Less than a week after a police insurrection threatened the security of President Rafael Correa, the Ecuadorean government has implemented pay raises for various sectors of the armed forces and police. According to the BBC, the raises range from $400 to $570 per month and will apply to four particular ranks within the military and police forces. [Army captains seem to be making out best – their monthly salaries will rise from $1600 to $2140. Details about who among the police forces will be given a raise seem less clear right now]. And while Ecuadorean officials deny the pay hikes are linked to last Thursday’s events, Julio Carrión, professor of political science at Univ. of Delaware says the connection between the two is undeniable. Here’s Prof. Carrión in the CS Monitor’s coverage of what it calls a “quid pro quo”:
“Basically, [Correa] is fulfilling his side of the deal. He said to the military on Thursday: ‘If you support me, I will give you something in return…’ It’s very clear that these [salary] raises were connected to the events of last week. The president promised the armed forces that he would take care of this.”
Nevertheless, despite the targeted raises, Correa did carry out the implementation of the money-saving salary reforms which sparked the police rebellion last week. That law went into effect Monday, and, according to CSM, “abolishes compensation for police decorations and increases the period that must be worked before receiving a promotion.”
President Correa also announced Tuesday that he would be extending the state of emergency declared last week amid, what EFE calls “suspicions that some members of the police unit assigned to the National Assembly collaborated with the uprising.” The decree will put the Ecuadorean military in charge of guarding the legislature until Friday. According to foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, while peaceful, the situation in Ecuador remains “fragile”:
“Those who shot at the president’s car, those who broke my head, those who shot at the people on the streets and at the interior minister are free, so the crisis is not surmounted.”
And, finally, while there are still debates about whether last week’s events represented a coordinated effort to topple the Correa government or not, EFE reports that the government has released an audiotape of police radio communications from Thursday, which suggest that, at the very least, assassination was on many police officials minds. Those clips include orders such as, “Quick, kill that son of a bitch Correa” and “Kill Correa to end this,” says EFE.
To other stories:
· From the “coup threat” in Ecuador to the ongoing attempt at post-coup reconciliation in Honduras. From IPS, a report on two United Nations delegations that have recently visited the country to “test the waters” in preparation for what could be a new round of talks. One delegation led by conflict management experts Phillip Thomas and Gastón Ain Bilbao will be meeting with the Honduran Resistance (FNRP), other civil society groups, the business community, the government, and the media. A second group of UN human rights experts, meanwhile, is apparently in-country working with Eduardo Stein’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR). Both delegations will be in Honduras for two weeks, according to the UN, but will apparently not be making any comments to the media. On the work of the CVR, however, Stein does tell IPS that things are progressing more positively than expected. Dialogue “is neither doomed to failure nor dead in Honduras; reconciliation among Hondurans is indeed possible, and I am encouraged by what I see happening,” he says, adding that criticisms of the CVR “are receding.” The CVR is expected to publish its report in early 2011, and this month it plans to interview many of the leading figures involved in the coup.
· In Colombia the CS Monitor examines President Juan Manuel Santos’s proposal for land reform – highlighting the opposition he is facing from large landowners and former paramilitary fighters. According to the paper, “the new attempt at land reform will begin with the restitution of 5 million acres over four years – an area about the size of Massachusetts” – and what it calls the “low estimate of land illegally obtained by drug traffickers and paramilitaries or their front men in the 1980s and '90s.” If it succeeds, the plan would also seek “better land usage” – that is, shifting away from cattle ranching and towards the cultivation of unspecified agricultural crops. Some 3.3 million people are registered as “internally displaced” in Colombia – second only to Sudan.
· Meanwhile, El Espectador reports on ramped up military operations against alleged narcotrafficking organizations. In Narino, EFE reports on a massacre carried out by around 20 “unknown gunmen.” The attacks killed at least five people and have displaced some 150 individuals. Time explores the Piedad Cordoba case. And the AP reports on the most recent political figures to be banned from public service by Colombia’s inspector general. Alvaro Uribe’s former chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno – along with nine ex-DAS officials – were barred from public service this week, the AP says. Their “sentences” range from 18 to 20 years for their role in the country’s domestic spying scandal.
· Two slightly different views on Brazilian elections, in particular the strong performance of the Green Party’s Marina Silva. At the Huffington Post, Eric Ehrmann focuses on some of the “neoconservative” elements behind Silva’s Greens. Her running mate and major Green Party financial backer, Ehrmann points out, was the “former head of a globalist natural cosmetics firm.” In today’s Wall Street Journal, a look at Brazil’s evangelical voters – many of whom defected from the PT to support Silva’s run because of the former environment minister’s positions on issues like abortion. And Reuters argues that talk about Marina Silva being a “kingmaker” in Oct. 31’s runoff is overstated. “This is a phenomenon at the margin and not something that can dictate the actual outcome,” says Christopher Garman, director for Latin America at political risk consultants Eurasia Group in Washington.
· On Cuba’s economic restructuring, a report from the Wall Street Journal today.
· In Paraguay, the AP reports on calls from Paraguay’s opposition to have President Fernando Lugo take a leave of absence because of his ongoing health troubles. The AP: “Loyalists are suspicious of the sudden concern for Lugo's health from politicians who have several times tried to impeach the president…A leave of absence would turn power over to Vice President Federico Franco, whose party has sometimes clashed with Lugo.”
· More from BBC Mundo on the new “democratic clause” added to UNASUR’s statutes following last Thursday’s events in Ecuador.
· WOLA and the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh) have a new report out on military human rights abuses in Juarez. A press release here; a report summary at Just the Facts; and the full report here.
· Also, Alma Guillermoprieto in the New York Review of Books reviews four recent titles on Mexico’s drug wars.
· And finally, an opinion from Carlos Chamorro in Confidencial on Nicaragua and what he argues is an Ortega government that no longer holds democratic credentials. According to Chamorro:
“There is a sector that supports this government because they consider it to be an alternative of social change, facing the gap left by prior governments. But a project of the left can only put down roots if it is genuinely democratic. Orteguismo, to the contrary, is neither of the left nor democratic and it has planted the seed of its own self-destruction by submitting itself to the messianic caudillismo of Daniel Ortega and his family.”
No comments:
Post a Comment