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Tag Archives: Ecuador

Ecuador Drowns in Chinese Loans, Prior Internal Corruption, and Resulting Unrest and Violence

13 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ecuador, South America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Chinese Corruption in South America, Chinese Debt Burden, Ecuador, IMF and Ecuador, political corruption

An authentic Left / Far Left in Central and South America would place the highest emphasis on integrity in governance and work to produce the planning and engineering that would best fulfill the ideals contained in and signaled by the term “appropriate and sustainable development”. And there would be no need for IMF consideration and related examination. Instead, the “socialists” appear to invariably pursue criminal schemes.


Euronews, October 13, 2019.

President Lenín Moreno ordered the army on to the streets of Ecuador’s capital Quito after a week and a half of protests over fuel prices devolved into violent incidents, with masked protesters attacking a television station, newspaper and the national auditor’s office.

Moreno said the military enforced curfew would begin at 3pm local time in response to violence in areas previously untouched by the protests. Masked protesters broke into the national auditor’s office and set it ablaze, sending black smoke billowing across the central Quito park and cultural complex that have been the epicentre of the protests.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/army-deployed-in-ecuador-as-protests-descend-into-violence

October 2, 2019

The reforms announced yesterday by President Lenin Moreno aim to improve the resilience and sustainability of Ecuador’s economy and foster strong, and inclusive growth. The announcement included important measures to protect the poor and most vulnerable, as well as to generate jobs in a more competitive economy.

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/10/02/pr19362-ecuador-imf-statement-on-ecuador

Socialist Ecuador borrowed far beyond its means for years, predictably arriving at the doorstep of the IMF to address its debt situation. Just as predictably, the government and IMF took aim at cause — petrol subsidies — without the informational or structural preparation of the state. And whaddayaknow — calls for revolutionary action spilling into violence in the streets.

Mix in nominal “Communism”, the political cover for some of the most labor exploiting, imperialist, and wealthiest elites on earth.


Reporting from Quito, Ecuador, LAT, 2018 — 

Rafael Correa wanted to fast-track development projects when he was president of Ecuador, so he borrowed billions of dollars from China. But the loans have come back to haunt his successor, Lenin Moreno, who will go hat in hand to China this month to seek more flexible terms and breathing space.

A onetime ally and now bitter enemy of Correa, Moreno and his government are straining under a huge budget deficit caused partly by obligations to the Chinese, whose loans financed roads, dams, schools and office buildings during Correa’s time in office from 2007 to 2017.

https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-ecuador-loans-china-20181210-story.html

Read the rest of the LAT piece — no bid contracts; corrupt construction practices; an authentically pricey dam project now operating at half its capacity for the discovery of crack following the execution of the work:

The report also said the Chinese contractor ignored a stipulation of the construction contract, that the dam be built according to rigid standards set by the American Society Of Mechanical Engineers. “The Chinese used bad-quality steel and fired inspectors who said to change it, “ said ex-minister Santos.

https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-ecuador-loans-china-20181210-story.html

And yet Ecuador’s Left will characterize its current and responsible leadership as “imperialist and fascist” while the true imperialist fascists — the Chinese government and its industrial sector — get away with murderous theft, promising much, delivering much less, and provoking Ecuador’s poor — whom the Left claims to defend! — into greater desperation and the kind of actions that come of deeply misdirected anger, perceived political impotence, and true theft — socialist theft — from the People.


The net is tightening around former Ecuador president Rafael Correa after a new order for his arrest, underscoring the country’s determination to bring the once-popular leader to justice, along with his closest political allies.

https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/rafael-correa-absence-ecuador-closest-allies/ – 9/29/2019

An authentic Left / Far Left in Central and South America would place the highest emphasis on integrity in governance and work to produce the planning and engineering that would best fulfill the ideals contained in and signaled by the term “appropriate and sustainable development”. And there would be no need for IMF consideration and related examination. Instead, the “socialists” appear to invariably pursue criminal schemes.

From the same InSight Crime article cited: “This time, Ecuador’s Attorney General Diana Salazar has accused the former president of being behind a bribery scheme, which she described as a “well-structured criminal organization that received payments from government contractors,” according to a report by Ecuavisa.”

Ecuador’s latest request to add former president Rafael Correa to the INTERPOL roster of wanted criminals seems predictable too in light of the character of political life in the now debt-burdened and protest and violence-ridden state.


Ecuador’s violence — the bitter fruit of unchecked borrowing and state-level corruption and criminality. RT’s less incendiary title for the clip: “Protesters clash with police, set govt building on fire in Quito, Ecuador.” If the scene resembles those coming off the streets of so-called “liberation movement”, it may be because the same people instigated the violence.

Related Online: “Quito protests: Ecuador riot officer hit with petrol bomb.” Sky News, October 13, 2019.

–33–

A Note from Ecuador – Proposed: “A Marshall Plan for South America and Africa”

17 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, South America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

economic redevelopment, Ecuador, opinion, South America, Venezuela, world peace

The poor countries from Latin America and Africa need an international bailout plan such as the Marshal Plan to Europe after the world war, with economic loans at low bank interest of 1% and 2% and more than 40 years to pay, which is could extend to 60 years term to pay and up to 80 years term, not as now happens with the perversion of the capital market with economic loans to 7% and 8% bank interest with only 5 year to pay to poor countries due to moral degeneration of Wall Street people who lives in Park Avenue … it is also necessary to allow the transfer of technology from rich countries to poor countries to build cars, trucks, buses, industrial machinery, tractors, televisions, computers, cell phones, build nuclear power plants and ensure that poor countries can grow at 5% of GDP per year over the next 50 years to reduce poverty, violence, migration, pay the foreign debt also and maintain world peace…

Source of the above will remain unattributed.

Below: recent documentary coverage of the collapse of Venezuela’s economy.


Posted to YouTube May 15, 2017


Posted to YouTube May 14, 2017


–33–

 

Oh Troubles Keep Away from My Ecuador

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ecuador, International Development, Politics, South America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, economic development, Ecuador, protests, unrest

“My Ecuador” is likely to remain virtual and experienced through Windows.

However, for my correspondent, Ecuador is home, and when he writes in relation to, ” . . . the soldiers try to occupy the strategic places, highways, bridges, airports, refineries, power generation stations, generating dams . . .” and says “we will close the office now and  . . . try to buy food in the supermarket, store, and black market . . . .” I’m inclined to believe him.

But he’s just one source.

The closest corroborations in the news:

Lee, Brianna.  “Ecuador’s Correa Withdraws Controversial Tax Bills After Days of Protests.”  International Business Times, June 16, 2015.

Morla, Rebeca.  “Down with Correa!  Ecuadorians Want Off the Socialist Train: Five Days of Street Protests, More to Come.”  The Canal: Blog of the Panama Post, June 15, 2015.

Scherffus, Liz.  “The opposition says they will continue protesting until the proposed inheritance tax is off the table.”  Telesur, June 17, 2015.

As has happened in other spaces in relation to the post-Soviet neo-feudalism, reliance on oil revenues and the tumble in wellhead rates has turned out a big kick in the seat of the pants.

It appears that what has brought Ecuadorans out into the streets en masse is not primal hunger and resentment of the capitalist yankee running dog pig — China’s deep into the state these days — but the fearsome will to bequeath hard-earned private gains to progeny without fear of plundering by the state!

According to my source, some military appears to have mobilized, but the arguments and resolution of economic issues to come may play behind the increasingly pale phantom of the bankrupt Soviet, the revanche neo-feudalism in place in Moscow today, and the teetering of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.  Clearly, the authoritarian experiments dressed up in socialist talk have failed their states.

The shame is the same: some affected states, Ecuador among them, are simply rich in cultural charm, labor, and natural resources but burdened by leadership that fails to grow the kind of internal economy that might make short work of living comfortably on the land while producing the craft-for-export industries certain to at least help fill in the shortfalls from the gross export of mineral wealth.

# # #

Six-and-one-half-minutes of war – Eight minutes and five seconds of development

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conflict, development, Ecuador, Syria

_______

______

International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation

# # #

America – Ecuador – Petty Diplomacy – Isaias Brothers Scandal

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ecuador, Isaias Dassum, Menendez, politics, United States

If it weren’t for Facebook, I’d have never heard of William and Roberto Isaias.

My experience of real space has, for the greater part, shrunk to my desktop, more precisely, it’s 20-inch graphic arts monitor; my experience of cyberspace, however small, has expanded to cover the camel path from Riyadh to Islamabad.  As readers know, it’s easy to hang up, as it were, in one active war zone or another and reflect on so much needless and pointless horror and suffering.

Crime in South America?

Easily overlooked.

However, some crime would seem cousin to conflict.

* * *

The Isaias brothers have been fugitives from their native Ecuador for more than a decade — sentenced in absentia for embezzling millions as the bank they ran there was collapsing.

The Isaias brothers now live in Coral Gables, Fla., running several successful businesses, and they have never been charged in the U.S. But back home in Ecuador, they’re wanted men.

Exclusive: Federal Probe Into New Jersey Sen. Menendez Is Widening | NBC New York – 1/24/2014.

* * *

The judge indicated that the defendants “may have committed the acts alleged by Ecuador”. The problem is that “the way in which Ecuador has tried to correct the supposed errors of the defendants is inconsistent with the regulations and laws of the United States of America.”

Ecuador lost trial against Isaias brothers in Miami | EcuadorTimes.net | Breaking News, Ecuador News, World, Sports, Entertainment

Furthermore, Thornton determined that the pleadings and evidence on file show that “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact … (and) as a matter of law” to the claims of the government of Ecuador against the Isaias brothers.

The government of Ecuador’s power isn’t as far-reaching as it’d hoped | Voxxi – 6/18/2013.

Oh boy.

Anyone care to dive off the deep end into international finance and law?

From the sound of it, at a glance, a gloss, a quick look, the capitalists threatened by the socialists picked up their own marbles and fled to Miami, launched new businesses, and today represent, wonder of wonders, an American Success Story.

Rocio Gonzalez’s article in Voxxi goes on to note: “The defendants show reports from the Superintendency of Banks that show the cause of Filanbanco’s bankruptcy being ill administration from the government.”

Pissing war, we call that.

Finally, from Gonzalez, a full quote from the American court:

“As previously discussed, Ecuador does not seek to enforce a judgment. Without a judgement of liability recognizable under U.S. law, Ecuador’s attempt to seize the defendants’ property in the U.S. is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy,” the Miami-Dade County judge wrote.

* * *

In the piece that tops the works cited on this page, a video quotes former ambassador to Ecuador Linda Jewell as saying, “The fact that the Isaias brothers continue to live a life of luxury in the U.S. while their account holders are suffering in Ecuador has been a constant concern between the U.S. and Ecuador since their flight.”

That’s what she said – but you have the court’s finding: the brothers are wanted for trial, not judgment,  and, logically, the Correa government has not produced a “judgment of liability recognizable under U.S. law,” so what this really looks like is state seizure of private property by a socialist government.

Not surprisingly, the Isaias defense offers a refrain so familiar as to be trite to conservative ears and legal eagle minds:

“And that is the problem of the Isaias brothers — they have committed the crime of being rich in a poor country.”

Exclusive: Federal Probe Into New Jersey Sen. Menendez Is Widening | NBC New York – 1/24/2014.

“Judge Thornton is not concerned with the human rights of the bank’s clients that were affected by this bankruptcy, many of which who no longer exist because they are no longer living,” Bravo insisted.

The judge from Florida that ruled in favor of the Isaías brothers did not defend the human rights of bank’s clients | ANDES – 6/13/2013.

* * *

Back when Edward Snowden, intelligence industry leader extraordinaire, was looking for a new home, Ecuador’s government, this suggested by an NPR note on the matter, used opportunity to press its extradition request for the bankers Isaias Dessum.

Today, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D) has become the object of an investigation or two, one of them involving the ties into the brothers Dessum whom much of the press has characterized as “fugitive bankers”.  Related to that note:

Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright tonight said the senator’s office has not heard from investigators and that Menendez believed the family had been “politically persecuted” in Ecuador “including through the confiscation of media outlets they owned which were critical of the government.”

Feds reportedly looking into Robert Menendez for allegedly helping fugitive bankers | NJ.com – 1/23/2014.

Why shouldn’t they be helped?

Given the Correa government’s investment in its spin on the events of the 1990s culminating in the collapse of its banking industry, and add to that its pursuit of assets disconnected from due process, it would seem unlikely that the brothers would get other than a show trial.

“The ruling finally recognizes that there are no laws or due process in Ecuador,” said Roberto Isaias, 68. “I hope that the Ecuadorian government to set and do not proceed with this gamble to follow behind things […] It’s over. What we want is peace “.

The Ecuadorian authorities are considering an appeal.

