April 17, 2010  ECrisis today compliments this world’s most revered-for-its- honesty newspaper- revered for its outstanding track record as the premier newspaper of record and for fact based reporting- because even though many run away and hide, that newspaper stood up and brought some much needed and long overdue light before the public about the criminal cartel government of Rafael Correa of Ecuador. No one else does this- certainly not the U.S. Department of State which, like all Ecuadoreans are too busy running away from the facts.

Here is one such short discussion about Rafael Correa - an international disgrace to his nation:

“…Varney: … All right, Steve?

Steve Moore: My alma mater, the University of Illinois, this week gave a leadership award to Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador. This is a bad, bad man, Stuart. He has nationalized industries, 50% underemployment in the country. He is hostile to America, has all sorts of alliances with people like Fidel Castro, in Cuba. You know, the University of Illinois says that University of Illinois students should be inspired by Mr. Correa. God forbid.

Varney: Well said, Steve. Thank you very much, one and all….”
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You can and should watch the entire TV show here. (Steve Moore is at  minute 21:40)

Following up on the fact that Correa is a “bad bad man” comes this three judge ruling  that Edgar Teran is, for the meantime, not guilty of Correa’s fake charges that Teran committed a convoluted form of treason. Treason to Correa is anything that is not in bed with him, Mahmoud, Castro and Chavez… and all their thugs.

You can watch the video of the court session here .

For his part, on 4-17-10, Rafael Correa once again took after the truthtellers at the WALL STREET JOURNAL  which you can replay here in his own words.  What Correa calls is the newspaper’s aid to coupsters in Ecuador is this honest article:

The Wall Street Journal
OPINION: THE AMERICAS

APRIL 12, 2010

Ecuador's Chávez
Another Latin dictator gets a pass from the Obama administration.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
The Obama administration continued its charm offensive aimed at Latin America's authoritarian governments last week by sending the State Department's Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, to Ecuador to call on President Rafael Correa.

Why pay attention to a mid-level diplomatic visit to a banana republic? Because if you want to know what Honduras avoided by refusing to kowtow to the U.S. last year, Ecuador is it. Moreover, Mr. Valenzuela's visit demonstrates how little the U.S. is willing or able to do for people who fall victim to left-wing tyranny.

After taking office in 2007, Mr. Correa decided that his popularity put him above Congress and the law. A solid majority of Ecuadorians wanted a new constitution. But he decreed that the constituent assembly, which would write the new document, should also have broad powers, including the power to dissolve Congress. That set off a constitutional crisis that was resolved in Mr. Correa's favor when he used the power of the state and his supporters used mob violence. Had the Ecuadorian military responded with the courage and patriotism displayed by its Honduran counterpart, the nation might still have a fighting chance for democracy.

Now that Mr. Correa has consolidated his power, he is employing state intimidation to destroy his opponents. The press is under constant threat, critics are being driven into exile, the economy is in shambles, and it has come out that Colombia's FARC rebels consider Mr. Correa's government an ally. Iran is a good friend.

Consider how things got to this point. When the Ecuadorian Congress told Mr. Correa it would not grant the constituent assembly the powers he wanted it to have, the electoral court, which he controls, fired the opposition congressmen. They were replaced with more compliant members.

The constitutional court then stepped in to say that the fired congressmen had to be reinstated. In response, according to Gabriela Calderón de Burgos, a columnist for the Guayaquil daily El Universo, "Mr. Correa went on radio and TV to say that despite the court's decision, the fired congressmen would not come back."

Ms. Calderón de Burgos added in a telephone interview with me last week: "On the same day, police forces under the authority of the government and with the duty to protect the court, were not reinforced and easily outnumbered by an angry mob that made its way in. Former members of the court claim to have proof to show that the police let the mob in. This was never investigated. Some of the individuals, who were members of the constituent assembly and are in our Congress today, took part in this violent takeover of the court. We saw on TV members of the court running away from the building while people from the streets threw things at them."

Using these methods, it didn't take Mr. Correa long to destroy the institutional checks and balances in government that stood in the way of his becoming Ecuador's very own Juan Perón.

The press has been a more difficult problem. Last June, when I reported on previously unreleased FARC documents seized by Colombia in a raid on a rebel camp that told of complicity between the FARC and members of the Correa government, the Ecuadorian president hit the roof. On a trip to New York the next month he threatened to "sue" The Wall Street Journal for my piece because, he said, "we are sick of their lies." Days later a videotape emerged showing FARC honcho Mono Jojoy talking to his troops about how the rebels had supported Mr. Correa's campaign. The lawsuit has yet to materialize.

Today Mr. Correa is making life hell for Ecuadorian journalists. Since coming to power his government has taken over four privately held television stations and created one of its own. Mr. Correa regularly uses his bully pulpit to insult journalists and attack the character of his opponents. He likes to sue people.

When a mob gathered outside El Universo's offices last August to intimidate employees because of a story the paper ran, Emilio Palacio, a left-of-center columnist for the paper, blamed a Correa henchman. Mr. Correa went on television to say Mr. Palacio should be sued. The columnist was subsequently tried for libel under the criminal code and sentenced to three years in prison.

During Tuesday's meeting before television cameras, Mr. Valenzuela expressed concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions and its budding relationship with Ecuador. According to Reuters, Mr. Correa told him: "We don't want to get involved in that discussion. But what does it have to do with selling bananas to Iran or with Iran financing our hydroelectric plants?" Translation: Ahmadinejad is my friend. You butt out.

The U.S. response? Mr. Valenzuela would not rule out a meeting between Mr. Correa and Barack Obama. If that happens, prepare for a redux of the Obama embrace of Hugo Chávez in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in April 2009—more humiliation for Americans who used to think of their government as a noble defender of liberty against despots.

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Mr. Correa’s factually inaccurate talk at the low level University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne, said by far too many Ecuadoreans knee deep in the blush of Correa’s fact-free propaganda machine as an American “Ivy League” university when indeed it is a 3rd rate state school generating degrees for fees such as Correa’s doctorate which of course academically and as a research paper was chock full of childish mistakes, errors in his research and patently fraudulent in his unsustained, wild eyed Illinois claims in writing.  Like his thesis, Correa’s pathetic talk in Illinois is embarrassing and offensive.

Looking closely to the photos you would see lots of Correa’s paid propaganda team…. paid to pad/atroturff  the crowds in adoration of their wonderful world leader. Real fame and glory never gins up anything. Of course the specialist in animal husbandry from the university knows nothing and cares nothing that he has just committed fraud too and wasted a lot of Illinois tax dollars along with the gift from Correa’s tax payers. The entire event was….a paid fraud- a scam. Honoring a fake academic-Correa- with a fake award for supporting global free trade  to a man who hates free trade and loves Cuban communism telling North America that ist is great to hate USA history and facts and lie about everything in Correa’s own life, including his fake Belgian arranged-by-Pesantez marriage and the children he ostensibly fathered, notably missing from Correa’s day of honor in the USA while he surrounds himself with fake support. More to the point is this: the event was a bomb- a disaster. Less than 50 fools celebrated the great Correa’s lecture….most of them paid Ecuadorean staffers and idiots. We do not know who paid the Ecuadoreans to dress up in fake indigenous costumes. We also do not know how much all this theatre cost.  We also do not know who paid for the pricey airport hangar for Correa’s snazzy jet nor who paid for his Ecuadorean vehicles and on and on.

After returning from the USA, Correa and his team of liars are seen to continue their lies about Iran- denying Iranian monies and demanding that global media cease presenting facts about Correa. Note too how the Correa bandits game the USA Reports- weak and inchoate to the point of dishonesty- to prove that Correa is a clean government when anyone with a brain knows that the US Department of State Reports are lies and that Correa has bankrupted Ecuador by fraud and theft.

This is what Correa and the unwitting taxpayers of Illinois and the USA have paid for…..look again at this slide show : few in attendance in Illinois, lots of Correa’s military and paid Ecuadoreans in fake indigenous costumes. A fake show which Correa uses to establish his bona fides. Correa is a fake. But Correa calls his propaganda reality while he attacks real media such as the JOURNAL and the ECONOMIST because he cannot manipulate them. And what Correa cannot manipulate, he calls coupsters.

Read the Correa’s whines about the evils perpetrated by fact based reporting.

You can see that the Correa government begins to charge the ECONOMIST with slander and treason against the great Correa. Of course that magazine did not lie….nor slander. More to the point, the WALL STREET JOURNAL has done all Ecuadoreans a great service: they have brought light to a very manipulated media inside Ecuador- a media itself ridiculously supporting Carlos Vera, himself a mirror image of Correa himself.

Be grateful for today’s truthtellers. They are too few these days and warrant not your avoidance nor your disdain but….gratitude. Stop hating others just because you and Correa cannot manipulate them or that they may work harder than you. What you should do too is be inspired to strive and work harder….not bring down those you cannot manipulate. Correa will of course fail at trying to out manipulate truth tellers. You should pay attention. And never ever let your babies grow up to  just be like Correa. God help you.

-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis