Politics

I have wanted to post a blog for a few weeks now about some of the politics that are happening in Ecuador and its neighbors! Its really interesting to observe politics from another country...especially because the US is involved.

As I mentioned in the email where I said that Hugo Chavez was here...the President of Ecuador was recently inaugurated as the President of UNASUR...which is an attempt by the countires of South AMerica to form a union like the EU. Well...of course Chavez has to cause drama like always! My teachers...and afterwards a few newspaper articles...filled me in on what is happening...

first a side note: Chavez is nuts! He announced that he is the next Simon Bolivar a few years back...now when he makes public speeches, he welcomes Bolivar or makes comments to him all the time...Bolivar died in 1830.

So the drama here lately has to do with FARC, Colombia, the US, and Venezuela (only because Chavez is sticking his nose where it does not belong!) About ten years ago, the United States opened a military base in Manta, a city on coast of Ecuador to help control narcotrafficking. The US and Ecuador agreed on a ten year contract. Before opening the base, Manta was a fairly poor city without much going on. Today it is a modern, beautiful city popular with tourists. The base cleaned up the city, gave people jobs, and turned Manta into the most important port in the country. The drug trade, although still somewhat of a problem here, was greatly reduced.

Politics here are interested...not quite corrupt but lets say, easily manipulated. Kinda like in the US, if the President and Congress are of the same party, it is much easier for the President to pass laws and so on. Here, the President can create laws by writing them or signing them and passing them on to Congress. If Congress does not reject them in 30 days, they are automatically passed. This is what happened with the agreement allowing the US create the base in Manta. Well...a few years back....it was discovered that the US also had a few smaller bases, more or less, where they were storing weapons and supplies. These bases, I am not sure that that is what they should be called but I cant recall the name, were supposedly constructed as refugees for internally displaced people who were affected by natural disasters (like the last volcanoe eruptions, etc). Someone in Congress who was of a different political party (there are about 150 here) than the president realized that these bases or sites were not located close to any of the towns affected by disasters and started an investigation. Angered by what he found out, he joined with a few other Congressmen and called for the President to close the US base...saying it was not legitimately approved by the Congress. The President agreed to close the base and did not renew the contract...I think sometime in the past 6 months or so it closed.

When the base closed here, the Colombian governement invited the US to move its troops there. It did not invite the US to construct a base, which would be considered soverign US territory, rather, it gave permission to the US to access 6 existing Colombian bases.

Colombia and Ecuador already had tense relations before this. A large section of the border region between Ecuador and Colombia is jungle. It is well known that near the edge of the border, FARC has various camps. Since the border in this region is not well guarded, FARC set up a few camps in the jungle in Ecuador as well. The Colombian government discovered these camps and found out that the 3rd most important FARC leader was camped in one of them, and sent troops into Ecuador and bombed the camps from air....but without first asking permission of the Ecuadorian government. As you can imagine, the governemnt here was not happy.

This incident is the base of some rumos that some of you may have heard that the Ecuadorian President has ties to FARC. When he chastized Colombia for bombing FARC troops in his country, those who do not support him began rumos that he was a supporter of FARC. Hugo Chavez got involved because he is Hugo Chavez....he criticized Colombia for invading Ecuador and for allowing American imperialism to continue in South America by allowing US troops to access its bases.

A few weeks back, when Chavez was here to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of Ecuadors first declaration of independence, he used the opportunity to provoke Colombia some more...going as far to say that if Colombia wants a war, he will give it a war.

While Chavez is provoking war, a few other presidents want to invite Barack Obama to attend a meeting with UNASUR to discuss the situation...we will see howw that goes if it comes to pass! I will keep you updated!

Well I guess that is enough of a lesson for today! I hope you found it as interesting as I do and I hope I remembered and interpreted all of the details correctly! As for me, I am flying to Guayaquil (Ecuadors largest city located in the south of the country) this afternoon to attend an important Rotary Club event tomorrow. The President of Rotary International will be there and my counselor invited me to attend. Fortunately, there is also a student at my school who is from NYC but whose family lives in Guayaquil, so we are flying there together this afternoon...attending a really imporant soccer game (Emelec from Ecuador against a team from Venezuela) and spending the weekend with her family. I will take lots of pictures to share...hopefully I will get my internet working soon to post them! Until then...take care!