April 13, 2007      Today we post a few pieces which at first blush appear disconnected. However the common thread is the sustained willingness of two Latin leaders, Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's Rafael Correa to maintain a program of deception and corruption for self enrichment remains.
 
Chavez is correctly analyzed by Rowan in the 4-10-07 El Universal here. Hugo Chavez is dishonest and dishonorable, to indirectly quote the exact words of a leading North American religious leader.

Rafael Correa, in his youthful and badly educated zestful adoration of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, has pledged that he has distanced himself from Hugo Chavez and has also promised to encourage anticorruption, counter money laundering activities with the U.S. Treasury Department...aka the U.S. government which he has also stated frequently that he hates and has stated his intentions to do all that he can to undermine honest U.S. activities. What we do not understand is why this U.S. official has been so badly misinformed. It seems almost intentional that none served him up a core analysis of Ecuador's non-laws and the capacity to enforce anything which of course today means only this: Rafael Correa is already ruling by presidential decree and has rendered what few laws exist in Ecuador as utterly meaningless. Correa's blatant disregard for anything but his Cuban paradise installation activities and financial machinations plans underway cannot be overlooked.

Relying on domestic and international legal counsel that chirpily lie to tell us all that Ecuador gets a free pass on any normative legal structure because they are "special" and thus deserve to be rewarded for their criminality, and therefor- as current policy goes- can steal billions from American companies. This dysfunction remains at the heart of this remarkable tom foolery, commandeered as it is by enabling groups from the Soros do-drugs groups and the We Love Castro activists currently on Ecuadorean governmental payrolls, which has made a mockery of any serious adult conversation. See El Comercio here. 
 
To be sure, Correa is a master manipulator of a certain sort which is today routinely employed across the Andean region. We all know them: lazy, unpleasant, badly mannered, arrogant, self-absorbed, badly educated addicts of misinformation and manipulation. However, U.S. governmental agents have an obligation to perform fact finding on these dishonest and dishonorable leaders in the Andes...a detail which these U.S. operatives seem to refuse to deliver so as to appear politically correct and unobtrusively inept. And it also appears that U.S. officials have effectively been made to look stupid.
 
Rafael Correa knows something that the U.S. government should know but pretends that it does not matter. When Correa states, as he does (see reports from from 4-12-07 El Comercio here) to uphold Ecuador's money laundering laws and thus appear to be a man of anticorruption commitment, Correa knows that Ecuador's
anti - money laundering laws are a joke. Ecuador's recent money laundering law basically is a huge joke.

Money launderers, also called narcoterrorists and FARC members as well as the huge influx of Middle Eastern money men, are permitted to wash their cash into U.S. dollars under the current law  which permits these criminals to voluntarily confess their crimes to a local bank teller and file a confession. Which of course carries no penalties and no enforcement and no spine. It is well known in Ecuador that all the banking leaders, NGOs and governmental-backed activists promoted this ridiculous effrontery, also called Ecuador's moneylaundering laws which are also called decriminalization of financial disclosure acts. The current show ponies of the so-called twelve money launderers are but political shows. The pre-existing criminal "Twin Towers" case in no way exhibits Correa's intentions to reform, disclose or act with any honor or integrity.
 
Current reports on Latin American counterterrorism activities from inside the U.S. government are woefully inadequate to the point of being incompetent. All reports blatantly ignore even core analysis of each nation's non-counterterrorism laws. Legal definition of terrorism as a prosecutable offense no longer exists de facto or de jure in most cases in Latin America, providing perfect impunity from any reporting. Because terrorism is neither defined legally nor de facto, neither reporting of these criminals nor their criminal acts are known and as such never prosecuted in any meaningful sense.

To ignore core due diligence and the utter void of any counterterrorism laws defies logic and exhibits naiveté and willful ignorance by U.S. and OAS reporting agencies. We can only surmise that this U.S. "Treasury" man was barred from any sight seeing trips outside Quito... where he would have seen scores of gaited communities...also called vacation villas-Palm Beach style- for the FARC. We also suspect that he was barred from any meaningful analysis of Ecuador's real time acts to apprehend FARC criminals and arrest the thousands of money laundering agents crawling across the Ecuadorean banking networks. Because such data does not exist because Ecuador does not stand against the FARC in any meaningful sense, believing as Correa and his entire government does that the FARC must be helped. We also seriously doubt that this "G man" was handed any real time facts in the rush to inform the U.S. government how much Ecuador deserves an ATPDA extension for its acts against the FARC even as the FARC itself posted a special thank you note to Rafael Correa this week for his support for the FARC.

