Ecuador's Correa extols the Cuban revolution

From Granma.cu

"This marvelous people, the Cuban people, a heroic people, has taught the world that Revolution has a destiny"

Speech by His Excellency Mr. Rafael Correa Delgado, president of the Republic of Ecuador, at the commemoration event for the 50th anniversary of the entry of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro into Havana, at Ciudad Libertad, January 8, 2009

Dear Comandante,

President Raúl Castro Ruz, I expect that compañero Fidel is watching us and so an immense Latin American and solidarity-filled embrace for him (Applause)

Dear commanders, combatants of this heroic gesture: the Cuban Revolution, the liberation of Cuba, the most significant milestone in the history of Latin America in the 20th century and an example for the entire world;

Dear officials of the Cuban government;

Ministers and officials from the Ecuadorian government who are accompanying me on this visit;

Representatives of the media;

Dear sisters and brothers from Cuba, Ecuador, Latin America and the rest of the world, for each and every one of you, a warm embrace (Applause):

Today, January 8, 2009, when – at the invitation of the Cuban Revolution – we are here representing the Ecuadorian people and their Citizen’s Revolution, it is worth asking the question: When did the Cuban Revolution begin?

Perhaps on July 26, 1953, when Fidel, leading the Centenary Generation, etched the name of the Moncada Garrison into history?

Maybe it was on November 25, 1956 when the Granma set sail from Veracruz carrying 82 guerrillas?

Or perhaps it was long before that, in the early hours of April 11, 1895, when José Martí and his group of compatriots disembarked at Playitas de Cajobabo in order to begin the Necessary War and bring the yoke of Spanish colonialism to an end?

Perhaps it would be better to think that this Revolution, the hope and fate of Our America, began in the struggles against colonialism, alongside the major reference of our emancipatory vocation, symbolized by the Liberator Simón Bolívar.

Because Manuela Sáenz and Antonio José de Sucre; José Martí and Emiliano Zapata; Eloy Alfaro and Augusto César Sandino; Manuel Rodríguez and José Carlos Mariátegui; Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez, and all the compatriots of the continent devoted their lives to the liberation of our Great Homeland harbored by the image and flag of Bolívar.

We should acknowledge then, that the Revolution began when Fidel…Raúl, Che, Haydée, Camilo, and the Cuban revolutionaries followed the path and the profound footprints of a historic struggle.

Following in these footprints meant and continues to mean, at whatever moment in time, being honest, being transparent and always telling the truth, just as the Liberator did when he said:

"Blessed is he who, running between the obstacles of war, politics and public misfortunes, preserves his honor intact."

Fifty years ago, in this very same place, Fidel said:

"I believe that this is a decisive moment in our history: the dictatorship has been defeated. The joy is immense. But there is still much to be done. Let us not deceive ourselves by believing that everything will be much easier from now on; the future will perhaps be much more difficult."

"Telling the truth is the first duty of every revolutionary," stated Fidel. "Deceiving the people, stirring up deceptive illusions will always bring the worst consequences, and I believe that we have to warn people against excessive optimism.

"How did the Rebel Army win the war? By speaking the truth. How did the dictatorship lose it? By lying to the soldiers.

(…) "And for this reason, I want to begin – or rather, continue – with the same system: always telling the truth to the people," stated Fidel, in this very same place, exactly fifty years ago.

This ethical torch, and the greatest devotion to the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of Cuba and Latin America has permitted this Revolution to remain in force, with pride and dignity, in the defense of the most prized assets pursued by the people: freedom and sovereignty.

This marvelous people, the Cuban people, a heroic people, has taught the world that Revolution has a destiny. That it is a process of the spirit, that it is forged by human spirit and that, once underway, there is no power that is capable of stopping it, however powerful it believes itself to be.

Today, fifty years later, that distant January 1, 1959, or that January 8 half a century ago, are already glorious dates for every revolutionary movement around the world. But they would not be if the movement that culminated in it had been conceived simply as the climax of the insurrection against injustice, despotism and corruption.

The fight against that injustice, that despotism and against corruption is an eternal one, and will never end.

It is for this reason that the January 1st and 8th of 50 years ago are glorious…And they are majestic, because from that moment onward, the Cuban people have taught the world that a revolution is constructed from the dawn of every day, and also, based on the teaching left to us by every error made.

This process is exemplary because it was capable of achieving real national independence, freedom, sovereignty and the self-determination of the Cuban people.

This process is extraordinary because it secured the reestablishment of human rights for all Cuban men and women. It is the recognition that the first constitutional right of all human beings is their full dignity. The Cuban Revolution made real the declaration of its leaders: the Cuban people know that no compatriot will be left to his or her own fate under any circumstance whatsoever.

The Cuban Revolution has no skeletons hidden in the closet of its history, and has never practiced torture or "disappearances."

The Cuban Revolution has eliminated racial and gender discrimination, and at the same time has defended the rights of children and the widespread protection of the rights of the Cuban family.

Cuba’s declaration in 1961 as the First Illiteracy-Free Territory in America continues to be an example for our peoples, and that same conviction transformed garrisons into schools, and told the Cuban people: "Read, don’t just believe", thus democratizing access to the world of the written word and its phantoms.

Cuba increased by more than eleven times the number of doctors it possessed. From the 6,286 doctors in 1958, the country came to have 72,416 in 2007; in other words, one for every 155 inhabitants. Cuba is the country with the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, and Latin America has been the beneficiary of a responsible policy, deeply-rooted in humanism and solidarity.

We have witnessed, with Latin American pride, the practice of a principled foreign policy, based on the pillars of international law: equality among nations, self-determination and mutual respect, as well as on the defense of social justice and the dignity of all human beings on the planet, particularly with respect to the rights of the peoples of the Third World.

From this Latin American territory, we come to express our most profound solidarity with the Cuban revolutionary process.

From the Equator, from this territory that harbored the Bolivarian struggles, we have come to the Ciudad Libertad to express our jubilation at these past fifty years. And we do so with the same conviction that led us to establish, in our own land, one of the most advanced constitutions in Latin America.

We have come from this continent reinforced and revived by the social memory that is permitting us to settle the scores of history.

This settling of scores begins with the genuine vindication of the indigenous population, pillaged, exploited, humiliated, offended and, paradoxically, also used and manipulated. For that reason, today, the Ecuadorian state is pluri-national, it is intercultural, and pursues equality in its diversity; in other words, the most authentic execution of true democracy…In the same way, with the African-Ecuadorian people which, like the Cuban people, are the drum and the flag of our homeland.

Many years ago, two of my people’s democrats, Eloy Alfaro and Federico Proaño, were the subject of a tribute by José Martí.

Alfaro, according to the Cuban national hero, was one of the few Americans by creation and, his combatants from the coast, the guerrillas, brothers of the Mambises, founded this Ecuadorian land which today is emerging and rising up.

