Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ecuador breaks US trade pact to thwart 'blackmail' over Snowden asylum
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/ecuador-us-trade-pact-edward-snowden ^

Posted on 06/27/2013 5:10:48 PM PDT by kronos77

Government renounces Andean Trade Preference Act even as Snowden's prospects of reaching Ecuador from Moscow

The Guardian, Thursday 27 June 2013 19.56 BST Jump to comments (1069)

Ecuador's foreign minister Ricardo Patino (centre left). Snowden's asylum request has yet to be processed. Photograph: Edgar Su/Reuters

Ecuador has ramped up its defiance of the US over Edward Snowden by waiving preferential trade rights with Washington even as the whistleblower's prospect of reaching Quito dimmed.

President Rafael Correa's government said on Thursday it was renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act to thwart US "blackmail" of Ecuador in the former NSA contractor's asylum request.

Officials, speaking at an early morning press conference, also offered a $23m donation for human rights training in the US, a brash riposte to recent US criticism of Ecuador's own human rights record.

Betty Tola, the minister of political coordination, said the asylum request had not been processed because Snowden, who is believed to be at Moscow airport, was neither in Ecuador nor at an Ecuadorean embassy or consulate. "The petitioner is not in Ecuadorean territory as the law requires."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ecuador; obama; putin; snowden; sourcetitlenoturl
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-38 last
To: kronos77
Interestingly AP ran a piece today saying the temp travel papers from Ecuadorian embassy in London given to Snowden were unauthorized and invalid, which would lead you to think they were backing away from him.
21 posted on 06/27/2013 5:52:25 PM PDT by 1066AD
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

it's = its

God, I hate doing that . . . .

22 posted on 06/27/2013 5:52:36 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: buwaya

You are right that Correa is smarter than the average red but in the end, he is a communist, or more precisely, a Marxist-lite.

Unfortunately fools like him help the bigger reds in their anti-American operations despite the cover of keeping varying degrees of capitalism. If the oil boom hits the skids, and he has no fracking for gas, then watch the iron fist descend just like Chavez did to Venezuela.

Also watch of the flight of capital and the upper/middle class in Ecuador if things start to go wrong.

It happened in Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador, etc.


23 posted on 06/27/2013 5:54:16 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

He’s not that lite, actually.


24 posted on 06/27/2013 5:54:18 PM PDT by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Caipirabob

They’re making Obama look like Ned Beatty in Deliverance.


25 posted on 06/27/2013 5:58:11 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (President Obama; The Slumlord of the Rentseekers)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Lurkina.n.Learnin

Is that bad? Or, good?


26 posted on 06/27/2013 6:06:31 PM PDT by RedHeeler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: kronos77

this is funny Ecuador treating the US like we have a petty third world dictator for a leader..oops we do.


27 posted on 06/27/2013 6:09:41 PM PDT by rolling_stone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

Yes, exactly.
He can keep up the giveaways as long as he doesn’t kill the golden goose, or if it doesn’t just fly away.

Nicaragua, Cuba, etc. had no oil income to rely on.


28 posted on 06/27/2013 6:11:21 PM PDT by buwaya
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: RedHeeler

I wouldn’t like it but Obama probably does.


29 posted on 06/27/2013 6:11:47 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (President Obama; The Slumlord of the Rentseekers)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: kronos77

Why are we Free Trading with a Commie in the first place?


30 posted on 06/27/2013 7:28:57 PM PDT by SeminoleCounty (Don't Blame Me For La Raza Rubio....I Voted For Alex Snitker)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 1rudeboy
...import stuff from Ecuador duty-free if it allowed us to try and eliminate it’s coca-production. If you were an American manufacturer...

--then you'd be happy about the tax-cuts Ecuadorian bananas, oil, shrimp, tuna.  Lower taxes are what business need.

31 posted on 06/28/2013 3:52:49 AM PDT by expat_panama
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: kronos77
obongo is so weak and pathetic. Not only do the bears and pandas have him cowering, but now even the rabbits and turtles are emboldened to kick him into the lockers and tug on what is already his spelunker's wedgie.

A fraud telegraphing that much weakness doesn't need a "kick me" sign taped to his back.