And no doubt the actual statistics on the transshipment tonnage out of Ecuador of narcotics, illegally manufactured goods and pirated pharmaceuticals which cost U.S. businesses billions and billions, as well as human trafficking, were not actually discussed. Correa's Ecuador is fast becoming a narco zone for any who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
 
Chavez knows this. So too, it appears does Rafael Correa. Money laundering does not exist in Ecuador because Ecuador has failed to install any meaningful laws for definition, reporting or enforcement. Terrorism does not exist in Latin America because there is no core definition of same, no penalties and no enforcement. Terrorism has been wiped off their mat. A quick research of all Latin laws, freely available on the internet, reveals the commonality of Latin leftist leaders to play this game of hide and seek: hide their unwillingness to protect and defend their own nations from criminals and terrorists while pretending that these criminal elements are non existent.
 
This same ethic of deception is underway across numerous Latin financial bodies. Does anyone seriously believe that Chavez's Banco del Sur will hold itself to a higher standard than anything else Chavez does, such as his total propaganda machine called TeleSur? Or his non accountability in all that he does? Does anyone seriously doubt that Rafael Correa will not do what he has said he will do: raid Ecuador's central bank and flip the money to the holes in Chavez's self enrichment scheme pockets? Why, we have asked before, would anyone buy a used car- let alone a governmental leadership plan- from these dishonorable and dishonest men, let alone allow their very financial structures to be taken over by these liars? And why, we ponder, would anyone even foolishly claim that the universe must "wait and see" what additional criminality grows from these criminal acts under some mythical, fake so called citizen's plebiscite which it clearly is not?

There is more than enough probable cause and more than enough facts on file to make factual assessments as to the criminal fiscal acts of these criminals. To provide cover for their criminality, hiding behind two false monikers that these criminals actually "care for their poor" or are "democratically elected" is so obviously false as to be laughable. These criminals care nothing for "their poor" and certainly care nothing for "democracy" because both are simply convenient political tools to co opt the region's agendas. In fact, these masters of manipulation are criminals and their politburo- way off the books- are already destroying what could be beneficial governments of the people, which they clearly are not.
 
Rafael Correa this past week repeated publicly that he has distanced himself from Hugo Chavez as if he has suddenly found redemption from his own self professed union with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. We doubt that Hugo knows of this bill of divorce from Correa because....it is a bad joke. We do note that the hyperactive and utterly compromised media in Ecuador-itself shuttered by Correa's Presidential Decrees from fact based reporting- failed to perform its first line professional obligation and inquire as to even baseline informational sharing with Correa....such as "what does this mean that you are distancing from Chavez?" And that Correa's words that he is NOT Chavez has some meaning?
 
The media....and anyone with integrity... must ask of Correa:
 
1. Will you rip up your contracts and opaque agreements with Hugo Chavez?

2. Do you now denounce the work you are performing with Chavez to aid and abet the FARC?

3. Do you pledge to stop your fascist totalitarian power grab, a la Chavez, and abide by the constitution, cease manipulating the police and military security forces,  stop paying your golpistas, and permit the legal return of the legitimate duly elected Congresspersons to their seats in Congress?

4. Will you return the illegal campaign and support monies you and your group obtained from Chavez?

5. Will you finally disclose accurately your proposed budget figures?

6. Will you apologize to the U.S. Treasury for lying about your intentions to enable FARC money laundering and any Middle Eastern group inside Ecuador?

7. Will you return the funds made by your cronies off your bond market racketeering machinations and stop trying to create harm to any who even ask about this as is the case with the 57 ousted (by violence) members of Ecuador's Congress who dared to ask for de minimis transparency??

8. And finally, will you pay attention to the lessons from the Vatican regarding mankind's need for liberty? This is in no way a message from the Vatican to support your methodology to install a Cuban communism inside Ecuador. In fact, it is not nice to lie to the Pope in any message, especially at Easter time.
 
Unless and until these core questions are asked of Rafael Correa, we note that his public and political comments this week [also called misleading the public so as to quiet their fears that he is leading Ecuadoreans, like ignorant lemmings, off a cliff which is the case] about his non-Chavez person are as meaningless as his pledges to perform actual antimoneylaundering behaviors with his kangaroo congress of Chavistas and golpistas and his kangaroo courts of pro-FARC mules. To ignore the facts on the ground makes the U.S. government appear incompetent.
 
Rowan writes that...with Chavez there are always two versions of reality. Medically diagnosed or not as bi-polar, national leaders such as Chavez and Correa do not get a free pass card on integrity, honor and honesty. Medical problems or not...nothing justifies their ardent commitment to manipulation and deceit. If these so-called leaders cannot act with honor, integrity or some semblance of decency, it is time to remove them from decision making or public office instead of succumbing to the current process- sometimes called U.S.-Andean region foreign policy- of enabling and making excuses for these criminals in Ecuador and Venezuela even as all in their sphere becomes as diseased and dysfunctional as they are. Two versions of reality do not a healthy nation- or a healthy body- make. Two versions of reality never builds anything and certainly is not worthy of emmulation, adoration or repetition.
 
- Pedro Camargo for ECrisis