With respect to our insurgent fighter Federico Proaño, Martí said:

"For the enemies of human’s free will, and for his clear occupation in America, Proaño had nothing more than tooth and nail. And his pen, refined and fierce, outlined with one stroke, illuminated from an uproar, hammered from a pillory,

opened up like two wings, before the majesties of humans and nature."

And history continues. The Cuban Revolution had an Ecuadorian martyr, journalist and patriot Carlos Bastidas Argüello, murdered in May 1958 by Batista’s henchmen…

We pay tribute to Carlos Bastidas today, for being the dignified representative of the pride and sacrifice of our peoples (Applause).

And, in tribute to this Revolution, cemented in the most noble principles deposited throughout the history of humanity: solidarity, universality, unity, independence and, above all, dignity, today we are calling for and demanding…an end to the criminal blockade, premeditated ethnocide by the same powers as always (Applause); those same powers which have subjected to the most perverse injustice René González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, patriots who, perhaps as a form of consolation, and as Silvio Rodríguez has said: "We must understand what they are suffering, they are the cruel swipes of a beast against an unbearable light" (Applause).

Fortunately, today Latin America does not belong to any empire. We, the heirs of José Artigas, José de San Martín, Rosa Campuzano, Miguel de Hidalgo, and also Rigoberta Menchú, Camilo Torres, Leonidas Proaño, Hebe de Bonafini and Chico Mendes, do not believe in one sole form of thinking, because our identity has the face of each and every one of us.

We honor the essence of the Cuban Revolution, considering it transcendental to the evolution of humanity.

Because we believe that its principles are fundamental in order to secure the well-being of our peoples.

On honoring this Revolution, we reiterate the words spoken fifty years ago by Comandante Fidel Castro, words that, today, we make our own:

"From this moment, the lavish receptions and ovations are over; from now on…it’s work. Tomorrow will be a day the same as any other, and every other one like it, and we will become used to freedom."

We, from our Andean Ecuador, from Guayas to Chimborazo, from the homeland of Alfaro and Manuelita, join these festivities for justice and dignity.

We, in the greatest execution of sovereignty, denounce as you do, an illegitimate, illegal and immoral foreign debt (Applause).

For us…socialists of both the mind and the heart, revolution will never be sorrowful, it will always be a fiesta, because it will be a celebration of equality between men and women; because it will be an exercise of solidarity between human beings and the earth.

And so, we will celebrate the Cuban Revolution with the words of poet Fayad Jamís:

"For this freedom

of song in the rain,

we will have to give everything,

until our shadows

and it will never be enough."

With the protective shadow of Bolívar and Martí…

With this renascent entry of Fidel into the Ciudad Libertad…

And with the memory of Che, we say, with dignity and with all our heart…

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

¡Viva Cuba! (Cries of: "¡Viva!")

¡Viva Ecuador! (Cries of: "¡Viva!")

¡Viva América Latina! (Cries of: "¡Viva!")

(Applause.)

Ecuador, ALBA and the FARC

From Scoop via Ecuador Rising Blog,

by Toni Solo, 15 June 2008

Recent remarks by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on the civil war in Colombia and Ecuador's decision not to join the Alternativa Bolivariana de las Americas (ALBA) solidarity based cooperation initiative (1) shows progressive leaders are taking stock on Latin American integration. President Rafael Correa suggests his government's decision is linked to efforts to revive the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) group which Venezuela abandoned when the Peruvian and Colombian government's insisted on negotiating bilateral "free trade" agreements with the United States.

Aporrea.org reports Correa as admitting that he told Chavez in 2007, "you return to the CAN and Ecuador will immediately join ALBA". Venezuela's government may well be quietly relieved, since Ecuador's decision is very ambivalent, keeping its options open and continuing to develop close bilateral trade links with Venezuela. It may well suit the ALBA countries - Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Nicaragua and Venezuela - to consolidate gains so far and to develop ALBA's closely linked PETROCARIBE preferential energy and trade programme covering most of the CaribbeanCentral America. and much of

Ecuador's announcement comes shortly after the recent European Union-Latin American summit in Peru's capital Lima and follows typically bullying remarks by European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair's legacy-man in Brussels.(2) Mandelson is alleged to have threatened, in a private meeting, to exclude from EU trade negotiations with the CAN group, any country insisting on alternatives to a free trade agreement. This comes at the same time as the US government has announced the reactivation of the US navy's fourth fleet - a massive escalation of the military threat against the ALBA countries in general and Venezuela in particular.

So Western Bloc countries are exerting pressure on all fronts against regional efforts to build autonomous alternatives to corporate globalization. In Nicaragua this week, the interim Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Manuel Coronel Katz felt it necessary to urge foreign diplomats in the country not to intervene in the country's internal affairs.(3) To which the Italian ambassador is reported to have responded, "Nicaragua needs the help of donor countries", as much as to say, "we'll make them an offer they cannot refuse" - no change to Western Bloc soup du jour gangsterism there.

To that background, one has to add Colombian narco-terror President Alvaro Uribe's fierce efforts to internationalize his country's civil war. Uribe's government followed up their March 1st attack in Ecuadoran territory, which killed FARC peace negotiator Raul Reyes and others, with concerted efforts to implicate Ecuador and Venezuela as supposed FARC accomplices. Such accusations have been dismissed even by corporate globalization fellow travellers like José Miguel Insulza Secretary General of the Organization of American States.

But those accusations are readily echoed in Western Bloc corporate media and avidly exploited by the US government as part of its regional destabilization strategy. The latest episode involved a clumsily staged operation to frame an alleged Venezuelan national guard member on the Colombian border in an attempt to "prove" the Venezuelan authorities supply the FARC. Such efforts would be farcical if their consequences were not to provide copy to corporate media propaganda sheets like the New York Times, whose columnist Simon "Judith Miller" Romero, has been acutely criticised by Stephen Lendman.(4)

One should also take into account the recession affecting the United States and Europe which is likely to worsen sharply later this year and well into 2009. As the drive towards corporate globalization stalls, the Western Bloc governments that hoped it would sustain their global economic dominance will be less reluctant to use military force - hence the menaces and military intimidation towards Iran and Venezuela. That is the broad context in which President Chavez recently declared, more forcefully than ever before, that it was time for the FARC to release all prisoners unconditionally and that their guerrilla campaign was no longer a valid strategy.(5)

It may be worth noting that President Chavez did not withdraw his earlier calls for the FARC to be recognized internationally as a belligerent force in Colombia's civil war, now over 40 years old. The FARC's response to the Venezuelan President's appeal (6) repeated the offer they have made for years of a prisoner exchange, although the statement did not rule out the unilateral release of Ingrid Betancourt and other civilians held by the FARC. Among the prisoners they hope will be part of any such exchange are Ricardo Palmera ("Simón Trinidad") and Anayibe Rojas ("Sonia").

Both Ricardo Palmera and Anayibe Rojas were extradited from Colombia to the US on what observers like the lawyer Paul Wolf (7) regard as trumped up charges of narcotics dealing. Rojas was convicted on the evidence of Colombian government officials, paid informers and alleged FARC deserters. The case against Palmera had to be dropped.

Little has been written about the collapse of the case against Ricardo Palmera, presumably because it is extremely inconvenient for all those people who parrot the accusation that the FARC finance their guerrilla campaign by narcotics dealing. Here was an important FARC leader extradited on narcotics charges and the case against him on those charges had to be withdrawn. One might have thought that was worth looking at.

When one does try and find evidence that the FARC finance their guerrilla campaign with profits from the drugs trade one finds that Anayibe Rojas seems to be the only FARC member ever convicted of narcotics offences in the US. Her conviction - for conspiracy not for any actual transaction - was based on the evidence of the FARC's political and military enemies. When Rojas was pressed by US officials in Colombia to accuse her FARC comrades of narcotics dealing she refused to do so. So in over 40 years, only one FARC member has ever been convicted - and then only on a charge of conspiracy to import 5kg or more of cocaine - in a narcotics case in the US.

What, then, is the origin of the routine assertions that the FARC finance their guerrilla campaign with narcotics dealing? The main sources of the accusations seem to be the US military's Southern Command, the Drugs Enforcement Agency and the Presidential Office for the National Control of Drug Policy - zero out of ten for political independence. If one tries to find the origins of that accusation it gets harder and harder not to conclude that it is yet another convenient USColombia to the US. government promoted distortion of the reality of narcotics dealing from

That reality became very clear on May 14th this year when the Colombian government agreed to extradite 14 leading right wing paramilitary commanders to the US on narcotics charges.(8) One of them, Salvatore Mancuso, had been wanted by the US authorities for nearly ten years on charges of importing 17 tons of cocaine into the US. The obvious reason for their sudden extradition is that they were key witnesses involved in trials in Colombia linking Alvaro Uribe and almost 60 indicted politicians, mostly Uribe supporters, many of them in prison, to mass murder and narcotics dealing. Their removal to the US was mighty convenient for the Uribe regime.

That fact tends not to figure readily in the blithering propaganda fog justifying the US "war on drugs" industry and the multitude of organizations and individuals that thrive on its funding. Propaganda outlets like the New York Times or the UK Guardian are hardly going to report persistently or in any depth that their governments support, arm and train at a cost of billions of dollars each year a government up to its eyes in drugs and mass murder. The New York Times acted fiercely to discredit Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" revelations of US official complicity in the drugs business. So it should come as no surprise when accusations against the FARC of sustaining their guerrilla campaign by exporting cocaine to the US fail to hold up against the facts.:

Item: One solitary convicted FARC member fitted up by paid informers for conspiracy.

Item: One failed narcotics case against Ricardo Palmera. Charges dropped.

Despite over US$5bn in US military aid in the last six years , the FARC continue to defy Colombia's armed forces totalling over 400,000 soldiers and armed police. By not winning, in effect President Uribe has lost the war against the FARC. So it suits him and his European and United States backers to use his rotten paramilitary and narcotics based regime - completely isolated within the region - to internationalize his failed internal war and attack regional integration processes that threaten to hinder or even stop corporate globalization in Latin America.

Underpinning all the Western Bloc propaganda justifying their governments unjustifiable support for the Uribe regime in Colombia is the determination to continue the war. The FARC have repeatedly offered to negotiate both the immediate issue of the prisoner exchange and the wider issue of the civil war itself. Even when the two prisoner exchanges took place earlier this year, Uribe's forces continued bombing areas where they knew the released hostages were en route to freedom. The murder by bombing of Raul Reyes in Ecuador killed the FARC's leading negotiator for the prisoner exchange.

Neither the Uribe regime nor the Bush regime want peace in Colombia. Just as in Palestine, on Colombia too the US and its allies use double-speak. That is why, whether in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Somalia or Colombia all the freedom and democracy rhetoric ends in murder and oppression. This procedure is global Western Bloc government policy. It consistently accompanies their programme of corporate globalization. Any resistance to this hypocrisy and its sadistic practice is branded as terrorism.

Andy Worthington points out (9) "In a further attempt to stifle dissent, the Military Commissions Act defined an “enemy combatant” as someone who has either engaged in or supported hostilities against the US..." That twisted logic, defying well-established international law, was rejected and challenged by the FSLN government in Nicaragua when it granted political asylum to three survivors of the murderous Colombian incursion into Ecuador on March 1st. The Mexican Lucía Morett, and the Colombians, Doris Torres Bohórquez and Martha Pérez Gutiérrez, currently remain under the protection of the Nicaraguan authorities. (10)

The FSLN government's support for the survivors of Colombia's illegal attack in Ecuador is just one more example of why it is a target, along with the governments of Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez and to a lesser degree perhaps that of Rafael Correa of the Western Bloc military, economic and diplomatic offensive. Currently, the right wing and centre right parties are cranking up accusations that the FSLN government is moving towards dictatorship. It is the same script used in Haiti, Bolivia and Venezuela. Managua's Radio Ya station reports (11) shock groups have been trained in the US and are now at work preparing destabilization activities around the country.

Western Bloc countries are deploying their military, diplomatic and economic power to undermine the solidarity based ALBA integration initiative and to target directly member countries like Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The recent fabricated hysteria over vague messages in mysterious laptops allegedly captured during Colombia's criminal foray into Ecuador was part of that. The collapse of the trial against Ricardo Palmera set back attempts to morph Venezuela's mediation role in the prisoner negotiations with the FARC into Venezuelan complicity in cocaine imports to the US.

No wonder, in such a context, that Rafael Correa and his government colleagues have decided to hedge their bets. At the same time as trying to coax Venezuela back into the Community of Andean Nations they are negotiating bilateral deals with the government of President Chavez. Nor is it much of a surprise that President Chavez himself, as James Petras has noted, has decided to echo the Cuban official line on the FARC.

The FARC too have survived worse difficulties than they face currently. In terms of regional diplomacy, progressive governments like Ecuador and Venezuela and its ALBA allies seem to be hunkering down. They are preparing for whatever economic or military intimidation the crisis-ridden Western Bloc imperialist countries may have in store before the plutocrats change guard in Washington.

*************

Toni writes for tortillaconsal.com

Notes
1. "Ecuador dice que no se adherirá al Alba", Aporrea / Agencias 13/06/08 - http://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n115475.html
2. "Denuncian amenazas de Peter Mandelsoncontra Bolivia y Ecuador", Bilaterals.org, May 21st 2008 - http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=12190
and
"Europa impone un TLC a los países andinos y amenaza con marginar a Bolivia" Bolpress, May 15th 2008 - http://www.bolpress.com/art.php?Cod=2008051510
3. "Embajadores ignoran advertencia oficial y preparan documento sobre política interna", Radio La Primerisima, June 13th 2008 - http://www.radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/general/31440
and
"Nicaragua pide respeto a su soberanía", Multinoticias, June 13th 2008 -
http://www.multinoticias.tv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=949&Itemid=18
4. "The New York Times v. Hugo Chavez ", Stephen Lendman, Countercurrents.org, April 1st, 2008 - http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman010408.htm
5. "Chavez: "La guerrilla pasó a la historia" BBC Mundo.com, June 9th 2008 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_7443000/7443091.stm
and
"Chávez pide a las FARC la liberación unilateral de los rehenes", Publico.es, June 9th 2008 - http://www.publico.es/124270/chavez/pide/lider/farc/liberacion/unilateral/rehenes
6. "FARC insiste en canje secuestrados por rebeldes presos en respuesta a Chávez", Unionradio.net, June 13th 2008 - http://www.unionradio.com.ve/Noticias/Noticia.aspx?noticiaid=244543
and
"Sonia ejemplo de dignidad revolucionaria" - http://www.conbolivar.org/antigua/conbol/preso/sonia.htm
and
"El montaje judicial contra Simón Trinidad y Sonia en Estados Unidos", Paul Wolf, Partido Comunista de Colombia - http://www.pacocol.org/es/Inicio/Archivo_de_noticias/Marzo07/10.htm
7. "FARC not a terrorist group", Paul Wolf, Colombia Journal, January 12th - http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia270.htm
8. "Colombia extraditó a 14 paramilitares pese a estar acusados de crímenes de lesa humanidad", Gara, Rebelion, May 14th 2008 - http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=67385
9. "The Supreme Court's Gitmo decision" Andy Worthington, Counterpunch, June 13th - http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington06132008.html
10. "Procurador Estrada explica a diputados asilo político legal a las mujeres FARC" Radio La Primerisima, June 4th 2008 - http://www.radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/general/30865
11. "Comienzan a funcionar grupos de choque facistas en el país" Nuevo Radio Ya, Juen 14th 2008 - http://nuevaya.com.ni/index.php/2008061416178/Noticias-de-Portada/Comienzan-a-funcionar-grupos-de-choque-facistas-en-el-pais.html

Correa - My Hands are Clean and Bloodless, Something Uribe Can’t Say

Further on that Correa interview - the wombats have decided to repost it here in full, as it deserves as broad as audience as possible:

*******************************************

Via Machetera

"My Hands are Clean and Bloodless, Something Uribe Can’t Say" - Interview with Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador

Gorka Castillo - Público
Translation: Machetera

In an interview with Público, the Ecuadoran head of state accuses the Colombian government of lying, and its president, Álvaro Uribe, of links with paramilitaries.

Ecuador’s president doesn’t mince words. Over an hour’s interview he analyzed the Latin American political situation and didn’t hide the wound opened by Colombia that will take some time to heal.

The British writer Richard Gott considers Colombia to be the main element in the region’s instability. Do you share his view?

This is nothing new, rather something that goes way back. Colombia is the only country that has paramilitaries, guerrillas, drug traffickers, extensive coca cultivation and extensive zones of the country uncontrolled by the state. Paramilitarism and narco-politics doesn’t exist in Ecuador. Nor do we cultivate coca. Those are exclusively Colombian terms. I say this regretfully because [the Colombians] are our brothers, but Colombia today is the focus of the greatest instability that exists in Latin America and this hurts all of us.

Do you wish to say that the Colombian government’s image in Latin America is not a good one?

Uribe’s government is completely discredited. We’ve already pointed out his lies; now no-one believes him.

In Europe it’s not seen that way.

It’s true that in the European Union as much as the United States, the backing of his lies by some powerful media has harmed us and for that reason, very soon, I will undertake a tour of Europe to let people know about Ecuador and show that we are a decent government and a peaceful land. What’s problematic is on the other side of the border. We’re victims of the Colombian conflict. We’re not perpetrators nor are we accomplices.

You give the impression that a media war has been launched.

It’s not that I’m giving that impression, it’s that it’s a fact. We know with whom we are dealing; with a militaristic country, with a president who has an imperfect past, with enormous support from foreign intelligence agencies and with an impressive propaganda machine. We have faith that the truth and justice will prevail. We’ve already achieved that in Latin America, where Colombia has been soundly defeated politically, diplomatically and informationally.

What drives Colombia to accuse its neighboring countries of collaboration with the FARC?

Uribe’s militaristic policies began when he became president. First in contradicting the strategy of his predecessor, Andrés Pastrana, who came to embrace Manuel Marulanda. But in came Uribe with the hard line and he wanted us all to do the same. He’s like the little emperor who follows his boss’s dictates. It’s obvious that his political and economic power is based on the struggle against the FARC. Peace is not convenient for Uribe because fighting guerrillas gives the Colombian electorate a secure feeling. What is troubling is that this conflict is spilling over the borders.

But before the bombing on March 1, relations between the two countries was ruled by respect.

Uribe has always shown a lack of respect toward Ecuador. So much so that our territory continues to be fumigated with glyphosate and to the point of frequently violating our airspace with their planes. Anyway, as to the March 1 bombing, there’s a question that still remains unanswered.

What?

They had Raúl Reyes’ group under their control when they could still be found on Colombian soil. Why did they wait until they passed over to Ecuador to kill them?

Why?

Was it by any chance done in order to involve Ecuador in a conflict that is not theirs? Was it not a matter of intimidation? Could it have been to force us to participate in Plan Colombia? What Uribe didn’t count on was our response, nor the condemnation he received from the countries in the OAS. The plan failed because we didn’t fall for it.

During the meeting of the Rio Group in Santo Domingo, you showed your hands to Uribe and told him to take a good look at them because they are clean and without blood. What were you referring to?

Uribe has tried to involve us, not only my government, but also the Armed Forces, as supporters of the FARC. Later he alleged that my presidential campaign had been financed by the guerrillas. It’s disgraceful. Where does this gentleman get off, after having violating every international law, accusing us of support for guerrilla groups whose actions we’ve said a thousand times we reject; it’s insulting. That’s why I told him to look at my hands. Just to highlight the contradiction with Uribe’s position, which has been so scandalously related to drug trafficking. His warmongering policy is not going to end the conflict, instead it will exacerbate it and he’s going to leave thousands dead as a result. My hands are clean and bloodless. That’s something Uribe cannot say.

However they continue to claim that you were aware of the FARC’s activities in your territory. They say that you were warned as many as 16 times of guerrilla bases in your territory, and were ignored. Is it true?

This is an unbelievable infamy. All my orders are on record. It’s all so coarse and ridiculous that we’ve decided it’s not worth answering. It’s just that we don’t know why he does it. Just when relations improve with him, something strange happens and you get stabbed in the back. Something in his head’s not working right.

How is it possible that this climate of tension has been reached if at the end of the Rio Group meeting, you managed to shake hands?

That’s Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Something’s wrong. His behavior is terribly psychotic.

Is it true that Reyes had contacted the French in order to negotiate the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt, when he was bombed?

Uribe doesn’t want peace, nor does he want hostages released, because Betancourt is a potential presidential candidate. It’s true that we’d known that contact would be made in a neutral third country in order to liberate them later on Ecuadoran soil. President Chávez also asked me if we could receive hostages in our territory because a transfer over the Colombian-Venezuelan border had become very dangerous. We were in the middle of that process. Those movements toward liberation of the hostages that the guerrillas entrusted to Reyes were precisely the reason Reyes was destroyed.

Ecuador has just denounced Colombia before the Hague Tribunal for illegal spraying on its territory.

The verdict will still take many years but we hope that a stiff sentence will be handed down to force Bogotá to suspend the aerial glyphosate spraying they’ve been doing since 2006. These fumigations have caused Ecuadoran farmers on the border to leave their homes, lose their crops, their income, and have caused serious illnesses, even death. However, do you know what the Colombian government’s reaction has been up until today? It’s to say that our demand that the spraying cease coincides with the FARC’s pleas. It’s shameful.

The crisis has revealed huge cracks in the Ecuadoran intelligence system that have caused military leadership to be relieved of its duties. What reforms should it undertake?

Something serious is going on with our intelligence services. We still don’t have all the firm data but we can say that we have been infiltrated by the CIA and this agency works for Colombia.

There are some who criticize you for being naive in having waited so long to change the military leadership, with its loyalties to the prior regime.

They’re probably right. And also for having trusted Bogotá. You might say that we underestimated the threat of external attack once things had been resolved with Perú and we had good relations with Colombia. But we underestimated the fact that Uribe was there.

THE BORDER

Is it true that Ecuador draws its line with the FARC and not with Colombia?

We have a jungle border with 13 posts. Colombia only has two, when the guerrilla conflict is theirs. Why? Because it hopes that we will put them to death. Despite this, we have 11,000 men deployed which costs the state coffers around $100 million annually. Last year 13 soldiers died in a war that is not ours and on top of that we have to swallow the insolence of Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Bogotá has around 170,000 square kilometers where its army cannot go. Against this situation, I repeat that we don’t limit ourselves with Colombia, we limit ourselves with the FARC.

SPAIN

What has been the response of the Socialist government to the political crisis?

It’s been a little ambiguous. I am very appreciative of the Socialist government and of President Zapatero, but his statement was extremely vague, trying to please both sides when we were the ones attacked. The explanation that we were given was that he was in the final stretch of his electoral campaign. We understand that but we expect something more of the Spanish government. God willing, the hundred odd transnational businesses operating in Colombia are not being pressured, because in this kind of affair the principles and convictions that we share with President Zapatero are more important. We agree that international law should always prevail.

HOSTAGES

Are you willing to be a mediator with the FARC to achieve a humanitarian exchange?

I’ve said this a thousand times to President Álvaro Uribe: the Colombian people can count on Ecuador to resolve this civil war that’s been bleeding it dry for so many decades. That’s what we were trying to do before the attack. However, they don’t want to resolve it. The campaign against Ecuador from Bogotá shows that. We don’t reject the theory that they want to destabilize us for not following Washington’s policies. Neither do we rule out that it may be a strategy to put a puppet government in Quito that would accept Plan Colombia and permit the Manta airbase to continue operating beyond 2009, when the contract expires.

INVESTMENTS

Are you thinking of eliminating the concessions for resource extraction by large companies?

The new Constitution that is now being debated in the Constituent Assembly is part of a new legal framework for this issue. We will change the law made by those indescribable bureaucrats at the World Bank, that was such a disaster. It managed to grant more than 4,000 concessions, of which 70% never even managed to start any operation whatsoever. The contracts will be renegotiated. A very short time ago we met with Repsol. The interest is mutual. As long as the workers and the environment are respected and the state is paid the taxes it is owed, there will not be problems and the projects will be profitable. The oil belongs to the state, and we want the contracts to be signed for services rendered.

IMMIGRATION

What measures are being directed toward immigrants so that they do not feel so uprooted?

On reaching the presidency, our government created an immigration ministry. We are in the process of strengthening our embassies and consulates, especially in Spain, because we believe that Ecuadoran migration is already the country’s fifth region. We have just adopted a provision of $9 million for Plan Return (a program of tax exemption so that those who return to the country may do so with their goods and housing subsidies). We are also creating a Migrant’s Bank. At the political level I will say that there are six immigrant representatives in the Constituent Assembly for the first time in its history.

Ecuador's Correa according to BoRev

The wombats have nicked this post mercilessly from the website of the sharpest, shirtiest and (sometimes) silliest analysis of Latin America and its currently successful attempt to shove US foreign policy into a running blender - BoRev.net. We don't apologise for the fact that we nicked it either, as we think it should be read. If you don't like it, go and read the original, which has better pictures. Actually, go and read it anyway...

**********************************************************************************

Keeping Up With Hunky McHotsalot
Happy Earth Day everybody! Can you name the country that manages to pack Pacific coastline, the Andes, the Amazon and “the Galapagos” into just over 100,000 square miles, and whose president happens to have two perfect Earth-like globes that come together to form his ass? Of course we are talking about Ecuador, and while we could talk about Rafael Correa any day of the year, we will especially talk about him on Earth Day for some reason! He’s been busy:

First! Correa has been promising since his campaign to boot the Americans from Ecuador when Manta airbase lease expires next year. Manta was the last U.S. base in South America (excluding “the nation of Colombia” of course) and U.S. Southern Command is cutely pretending to “respect Ecuador's decision” until his plane goes down mysteriously over Panama or something.

Next! Raf fires his Defense Minister when it turns out that his own intelligence services have been spying on the Ecuadorian Congress—perhaps at the behest of the C.I.A.?. The replacement is, awesomely, “a journalist and poet” tasked with “mak[ing]the relationship between the military and civil society more transparent.” Sounds great!

Then! The New York Times exposes the extent of the infiltration of Ecuadorian intelligence agencies, who had been engaging in domestic spying and reporting their findings, not to their own chain of command, but to “Colombian forces and their American military advisers.”