32 posted on 06/28/2013 4:05:38 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (All that is required for evil to advance is for government to do "something")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: buwaya; Mad Max; All

FROM MY FRIEND WHO WAS BORN IN ECUADOR AND IS A PROUD AMERICAN CITIZEN:

Just a few thoughts on this Snowden issue...,
Rafael Correa is now serving his third term as president of Ecuador. He received 57% of the vote in a democratic election in 2013. He was educated in Ecuador, Belgium and in the University of Illionois as an economist. He’s won numerous awards internationally.He’s published countless papers in economic periodicals. He got Ecuador out of an illegal 3 billion debt that previous corrupt politicians had accumulated. He meets regularly with indigenous leaders and is greatly concerned about the oil contamination in the jungle lands that belong to these people.

They have fought a battle with Shell and now Chevron and won a several million dollar law suit which Chevron refuses to pay. The battle has been going on for over 20 years. Meanwhile babies are dying of strange liver toxicities and the land is contaminated. Ecuador has never invaded another country. In fact, in 1948 Peru invaded Ecuador and stole millions upon millions of acres in the jungle claiming it for itself. After WWII the US offered to buy the Galapagos Islands and were it not for Prince Phillip, Charles father, the Galapagos would now be another Miami instead of the incredible wildlife sanctuary that it is today.

Correa is not a communist, but he is a politician and he looks out for his country’s best interests, just as the US does. So he is criticized for rubbing elbows with Cesar Chavez yet the US rubs elbows with China all the time despite the fact China is hacking into our security system? We allow a buffoon basketball player to go to North Korea, a known enemy of the democracy and the free world, and then return to the US spewing out what a great guy their leader is? Please help me understand this.

Drugs have never been a problem in Ecuador. However, one big problem is illegal immigration from Colombia because the immigrants bring trouble and drugs. The Colombian narco traffickers have been a huge problem in northern Ecuador for years. They regularly invade the border. Even though Ecuadorian military try to guard the border with Colombia it’s impossible jungle territory with no roads and lots of hazards. It’s not like the US/Mexican border at all. Having said that about drugs, yes there are drugs in Guayaquil and Quito, but Ecuadorians are not the target market. America is. Here is where the money and the demand is.

So, let’s not throw any stones yet because we have fought a war on drugs and it is going nowhere. Why? Because there is money to be made here and it is in the best interests of the powers that be to keep people drugged and to make money. Having said that, is there smuggling between Colombia and Ecuador? Sure there is. I used to watch the burros come over from my bedroom window in the small village of Esperanza in northern Ecuador every morning. They have been bringing in good like ketchup and shampoo from Colombia for years. They’re probably doing it as I write this.

Let’s get back to Snowden. To address this issue you have to look back into the history between Latin America and the US. Teddy Rosevelt said, “walk softly and carry a big stick”. He was referring to our relationship with Latin America. For so long the US has considered Latin America as its back yard and countries like Ecuador insignificant, backwater hovels where the US could do whatever it wanted, take whatever it wanted and have no consequences. Guess what? Now is the time to reap what has been planted. Anaconda Copper owned by US interests guarded it’s plant with armed guards and shot anyone who came near the plant. Shell, Exon, Chevron have destroyed thousands of acres of land, contaminated forever these pristine properties that did not belong to them. See the movie Crude.

The Ecuadorians won the legal battle after more than 20 years and STILL Chevron refuses to pay. As it has been said many, many times..., who knows what has been destroyed in the Amazon? Who knows if somewhere in the jungle lies the cure for cancer, Alzheimers, auto-immune diseases? The jungle has barely been explored and millions of species of plants have not even been discovered. Yet the US has considered Ecuador a small defenseless territory that can be used and thrown away, discarded and discredited.

Correa refused to re-new the lease for the US naval base in Manta. When asked about it he said he would allow the lease when the US agrees that Ecuador could have a base in Miami. See, it doesn’t go both ways.

By the way, Ecuador discarded the old currency years ago and uses the American dollar as its official currency. So this attitude of the US to do whatever it feels like to countries such as Ecuador have been brewing resentment inside Ecuador for a very long time. Years ago the famous painter Guayasamin was asked to do a mural in front of the US consulate. He painted a skull and cross bones with the letters CIA above it. The consulate was not pleased.

