Friday, March 28, 2008

Ecuador and the FARC

Ecuador says that Franklin Aisalla, the Ecuadorian who was hanging out with Raúl Reyes, was in fact a member of the FARC and not just a poor locksmith who happened to be vacationing with guerrillas in the jungle. Ecuador’s own military intelligence carried out the investigation, so there is no conspiracy theory. Rafael Correa remains angry, saying that even though he was a member of the FARC, nothing justifies being killed by an attack from a foreign country.

Correa came out of the original crisis in a very strong position domestically. To what degree will the average Ecuadorian remain indignant given the revelation?

14 comments:

Tambopaxi 6:28 AM  

Greg,

Actually, Correa didn't come and say for a fact that Aislalla was FARC; he just said that even IF the guy was FARC that didn't justify GOC aggression, and etc...

Interestingly, Correa steadfastly refuses to call the FARC for what they are, terrorists. As well, while he's been adamant in front of the OAS that the GOC respect Ecuadorian sovereignty and stay out, he hasn't made the same explicit demands of the FARC with the OAS, much less with the FARC themselves.

Whether Correa has taken this tack because he sympathizes with the FARC or because he knows his military/security forces lack the resources to throw the FARC out (or combo of both factors) is not clear.

What is clear though (and it comes across again the El Comercio article you link), is a growing sense of frustration within the GOE that they're being unfairly portrayed by the media (mostly international) as providing shelter and perhaps more, to the the FARC, while the GOC is getting off easy on the airstrike, etc.

I believe that Ecuador will continue to be portrayed that way until such time as the GOE comes out unequivocally and says that no armed Colombians (or unarmed combatants, for that matter) of any political stripe will be allowed on Ecuadorian soil, period. Correa and his government will have to establish their bonafides as even-handed, truly neutral treatment of all parties to the Colombian conflict before they can expect to do better in the media wars.

Greg Weeks 8:36 AM  

We can split hairs, but the Defense Ministry says they were following the guy for five years because they believed he was part of the FARC, thus confirming what other papers were reporting. The Ecuadorian military is not saying "if."

Tambopaxi 10:21 PM  

Yeah, I saw that info too. You know, it's funny that the FAE says that they'd been following this guy for so long, and then they lose him as he goes into a FARC encampment in Ecuador. I don't know, the name Jacques Clouseau keeps coming to mind....

Bosque 11:20 PM  

No biggie ... Uribe calls them "guerrillas" too. They were guerrillas up until foreigners designated them otherwise.

Besides, if they run around calling the FARC members terrorists, they also have to call some of the elected officials (jailed in association with the AUC) terrorists too.

If everyone in a country is a terrorist then no one in the country is a terrorist.

Bosque 12:28 AM  

Correa is upset over the breach of Ecuadorian territory plus all the lies from Uribe. I can understand that.

Now suppose Vz, El Sal, or Guatemala decided to come bomb an area in Florida where Podilla is living since he is a known terrorist whom the US is failing to extradite?

Boli-Nica 2:28 AM  

Couple of possibilities:
One, this was released with approval from Ecuador's executive to defuse the crisis a bit.

Or was this was sectors within the Ecuadorian army deliberately leaking the information to undermine Correa's position.

An interesting revelation from the laptop was Correa
s minister offering to remove anti-FARC Ecuadorian military commanders from the border.

I wonder if that did not disturb certain members of the Ecuadorian high command.

Lets be clear that it is highly probable this item was true. Raul Reyes, as a member, had an absolute duty to be precise and specific when informing the rest of the directorate when it involved delicate negotiations with aa foreign government.

Boli-Nica 2:28 AM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tambopaxi 1:30 PM  

Bit of an update on this: It's come out that the military didn't tell Correa that they had known about Aisalla for some years. Even worse, someone in the military apparently leaked a copy of an internal FAE memo laying this all out to the local media without Correa's even knowing that the memo existed.

Correa's a pretty short tempered guy, and now, for the second time in a month, he's been blind-sided, first by the FAC in the Reyes attack, and now the Aisalla case. He's furious with the military and the media, and he's set his new anti-corruption czar out to investigate the media for releasing the Aisalla memo.

In his Saturday radio speech, Correa said that he's going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with the FAE high command today, Monday, and that also plans to deliver some sort of surprise, telling media/diplomatic blow (not further explained; it's to be a surprise, after all) to the GOC this same day. Stay tuned....

Greg Weeks 2:40 PM  

Looks like the surprise is suing Colombia at the ICJ for border fumigation.

Tambopaxi 4:59 PM  

Yeah, that's the surprise golpe he said he'd deliver against Colombia today. The only real surprise is why he didn't do this much earlier, since he'd threatened to do this some months ago.

Colombia's made some missteps during this whole affair, viz, mis-identification of FARC official for Aisalla, an Argentine for Ecuador's Gustavo Larrea, etc. Regarding the laptop info, though, I believe they're going to follow the drip, drip, water torture approach to relasing docs and other info from the computers over time, so as to keep the issue alive and irritating, to both Correa and Chavez, as witness yesterday's NYTimes article on FARC contributions to Correa's presidential campaign.

Justin Delacour 7:23 PM  

None of this matters, Greg. What matters is that Colombia bombed Ecuadorian territory in violation of international law. All the rest is Boz-style diversion.

boz 9:52 AM  

...Boz-style...

I have a style :)

Justin Delacour 6:35 PM  

Your style is just perfect for the Inter-American Monologue, Boz.

boz 7:57 PM  

My style is good for lots of things :)

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