June 16, 2007   The Editors of ECRISIS commend the chutzpah of the lobbying and media management team currently paid a lot of money by the Rafael Correa administration to hoodwink and deceive North American media and decision makers. Their labors, unrolled with rapid fire, have embroiled the Miami Herald, (see here)
and the previously dependable Hill newspaper (see here). Both news organs have run well-paid, carefully scripted propaganda and promotional pieces cleverly puffed up to aid and abet the Correa regime's half-baked ideas and half-told truths. Both articles warrant explanation and rebuttal. Both newspapers do not deserve the falsities perpetrated on their hapless editorial board and now needs must deal with the yellow journalism.
 
We say this because self proclaimed American-doing-textile-manufacturing in Quito, Jeff Sheedy and Bernardo Traversari of the Ecuadorean-American Chamber of Commerce have spent time and money backing up the false claims of the government of Ecuador before the U.S. Congress and the U.S. media, having lent their names and their organizational credibility to a cause which is neither fully honest nor interested whatsoever in fact based disclosure. That is: the Correa administration grasps the concept that without functional free trade with the Americas, Ecuador cannot compete globally on the current scale and its population will loose over 40% of GNP. Ecuador stands to loose over 40% of its jobs, translated to employment, because its own government refuses to play with a straight deck of cards, refuses to stem its own internal corruption and commitment to an increasingly blind and foolish death by degrees under the Hugo Chavez 'Bolivarian Plan' for authoritarian regime brinkmanship.
 
Sheedy and Traversari are a discredit to their colleagues in the private sector- whom they purport to represent but do not- as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their relative nations inasmuch as they have permitted their persons and their representation to be used flagrantly as window dressing for the government of Ecuador's carefully worded propaganda and misinformation efforts in Washington, D.C., which is clearly based on efforts to mislead, misrepresent and distance fact from fiction. We remind this gaggle of paid provacateurs that lying to the U.S. Congress, unlike Ecuador, remains a crime and no amount of sovereignity claims will help this. Of course Ecuador needs jobs based on free exports. Responsible governments work assiduously to maintain open trade relations which of course does not include theft and deception. Responsible allies do not think it is clever to stage bond pricing raids and call themselves patriots for assaults on U.S. investors. Responsible governments do not seize persons or corporate businesses with no due process and no rule of law. Correa's government has been urged to abandon  rule of law,  never strong in Ecuador, but is now fatally dead.
 
What Sheedy and Traversari, to further Minister Espinosa's carefully worded monologues of misinformation, did not tell the Congress of the United States is that because of President Correa's policies and practices, Ecuador has doomed itself to a failing zone. Correa's corrupt administration has publicly pronounced some of the globe's worst ideas as his own. Rafael Correa's propaganda team in Washington told scores of listeners bald lies which include their tall tale that Ecuador has faught to cut back naroctics production. Again: a half baked propaganda tale. Ecuador was never a drug producing nation. Ecuador's illicit narcotics drugs transshipments, far more lucrative than coca growing, has soared in recent years along with illegally manufactured pharmaceuticals and human/white slavery exports. No meaningful effort to stop this illicit drug running and human misery exportation by the Correa regime is noticeable. Meanwhile, anyone with eyes to see can readily note that Quito is crawling with FARC operatives and Venezuelan operatives, often calling themselves "vacationers" and "investors." We call them money launderers.
 
What Sheedy and Traversari failed to state is that the private sector in Ecuador, whom they should have representated but did not, is out of their minds in worry over the Correa doomsday plans for ruining Ecuador. Sheedy and Traversari are either paid liars or they are grossly negligent in their ignorance, perhaps willful, of the facts on the ground in Ecuador. No excuse justifies their role in supporting the destriuction of Ecuador's once vibrant private sector. To be sure, numerous folks can be found who share Correa's ruinous and foolish idealized romance with Fidel Castro's communism and cheer Correa's self proclaimed promise to craft Ecuador in to a Cuban paradise a la Fidel Castro with Hugo Chavez's minders at the control panel, called their ship of state. We remind however that Cuban quality of life is negligible in any sense outside the communist politboro.
 