And Finally! Rafael gives the awesome-ist interview of his career to the Spanish newspaper Publico. The gloves are now, officially, finally, forever, off. He calls Uribe a liar, the head of a “completely discredited” government, “the little emperor who follows his boss’s dictates,” and “terribly psychotic,” and then he really lays into him. Seriously, don’t miss it. Spanish speakers can watch the video. For the rest of you, Machetera’s got the full English language transcript.

US/Colombia hands off Venezuela and Ecuador!

www.venezuelasolidarity.org

Act now to stop war in Latin America

What only a few days ago seemed like a remote prospect has suddenly become a real possibility. The Colombian military’s brutal massacre of 21 (at last count) guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples Army (FARC-EP), including Raul Reyes, the FARC’s chief negotiator and spokesperson, in Ecuador on March 1 marks a dramatic leap in the United States’ plan to potentially trigger off an armed confrontation between Colombia and Venezuela.

These events should be of major concern for all supporters of the Venezuelan revolution, and anti-war and peace activists the world over.

On March 1, in violation of all international treaties regarding defence of national sovereignty, the Colombian government of President Alvaro Uribe bombed Ecuadorian territory to assassinate of Reyes and the other FARC guerrillas. The governments of Ecuador and Venezuela responded by mobilising troops to their respective borders with Colombia, stating their willingness to defend their national sovereignty at all costs. Both countries broke diplomatic ties with the Colombian regime and announced that they would seek an international condemnation of its action.

The Colombian government has attempted to justify its actions as part of the fight against “terrorism”. But this is just the latest in a string of lies the Colombian government made in order to keep face. Its first lie was claiming that it never violated Ecuadorian sovereignty. Then the lie that its actions were a response to FARC attacks was exposed as images emerged of the murdered guerrillas in their pyjamas.

Following these unjustifiable actions and, subsequently, a weak “apology” to Ecuador, the Colombian government has tried to claim the existence of documents, obtained from three laptops that “miraculously” survived the bombing, that link Ecuador and Venezuela to the “terrorism” of the FARC. Both Ecuador and Venezuela have denounced the claims as “absolute lies.”

Judging by the quality of the claims made in these documents, (in which the FARC seem to have discussed highly sensitive information without using any form of code), it appears that what were found were the same laptops that provided the “information” about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq.

All this is a smokescreen for the real aim - part of a plan drawn up in Washington and being enacted by its puppets in Colombia. The Colombian government has revealed that it had the coordinates of Reyes’ whereabouts for several weeks, including while he was in Colombian territory, yet it chose to act while he was in Ecuador. Moreover, the bombing was carried out only days after Venezuela, with Ecuador’s support, led a successful international mission to receive the unilateral handover of four FARC prisoners, the success of which gave hope to many that peaceful solution to the conflict in Colombia was possible.

Despite the brutal attack on them, the FARC guerrillas have declared their willingness to continue with the process of releasing prisoners as part of trying to reach a political solution.

The longer term aim of the Colombian government’s most recent attack is to establish a precedent for violating the sovereignty of other countries so it can carry out military actions outside its borders as part of its supposed war on “terrorism”. In other words, it wants to establish itself as the Israel of Latin America, with support from Washington to carry out further such actions.

More immediately, the Colombian regime, which receives more US military funding than any other country in the region, is attempting to end the humanitarian accord being promoted by the FARC and to provoke a conflict with Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, has played a central role in efforts to achieve peace in Colombia. Colombia has suffered from six decades of brutal state-sponsored terrorism, including from infamous right-wing death squads linked to the military. Hundreds of trade unionists and other activists are assassinated in Colombia each year. A humanitarian accord would force Colombia’s elite to dismantle this terror apparatus.

Washington too fears a political solution to Colombia’s internal war which provides a pretext for the militarisation of the region through Plan Colombia and now Plan Patriot. Any moves towards peace put into question the role of the US, which has pushed a policy of violence and conflict that, after decades, has achieved worse than nothing.

Frightened by the powerful alternative provided by the pro-people, pro-peace policies of the revolutionary government of Venezuela – an alternative that is inspiring millions of people around the world and strengthening Latin American integration - the US and Colombian regimes are escalating their policy of war to try to derail Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. Alongside their military provocation, their lies about Venezuela being a “gateway for narco-trafficking” and involved in “aiding terrorism” are aimed at justifying any attack on Venezuela as a “necessary” part of the US’s so-called war on terror.

The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) joins with the overwhelming majority Latin American governments in condemning Colombia’s actions. We support the actions taken by Venezuela and Ecuador to defend their national sovereignty. We applaud their dignified stance in breaking relations with Colombia, and demand that the Australian government do the same.

Without peace and justice in Colombia, there can be no peace for revolutionary Venezuela. That is why the AVSN is actively supporting the March 6 international day of action called by the families of victims of state and paramilitary violence in Colombia, and urges all people who support a peaceful, political solution to the Colombian conflict and Venezuela’s right to self-determination to join us.

US, Colombia hands off Venezuela and Latin America!

A statement from the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

March 5, 2008

Communiqué from the Central Secretariat of the General Staff of the FARC-EP

The Wombats have just got hold of the FARC-EP's communiqué in response to the death of Raul Reyes. Amongst other things, it notes the identity of Reyes'successor, Joaquin Gomez (pictured, right, with Reyes in 1999).

For any readers interested in a deeper view of what the FARC-EP are about politically, rather than relying solely upon corporate media and its distorted drivel, there is a very recent interview with the FARC-EP's international spokesman Rodgrigo Granda, and an interview with Reyes himself, from the middle of last year.

Since our last post, both Venezuela and Ecuador have withdrawn their ambassadors, and expelled the Colombian ambassadors (Venezuela has expelled the entire embassy), and have sent troops to the border. Venezuela's president Chavez has said that if Uribe tries this kind of stunt in Venezuela it will be war. Correa too, has threatened to pursue this to the "ultimate consequences" and have issued a statement of protest.

Both Correa and Chavez have called Uribe - who has longstanding links with the drug-trafficking paramilitaries - a liar and a mafioso, and Chavez compared the role of Colombia in the region to that of Israel, in the Midle East (an apt comparison, in far too many ways to take up here, although Vietnam is another, very pertinent, option).

In response, the Colombian government, through the Chief of Police (whose brother is apparently a convicted drug trafficker) has claimed to have found 3 laptops with the guerrillas, and has claimed to have found evidence of Venezuela paying the FARC-EP US$300 million, and accused Ecuador's Interior Minister, Gustavo Larrea, of having met with Reyes. Never mind that the money (if it existed) may have been used to free the recently released hostages, and that Larrea has admitted to having met with Reyes, in a third country to negotiate hostage releases. As has the French government, of course, but their not being taken to the Hague...