Miami-Dade judge rules in favor of Ecuadorian former businessmen | Human Rights Ecuador | Analysis of the human rights situation in Ecuador – 6/10/2013.

In that article too, the theme of the resentments of the poor, and of the Correa government, recur:

“[The brothers] have lived in their mansions in Miami, enjoying their luxury yachts and exotic vehicles, outside the scope of the warrants,” according to the lawsuit filed in 2009, and which mentions at least $ 20 million brothers that accumulate in properties in Miami-Dade.

Who and what diminished the value of the assets — the economy of Ecuador — in the 1990s — thieving bankers or the appetite of a socialist state for private capital?

I don’t know and don’t have a swift way of finding out the answer to that question.

One would have to exhume the ecology of Ecuador’s economy in the 1990s and lay it out in plain sight.

Probably, Ecuador has recovered what it may and will not obtain Isaias Dassum brother assets in the United States by want of socialist pique alone.

As for the most recent in “Get Bob!” the senator, I defer to The Wire:

The scandal surrounding New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has evolved from a sex scandal to a donor scandal to a weird mystery about who set him up, with the FBI talking to sugar baron brothers and an ex-CIA operative. Last fall, the Daily Caller showed videos of women who said Menendez had paid them for sex in the Dominican Republic while partying with a wealthy Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen. The women later said they were paid to make the claims. Then Menendez came under scrutiny for intervening with the Dominican government to help Melgen’s port-security firm and intervening with the U.S. government to help Melgen’s Florida clinic when it was charged with overbilling. Now the FBI is trying to figure out who plotted to bring down Menendez with the fake sex story in the first place.

The Bob Menendez Scandal Has Gotten So Weird – The Wire – 5/17/2013.

And on the other hand: Report: Feds probe Bob Menendez on Equador banker links – POLITICO.com – 1/23/2014.

So it goes . . . .

Additional Reference

Bank Crisis Leaves 4,360 Unemployed – BNamericas

1998–99 Ecuador banking crisis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ecuador Seizes Banking Firms | London Progressive Journal – 7/11/2008.

# # #

Ecuador – Fighting Continues On Colombian Border – FARC Known – Hezbollah? A Question Mark

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Regions, South America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conflict, crime, dark space, Ecuador, FARC, Hezbollah, narcoterrorism

I have been assured by my contact in Guayaquil, Ecuador, that fighting reported in the Miami Herald last Thursday is still ongoing but with one changed note: the hint that Hezbollah has banded with the FARC “to move their operations to neighboring countries, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador, seeking new territory to plant opium  . . . .”

That coca and poppy cultivation have taken place, or takes place, in certain areas isn’t news, but whether or not Hezbollah’s is in on that enterprise — or a part of this most recent fighting — that might be something worth the watching.

Excerpts From an Exchange

Sunday, August 11, 2013:

“We are worried about a war against Israel from many terrorist groups, we have information that Mexico and Peru are increased production of cocaine and opium are sowing now, it is likely that drug traffickers with this money can finance violent groups worldwide, in exchange for weapons and as part of the drug trade, then they can make terrorist attacks with Opium money.”

* * *

“This is a battle with two front of war to Ecuador, because the drug traffickers control the jungle between Colombia and Peru, where the government of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have no presence, the state have no presence with roads, village, school, hospitals in remote places of the country, far away from the Andes mountains all this place remain alone.”

Dark Space

From back rooms to board rooms to “secure compartmented information facilities”, any space may be made and kept “dark” in terms related to privacy and the keeping of secrets, but remote rural space affords another dimension in dark space: the opportunity to develop criminal and, in essence, criminal political enterprise with impunity.

Reference

Bargent, James.  “Discovery of Coca Plantations in Ecuador Points to FARC.”  InSight Crime, April 8, 2013.

Levitt, Matthew.  “Exporting Terror in America’s Backyard.”  Foreign Policy, June 13, 2013.

Levitt, Matthew.  Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God.  To be published September 3, 2013, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

McDermott, Jeremy.  “Shootout on Colombia-Ecuador Border Claims 6 Lives.”  InSight Crime, August 9, 2013.

Torres, Diego.  “Ecuador soldier slain in firefight with Colombians.”  Miami Herald, August 8, 2013.

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Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

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Oriana Fallaci
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Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

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What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

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Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

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I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

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In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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