What Traversari and Sheedy did perform in Washington, D.C. was to deliver a back drop to this tawdry tale and supposedly provide human support for the Bolivarian Axis regime change occurring right now in Ecuador. The Ecuadorean American Chamber of Commerce [AMCHAM] appears to be committed to aiding the Bolivarian Axis take over of Ecuador. There is precedence for this. During the past 8 years, the AMCHAM has been the toy of first Peter Romero and then the U.S. Embassy's Jim Sullivan [now retired] and his able commercial attache assistant, Nadia Ordonez who worked diligently to aid and abet the coming of Hugo Chavez through their co-opting of the Chambers of Commerce and unrelenting legislative interference with Ecuador's domestic affairs. Well, Chavez is here now in the person of his bag man Correa, and his worker bees are busily converting a once pro U.S. ally in to a cess pool of deception and fear.
 
 
The organizer of this circus show for the Correa team is himself skilled at representing and defending militant muslims who are charged with terrorist efforts to destroy the USA, Aristide of Haiti, and Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas as well as Hugo Chavez's propaganda efforts in Washington. The Correa circus maximus failed to inform the U.S. government that the Correa team has ordered legally elected Congresspersons out of their Congress at gunpoint, has installed fake justice, has enmeshed their military into direct controls by the administration, has seized illegally a major newspaper and threatens to seize television companies, and has repeatedly stated that the Correa team will never honor any World Bank arbitral court claims because they consider this "illigitimate", even though the Correa team's lead lobbyist Paul Reichler is also heading their World Bank arbitral team.
 
Citing so called data that the World Bank arbitral system is rigged against nations, Ms. Espinosa played to the crowd last week....the propaganda buying crowd that is. She had plenty of buyers for her discounted- that is, discredited, cheap showmanship. What she failed to state is that a CIADI arbitral system is in and of itself extraordinary and that governments facing these bi lateral arbitrations do lose often precisely because of the Correa team's plans to lie, steal and cheat. But Ms.Espinosa did not want to tell the U.S. Congress that Ecuador has stolen billions of dollars in valuable assets from an American company and has no interest in legally restoring law and order inside Ecuador. Why the Chambers of Commerce pretend that it is morally acceptable to take their own members' dues and support monies while selling their goals to the highest Chavez-backed bidder is beyond revulsion.
 
Sra. Espinosa as Minister of Foreign Affairs tells us that the government will spend even more monies rolling out an intensive ad campaign in Washington, D.C. with even more half baked tall tales...see LA HORA here. Thus far, no disclosure comes from the government of Ecuador which is legally bound to disclose to whom and how much they spend on their foreign influence buying, not just to Ecuadoreans who should be mortified, but by U.S. law. What is the oddest part of this tall tale is that the Correa group tells anyone who listens that the U.S. Congressional Democracts already believe their half truths, sight unseen and with no fact checking and no data presented. The Correa group seems most concerned about the Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Can this be because they do not welcome those who aided and abetted terrorists at Guantanamo, Aristide and the Central American communists called the Sandinistas, currently doing business with Iran's mullahs - following Chavez's instructions which Sra. Espinosa too has followed? Can it be that the Republicans are not already connected to what Washingtonians call the Chavez Speaker's Bureau, sometimes called his public relations outfits? Or do the Republicans simply hold more principles than the Democrats? We do not know, but what we do know is this: it is impossibly aberrant to sustain a U.S. tax give away to Ecuador called an ATPDEA extension with no verifiable facts and no due diligence. Charlie Rangel knows this. Secretary Rice knows this. All previous ATPDEA extensions were predicated on extant BIT and IPR agreements which Correa's public statements continue to rail against, noting his stubborn refusal to reinstate or comply. Sra. Espinosa, herself quite skilled at the turn of a phrase from her previous career as porn writer and poseur, has no business selling her trash in Washington without the facts.
 
What Sra. Espinosa  conveniently failed to state, during her personal and subsequent team's well managed public relations roll out at the Inter American Dialogue and other soft propaganda outlets, assiduously avoiding this month their previous visits to the harder, pro Chavez propaganda outfits in Washington, D.C. already affiliated with Paul Reichler, is that she is part and parcel of the Venezuelan-Iranian Axis of evil. Rafael Correa commended Chavez for seizing RC TV. (See Argentina's Emilio Cárdenas' brillian piece from La Nación here). Rafael Correa orders hapless citizens seized off the streets of Quito if they look at him cross wise. They are thrown in jail with no due diligence and no due process and no lawyers. See Diario Hoy here, and El Comercio here. He is not the only  one languishing in Correa's jails while his kangaroo/rigged courts and kangaroo/rigged congress jump at Correa's every demand.

There is no democracy in Ecuador outside of their recent votes to self destruct, sometimes called a popular vote. There is no meaningful freedom of expression and certainly no rule of law. Simply put: Correa has followed the Chavez plan. He is a dictator and no amount of appeasement and no amount of wishful thinking that Rafael Correa will self adjust suffices. In other words....Correa is not a candidate for rehab. Perhaps the nation is...but Correa steadfastly clings to his dysfunctional governance which he now rules by sheer dint of his sole powers. If the U.S. Democrats think it is a good idea to throw around U.S. tax payer monies with no justification in order to politically reward the latest communists in Chavez's budding empire of liars and ninnyhammers, the U.S. Democrats need to go public and detail their political necessity for their craven abuse of  U.S laws. We guarantee that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the "poor" who are indeed in need of jobs and a future, which Rafael Correa is working as hard as he can to destroy. The U.S. Democrats would serve all puposes if they sincerely worked to insure that Correa acted on principles, facts and integrity. A rehabbed Correa, while clearly never going to happen, would be a welcome partner at table...any table.
 
Anyone who reviews the Finance Minister Patino video of February, 2007 grasps the concept that the Correa group is imbued with slime and corruption, even as the Correa group acts to protect and defend Chavez- and their dual-nation bond market manipulations- in all that they do. Anyone who reviews the president of the Congress of Ecuador's deal making with the Correa group over the so called Chavez constitutional assembly grasps the concept that advise and consent of the governed departed long ago in Quito. Anyone who stands for principled behavior before this utterly unprincipled gang called the Correa administration and its paid propagandists has no voice at all in Ecuador today. The Correa gang should not have a voice in Washington unless and until their own message is factual and clearly states their position, which has yet to occur in any sense of the word. The Correa team has been lying all along and has every intention of lying some more. Some may enjoy being manipulated. We suspect that this addiction to manipulating the truth and the facts has begun to feel normal to some. Selling these half baked schemes to Washington is a scam and is unacceptable behavior. If Correa wants U.S. taxpayer monies for an ATPDEA extension, he can act with integrity and stop mass manipulations and deceptions. He can cease his propaganda roll outs and stop taking others with him in to the sewer. Rafael Correa can also return the stolen assets to Occidental and apologize. Unless and until he does, he has not and no U.S. Congressional Democrat has any business rewarding those who steal billions from American companies, no matter how much they may find such thefts enticing.  Serving as Chairman of Ways and Means committee of Nancy Pelosi's House Congressional Democrats will send a message around the globe if Charlie Rangel continues to reward nations who steal....about five billion dollars. And that message is that governments who lie, cheat and steal are cheerfully rewarded by the Pelosi team while principled governments such as Uribe in Colombia are denounced and given the cold shoulder to help Nancy Pelosi's chief counsel from the Soros team feel good about his pro-drug pals. We believe that most Americans are repulsed by Pelosi's love affair  with the FARC and her refusal to work successfully with Uribe's government while assisting the Correa team's dream state in Ecuador which  we remind Correa tells us will replicate...Castro's Cuba. Why would Rangel and Pelosi do this? Do they also want to be in the star line up of the Fenton Communications talking heads for the Chavez and Castro regime support groups?
 
Maybe the U.S. Congressional Democrats enjoy looking like paid Chavez props but most Americans do not like to be lied to by foreigners or American lobbyists, even if they do have a successful track record of keeping Aristide in office long past his criminally-bound days were exposed. It is no way to run a request for monies and no way to run a nation.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECRISIS