa (at least for now), so the coup attempt (or whatever you choose to call it) failed. End of story. No big bad CIA plot, no mustache-twirling Petroleum company villains, no clumsy involvement by our Dept. of State. Merely an energetic labor dispute. The facts don't make nearly the exciting reading that Giordano wants to present, but, as Freud so aptly observed "some times a cigar is just a cigar".

[TexasObserver]

32. Well said.

[Panaconda]

33. Your agenda is showing

Obviously you could not have read the piece carefully or at all.

Your comment about Ecuador having a habit of "changing governments" is pure propaganda or utter bullshit as your words would state. I guess someone must hold economic leverage and have strong military interventions when you change shirts.

Please read some history.

Giordano spoke of no such CIA plot but to suggest that the police aren't heavily supported by the right-wing oligarchs who are also a synergistic relationship with outside big business interests is to suggest things happen in a vacuum and it also ignores the reality of what is happening.

Clinton's later endorsement of farcical presidential elections and her over-reaching attempts to pretend nothing had happened in Honduras are precisely the signals that were received by today's coup plotters in Ecuador when they made a run at toppling the democratic government there.

There's the takeaway line and if that isn't obvious it is due to purposeful denial on your part as to how the US State Department operates.

Now remember the United States tried to renew the lease for its military base in the city of Manta, but Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa rejected the proposal. The US wanted to renew the lease for the base to increase its military presence in the Latin American, but of course this doesn't matter.

[COLGATE4]

39. And your assertion that the statement I made about Ecuador

having a history of instability in its governments is based on what? You might want to read up on Ecuador's political history before making such assertions.

"ONE OF THE LEAST POLITICALLY stable of the South American republics for most of its history, Ecuador had 86 governments and 17 constitutions in its first 159 years of independence. Only twenty of those governments resulted from popular elections, and many of the elections were fraudulent. José María Velasco Ibarra, who completed only one of his five terms as president, often stated, "Ecuador is a very difficult country to govern."

Ecuador had four successive democratic elections from 1948 to 1960, but the country did not experience relative political stability under democratic rule again until the 1980s. Seven years of military dictatorship ended with the presidential inauguration of Jaime Roldós Aguilera on August 10, 1979. After Roldós died in an airplane crash on May 24, 1981, Vice President Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea assumed the presidency. The completion of the Hurtado/Roldós administration and the constitutional and orderly transfer of power--the first such transfer in twenty-four years--to conservative León Febres Cordero Ribadeneyra (1984-88) in August 1984 seemed to affirm the restoration of democracy in Ecuador. Nevertheless, as Roldós himself had cautioned shortly before taking office, the nation had only a formalistic and ritualistic democratic tradition.

Indeed, Ecuador has been shaken periodically since 1984 by bitter conflicts between the executive branch on the one side and the unicameral legislature and the judiciary on the other. These clashes were particularly pronounced during Febres Cordero's polemical administration. His authoritarian rule also provoked military mutinies and even his brief abduction by rebellious troops. Although battered, Ecuador's democratic system survived, and Febres Cordero transferred power to his long-time rival, Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, in August 1988. Whereas Febres Cordero, a millionaire businessman from Guayaquil, had advocated a free-market economy, strong executive control, and close alignment with the United States, Borja, a social democrat from Quito, espoused a mixed economy, a pluralist government, and a nonaligned foreign policy. In his first two years, Borja succeeded in softening the impact of his predecessor's legacy of political, economic, and social crises.

Despite a decade of civilian democratic rule marked by three peaceful transitions of government, analysts generally agreed that the political system remained vulnerable. Political scientist John D. Martz noted, for instance, that the transition to a third democratic government in 1988 provided "little reason to believe that the fragile democratic system in Ecuador had been strengthened, nor that the historic pattern of instability had been fundamentally reversed or modified."

countrystudies.us/ecuador/56.htm

Your's and Giordano's attempt to make an internal dispute about prestaciones sociales into a great confab between the dreaded Oligarchy, CIA, State Department and assorted other boogeymen may make for fascinating reading but bears no relation to the reality in Ecuador today.

[kenny blankenship]

35. A cigar is just a cigar - when *you've* got one in *your* mouth.

that's the relevant but unstated criterion from the story.

I should know. I plead "but it just tastes great!" all the time.

[treestar]

34. WTH is our SOS being blamed for another country's coup?

WE don't have a duty to run those countries.

Quit calling Dems cowards. this is a democratic board.

[Panaconda]

37. I agree

It had nothing to do with cowardice, something else at work here. Perhaps an unfortunate use of terms by Giordano that disguises the more pernicious motives of foreign policy wouldn't you say?