Probably sensing that these claims would soon be seen as specious, Colombia has now claimed that Venezuela was helping the FARC-EP get 50kg of uranium (an accusation which is a sure sign of political desperation, and outrageous dihonesty, on Colombia's part), and now wants to take Venezuela to the Hague on charges of "Genocide".

The rich hypocrisy of Uribe, who is the narco-presidential son of a wanted drug trafficker; grew up with the children of drug king-pin Fabio Ochoa; was a former good mate of drug baron Pablo Escobar; and was an architect of the blood-soaked paramilitary group the Convivirs (when he was Governor of Antioquia state) trying to take Chavez - of all people - to the Hague on such charges really underscores the desperation of the Colombian oligarchy and their US puppet-masters. There is, however, the danger that some of these lies could rub off into popular consciousness, so the left, as a whole, needs to be equipped with the facts of the matter, and to join in the international protests on March 6 for peace and justice in Colombia.

The FARC-EP communiqué follows below:
*********************************************************

Communiqué from the Central Secretariat of the General Staff of the FARC-EP

March 4, 2008

Communiqué

1. We informed the Colombian people and international opinion, that Comandante Raul Reyes, has been killed. He was a comprehensive and exemplary revolutionary, who gave his entire life to the cause of the exploited, for national liberation and for the Great Fatherland that Bolivar dreamed of. We pay our respects to him and to the other 15 guerrillas killed at his side.

2. The Comandante fell fulfilling the mission of acheiving, through President Chavez, an interview with president Sarkozy, in order to progress in finding solutions to the situation of Ingrid Betancur and the goal of humanitarian exchange.

3. The treachery of the attack, the viciousness and cynicism of the liar Alvaro Uribe in distorting the circumstances of the death of Comandante Raul, not only dangerously intensifies the relations of this government with its sister republics, but is a grave blow to the chances of Humanitarian Exchange and annuls the political solution to the conflict with this paramilitarised and pro-Yankee regime.

4. To Presidents Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Sarkozy, Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega, Cristina Fernandez, Evo Morales and all Governments who are friends of peace, to the families of the prisoners, and to the overwhelming majority that supported the Humanitarian Exchange, we encourage you to continue fighting for the clearing of Florida and Pradera.

5. The cause of peace based on social justice, for which the commander Raul Reyes gave his life, still waves from atop the mountains of Colombia, from the Bolivarian Platform, the Strategic Plan for the FARC, and the unfailing determination of the guerrillas and people to fight throughout the country. Raul will always be remembered with deep affection, especially for contributing his revolutionary steadfastness, his perseverance, his persistence and effectiveness to publicise to the international community the reality of the FARC as a Revolutionary Army, and his fortitude to energise the strategy of Bolivarian Continental unity .

6. We report that Comandante Joaquin Gomez as of this date becomes a full member of the Secretariat of the Central General Staff.

Eternal Honour and Glory to Comandante Raul Reyes.

For the New Colombia, the Patria Grande and Socialism: Not one step backwards!


Secretariat of the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP

Mountains of Colombia, March 2, 2008.

FARC leader Raul Reyes assassinated by Colombia in Ecuador

The Wombats have also just come across this piece of worrying breaking news. It's a problem, not only because of what was done, but the way it was done. Venezuela's president Chavez, who has already suffered incursions by Colombian forces during his term in office, has threatened that he will regard any such move against Venezuela by the neighbouring country at this point as an act of war.

What's worse is that, as part of the moves brokered by Chavez for the FARC-EP to release some of their hostages/ POWs, Raul Reyes has been the chief negotiator on the FARC-EP side. The FARC -EP has now unilaterally released 6 hostages, as gestures of good will and its willingness to negotiate. The same good will cannot be ascribed to the Colombian state, and president Uribe.

Like so many times before, the Colombian state is speaking out its arse about peace, while it goes on murdering trade union leaders, farmers, workers, peasants, students, and so on, and propping up the right-wing drug-funded paramilitaries. Similarly to Chavez, Ecuador's president Rafael Correa has lodged an official complaint with Colombia for their incursion into Ecuadorian territory. His approach is not too different to Chavez's, as reported in the El Tiempo article, reproduced below via Ecuador-Rising. If perhaps less direct, it is more thorough in its rhetoric.

The FARC-EP response is still pending, as their website has been down for some time, for reasons we are unclear about.

Actions are being planned for March 6 in protest against the Colombian state for the breaches of human rights it commits daily against its own people. This adds one more crime to the list.

Raul Reyes presente!
Viva la Nueva Colombia!

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Ecuador recalls ambassador to Colombia for consultations after death of "Reyes" in the country

Via El Tiempo, 2 March, 2008

The move was announced by President Rafael Correa, who warned that he will risk "the ultimate consequences in order to clarify this outrageous act that is an attack on our territory".

He added that "The president (Alvaro Uribe) or was either misinformed, or he blatantly lied to the president of Ecuador (...). We are lodging a strong note of protest".

He also said: "If we can find no conclusive evidence or explanations showing that President Uribe was misled or that evidence is clear for all the world to see that he has once again lied to the Ecuadorian government and that he has no scruples regarding our territory ... I repeat: we will risk the ultimate consequences, but we will not allow even one more outrage.''

The Colombian authorities claimed that the camp where "Reyes" was was located 1.8 kilometres on the Ecuadorian side of the border.

For these reasons, Correa recalled his ambassador in Colombia, Francisco Suéscum Ottati .

"They were massacred as they slept"

Correa explained that according to the Ecuadorian army, they found, at the scene of battle (near the town of Angostura, 250 kilometres northeast of Quito and 130 kilometres from the border with Peru) that ''there was no sign of pursuit.''

The guerrillas were "bombed and massacred as they slept, using advanced technology (...) probably with the
collaboration of foreign powers'", said Correa.

He also said that a military patrol that went to the area found 15 of the guerrilla's corpses, and 2 wounded guerrillas in a makeshift camp ... in Ecuadorian territory (...) and that the corpses were wearing pyjamas''.

According to the Ecuadorian head of state, it was a "temporary camp of the Colombian guerrillas (...) Colombia clearly invaded Ecuadorian airspace (...) and then came to take the body of "Raul Reyes"' ".

The President described the incident as "a real blow to the civilised relationship that fraternal countries sharing a border should have".

"Bombing the most serious attack on the sovereignty of Ecuador this century"

"The bombing the most serious attack on the sovereignty of Ecuador this century" according to Ecuador's Security Minister, Gustavo Larrea.

According to Larrea, "there is a history of an armed incursion by one state (Colombia) against the other sovereign state (Ecuador) with no respect for any international procedure, just such as has happened this morning (Saturday)," he added.

Following the statements by Correa, the defense minister of Ecuador, Wellington Sandoval, added that the military forces of Ecuador are "on alert" on the border with Colombia and "ready to repel any external aggression."

He assured that the Ecuadorian military played no role in the attacks.

''This is an area of very thick jungle and of course our troops were not present there. It is impossible to have troops along the entire border,''he said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia said that tonight there would be a response by the minister of Foreign Relations, Fernando Araujo.

The Ecuadorian border was closed on "Reyes"

Highflying aircraft bombed their camp. His death is the biggest blow struck to the FARC in 44 years of armed conflict.

The most significant blow to the FARC had received throughout its history, the killing of "Raul Reyes" yesterday on the border with Ecuador, followed several events this week.

On Wednesday, police intelligence returned to "listening in" to some communications, which had reappeared after two months of silence.

That signal complemented valuable information obtained by the Dijín in another operation on Monday when another blow was struck against the FARC: the capture of "Martín Sombra", one of the 'historic guerrillas' at Saboyá (Boyacá).

In addition, this week the network responsible for the security of "Reyes" was thwarted in the border area. In Piñuña Black, jurisdiction of Puerto Leguizamo (Putumayo), several of them were arrested .

Among them was alias "Martha", the sister of Rubin Castaneda, the head of the Front.

That was the group responsible for ensuring, with payment, the tranquil movement of "Raul Reyes" around the border.

These captures were key in verifying reports on the presence of the guerrilla chief in several FARC camps that were distributed on both sides of the border and also forced him to move, because he had not received the money sent him every week by secretariat.

Data from human sources, alongside intelligence techniques, enabled tracing of the increasingly sporadic communications of "Reyes", and air power decided the fate of the first member of the FARC secretariat to die in a military action of the Colombian State.

In the words of an official source, data on the movements of '"Reyes" were so accurate that they were only waiting for "his nose to stick out" to start the operation. And that happened after midnight on Friday.

Yesterday, when he announced to the country that the troops were the bodies of "Reyes" and "Julián Conrado" (a very popular commander in the FARC because he was one of the guerrillas' singers) Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos confirmed information which has caused ongoing friction with Quito: that there are subversive camps in Ecuadorian territory.

According to minister Santos, the Government learned that "Reyes" had come to a camp of the 48th Front in the site of Grenada last night.

At 12:25 am yesterday, several Air Force planes left bases in the south of the country with a clearly defined goal.

The planes flew only at 2 thousand feet high. Cluster bombs were used on the targets defined by the intelligence.

At the same time, several battalions entered the area by helicopter, but were met with heavy fire coming from across the border. These bullets killed the professional soldier Carlos Hernandez Leon.

This second camp was 1,800 meters inside the Ecuadorian territory, in a place known as Santa Rosa. The aircraft fire was then directed there, but the minister said that the river Putumayo was not crossed. The aim? "Powerfully responding fire and neutralising the enemy."

It was, to quote a high source, a "surgical operation" with the participation of all security agencies.

A joint command of the Police and Navy crossed the border. Some stayed to maintain control of the site until they had contacted representatives of the Ecuadorian authorities, who were immediately informed of the facts.

What the troops found was reported immediately to Bogota, where every detail was described to the millimetre: they found the bodies of 17 guerrillas, including two of the most wanted: Édgar Luis Devia, the man who in the world of war was known as "Raul Reyes", and Guillermo Enrique Torres, "Julian Conrado", of the FARC.

According to a high source who participated in the successful operation, "Reyes" had a Rolex watch and the state of his body allowed its immediate identification.

The body's 1.55 metres in height and the scars on his forehead and left index finger match. He also had a tattoo. He wore a T-shirt with the face of Manuel Marulanda, as shown in the photos first revealed yesterday in the afternoon by eltiempo.com.

Intelligence sources ensured that a young guerrilla who had become his partner in recent months also died.

The death of "Conrado" is also very symbolic. He had been in the thematic committees during negotiations at Caguan and was now the ideologist of the 48th Front. He was the director of the Voice of the Resistance, the FARC's network of clandestine stations, and the Government of the EU had also placed a price on his head: $ 2.5 million.

$ 5 million was offered for "Reyes", and it was assessed yesterday whether that money would be handed over to sources in the border area, who allowed the authorities to strike the historic coup, which joins others such as bombings against "Acacio Negro" and "Martín Caballero".

25 arrest warrants have been issued, and several convictions were pending against "Raul Reyes". He was one of the masterminds of the strategy to kidnap politicians to pressure the so-called humanitarian exchange.

2 thousand feet was the height at which armed aircraft of the Air Force bombed the camp where the chief guerrilla "Raul Reyes" and his men were.

Evidence of the importance of Ecuador to the FARC

In fact, two of the harshest blows to the guerrillas in recent years have occurred south of the border.

On January 2, 2004, in an operation which was supported by the Ecuadorian authorities, Ricardo Ovidio Palmera Pineda, known as' Simon Trinidad ', was captured - one of the 22 members of the so-called general staff of the FARC.

His capture occurred in the touristy Amazonas Avenue in the Ecuadorian capital.

Like other guerrilla leaders, "Trinidad" had legal documents issued in that country. They were in the name of Cristo Rey Mariscal Peralta.

According to intelligence reports of the police and the Colombian Army, "Simon Trinidad" sought refuge there often, and was even receiving medical treatment.

But "Trinidad", catalogued as a big fish of the FARC, was not the only one who crossed the boundary line, about 600 kilometres long, often.

Intelligence agencies in Colombia have also discovered information to the effect that Ecuador is the meeting point between leaders of the guerrillas and their families.

"Rodrigo Granda" was supposed to be there when he was captured in Venezuela in 2004. The guerrilla, who was released by the government Uribe last year, depended directly on "Reyes" and moved easily between Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

Furthermore, we know that the other side of the border contacts are made for purchase of armament and kitchenware. Information to this effect was given this week by Luis Eladio Perez, the nariño leader released last Wednesday after more than six years of captivity.

He recounted how the rubber boots used by the FARC units operating in the south are made in Ecuador. "I slept in camps in that country," said Perez.

Drawing on a border marked by jungle and rivers, all illegal groups are believed to move through the area. The Farc have used it to traffick large quantities of drugs through the region for years.

The Armed Forces have also alleged that several operations against the FARC fronts, especially the 48th, have ended with the passage of the guerrillas into the neighbouring territory, where they have camps and guard coca crops.

For its part, the Ecuadorian authorities also complain about the presence of guerrillas in the area and the alleged lack of control by the Colombian authorities.

This has caused diplomatic friction between the leaders of the two countries.

Villagers have also complained of damage caused during the fighting.

However, in this latest blow, the authorities and governments seem to be coordinated. Moreover, it comes at a time of relatively calm in the relations between Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, and Alvaro Uribe Velez.

Even the international conflict, because of the fumigation of illicit crops by Colombia, affecting farmers in Ecuador, is virtually frozen.

Quito
With EFE and AP