What does Ecuador’s President Correa know that Colombia’s President Uribe also knows?
President Correa’s persistence in terms of pursuing the validity of the data found on the laptops seized by Colombian forces during their March 1 raid on the FARC camp located just inside the Ecuadorian border, raises questions on the motivation for his stand. Is it that Correa feels that he has little to lose if the whole story comes out because the facts will vindicate him? If he felt that Ecuador would be in any way be compromised as a result of full disclosure, why would he drill away at the incident?
Both Colombia’s President Uribe and Venezuela’s President Chávez have exhibited conflicting attitudes over downgrading the exposure being given to the present confrontation between Bogotá and Caracas. At times, they throw gasoline at the fire, while at other times, they seemingly attempt to snuff out the flame. President Correa, however, has never relented on his insistence that Colombia not only make restitutions for the cross border incursion, but also apologize for Bogotá’s current media campaign and allegations against his country.
Relations between the two countries, already strained by the longtime issue of toxic herbicide spraying of Ecuadorian territory along the Colombian border, have been further exacerbated by the bitter mistrust between the Colombian and Ecuadorian leaders regarding the FARC files. Correa claims that the only contact that Ecuador has had with the FARC was of a humanitarian nature, and that guerrilla infiltration across the borders is impossible to totally control by either side. Uribe has countered that Ecuador was harboring terrorists, thus implying that Quito was explicitly protecting the FARC.
Therefore, Correa´s committed campaign against Colombia and his unwillingness to yield in his insistence in obtaining President Uribe’s public acknowledgement of Colombia’s culpability, which would exonerate Ecuador’s good name, raises a specific question. Why would Correa so relentlessly stick with the issue if he were not convinced that he possessed a strong hand in arguing that Ecuador had no compromising relationship with the FARC, that the laptop revealed no embarrassing information regarding that relationship (at least from Quito’s perspective), and that, at best, Colombia’s case against Ecuador is weak and deserves little sympathy either from the region or the international community. Or could it be that the FARC computer scandal has been largely contrived by Colombia to discredit any number of South American left-leaning administrations as part of a larger conservative campaign to isolate these governments and reinforce Washington’s assessment of the situation and the way in which it would like to have the script read?
June 5th, 2008
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June 5th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Mr. Correa knows his country is hemorrhaging cash and is experiencing inflationary pressure. His decision is purely financial and intended to stave off the impending economic crisis in Ecuador. IMHO, his decision has nothing to do with his relationship with the FARC.
Oil revenues are declining because Mr. Correa has scared away the foreign investment that is needed for exploration. Additionally, Mr. Correa has substantially increased spending with social programs. Compound the reduced oil revenues and increased inflationary pressure with Mr. Correa’s short-sighted policies that have served as an affront to the Ecuadorian business community; Mr. Correa refers to these various business factions as “mafias,” when these businesses have been operating legally for years and even decades. As Mr. Correa knows, the appropriate vehicle to address controlling these incorrectly labeled “mafias” is to change the antitrust laws. But alas this is an academic legalistic approach.
So Mr. Correa increases social spending and is able to get away with it because of increased oil revenues – but this is a short term fix. Subsequently, the oil revenues start to dry up because of improper management and poor deal making. Since there is less foreign investment because of his confrontational and extremely aggressive negotiating style, there is less of an incentive to make long-term investments in Ecuador.
Simply put, Ecuador desperately needs the economic trade with Columbia, regardless of Mr. Correa’s relationship with the FARC.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:58 am
The reason that Correa continues with his campaign against the anti-terrorism policies of the goverment of Colombia is that it allows him to re-manufacture himself as a nacionalist defending Ecuador fom “a ficticios external enemy.” With this “nationalistic” mantra Correa expects to get an electoral advantage, and get the people of Ecuador to approve the new new new new new re-new Ecuadorean/Chavezuelan constituton in July 29.
It seems that the political bias of the COHA research associates gets in the way of common sense.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:12 am
Cubillos is right. Correa knows that nationalist fervor is good for his polls. He knows that his referendum will be carried but also wants it to be seen by the foreign press as a legitimate effort. The way to do that is to increase his popularity by lionizing the Colombians again and again. At this point, many Ecuadorians in Quito believe that Colombia is responsible for most of their country’s woes - illegal immigration, crime, drug trafficking, attempts to destabilize Correa - etc. This is due to one part truth and two parts of media manipulation.
Thus, the actual contents of the computers are irrelevant to Correa. He already declared the hard drives were frauds. His pride would never allow him to back down. His belligerent stance denouncing the computers’ contents has no political downside and was entirely predictable.