You have to remember one thing. Ecuador is a indigenous country primarily and indigenous people have a long memory and much patience. So, by taking in someome like Snowden is an act of defiance and independent action by a free nation and a democratically elected president.

One more thing on a personal note. My father was given asylum by Ecuador. In 1933 just after Adolf Hitler became chancelor of Germany my father was targeted by the SS to be arrested, imprisoned and sent to Dachau, the first concentration camp. He printed anti-Nazi literature in Berlin. Almost immediately Hitler targeted anyone who defied his regime. You usually see old films of smiling Germans heiling and giving flowers to the marching Naziis. What you don’t see on those old films are the Germans who actively resisted Hitler.

My father applied to Switzerland, Canada, and the US for asylum. None of these countries agreed even though his older brother already lived in the US. Ecuador was the only country to give my father asylum. Over 40,000 non-Jewish Germans who resisted Hitler were killed in concentration camps even before the Jewish people were exterminated. My grandfather was arrested and held and “questioned” for 3 weeks after my father left.

I was born in Ecuador. I grew up in the US and yes, I am a proud American. I cannot say if Snowden is right or wrong, but he has a right to be heard and listened to. I think we are given bits and pieces of the truth by the media, but not enough to form a fair opinion.


33 posted on 06/28/2013 9:57:50 AM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (Will Freepr combat)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: kronos77

<...”Snowden’s asylum request has yet to be processed”....>

Interesting they still drag their feet on this....bottom line from Snowdens perspective...he’s still cornered in an airport in Moscow.

With all the connections Assange has, he said he’d be out of the Ecudor Embassy in London within a year....year past now and he still sits cornered.

Snowden may very well be in for a long stay as Ecuador uses him to play their hand.


34 posted on 06/28/2013 10:03:03 AM PDT by caww
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 1066AD

<...”the temp travel papers from Ecuadorian embassy in London given to Snowden were unauthorized and invalid, which would lead you to think they were backing away from him”....>

What they have actually done is the same thing they did with Assange.... Backed them both in a corner while they play their hand with the big boys.

Both these guys wanted to play in the pros without understanding who the real players are and where they stand. Both are finding out if you’re a fool you will be played as one in their ball park.


35 posted on 06/28/2013 10:07:57 AM PDT by caww
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Recovering Ex-hippie

There is a lot more to the Shell/Chevron environmental cases than you have written, so people are going to have to google them to see the original contracts and court decisions.

Not holding the companies “harmless” re environmental damage (which is the field I work in), but there are always at least two sides to a story, and you have to remember that there were basically no environmental laws back when the original drilling contracts were let.

Correa is still a Marxist-Lite despite any other wording to describe him. He’s knowingly playing with the devil and he’s gonna get burnt someday.

Re Ecuador taking in German Jewish refugees when no other country listed would, you are right, but so did Bolivia (Ruth King, the writer, escaped there with her family in the late 30’s). I think that Somoza’s Nicaragua and Chile also took in Jewish refugees during the 30’s/40’s and Nicaragua (if memory serves me correctly), was the first country to recognize the new state of Israel.

Now remember, Latin America was basically run by dictators and strongmen during the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s until Jimenez was ousted in Venezuela about 1956, thus starting the “liberation” trend in that region which continued into the 1980s’ (often to be replaced by marxist dictatorships - Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia - partial control - outlying regions have resisted Morales’ dictatorial urges, etc.

However, if you check, the original Jewish refugee groups of Latin America have fled from the Marxist Sandinistas of Nicaragua, some from the authoritarian left of Argentina, Chavez’s Venezuela, and perhaps another smaller country which turned Left.

Ecuador as a country seems to be a nice place. It is the politicians who continually screw it up for various reasons.


36 posted on 06/28/2013 11:35:34 AM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

thanks for your post...I will have to get my friend ( who actually wrote what I posted)to start posting on Freepr so that you can discuss this with someone who knows more than I do.

I appreciate your reasoned discussion. I am learning a lot.

I am forwarding your post to my friend.


37 posted on 06/28/2013 2:53:51 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (Will Freepr combat)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: ncalburt

“He is a communist .”

Compared to the kenyan emperor he’s a far right wing conservative.


38 posted on 06/28/2013 3:24:54 PM PDT by SgtBilko
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-38 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson