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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Ollanta Presidente!

June 10, 2011 — Sabina Becker

My gosh, the dominoes are just tumbling in Latin America, aren’t they? It’s getting so that you’d hardly recognize the place anymore. First it was Venezuela, then Bolivia and Ecuador. Argentina and (for a while) Chile have had some progressive types, too. Brazil is now on its second one. And Paraguay got a “red” ex-bishop, and Uruguay an old Tupamaro. Honduras had a liberal guy who took his cues from the more progressive neighbors to the south, and he scared the shit out of Washington so badly, they had to back a coup to depose him before he rewrote the Honduran constitution on true democratic lines. And now, after a bloated, disastrous term of “investment grade” Twobreakfasts García, look who’s finally in power in Peru:

Yep, he made it. He increased his vote respectably following his loss last time around, and beat out the daughter of a dictator on the second round of balloting this time ’round. That it even went to a second round between those two, of all people, was something surprising for me; I’d have thought Peruvians were so tired of neoliberal neofascism that they’d be electing him in one. Especially since the booming success of Venezuela under Chavecito, who hasn’t been a bit shy about his moral support where Ollanta is concerned. WTF, Peru?

Of course, all the usual voices of unreason have started cranking up already, with the usual belchings of fact-free prose. The CS Monitor, in particular, haz Teh Stoopid in a major way. How the election of a leftist could possibly mark a decline in the Latin American left, I don’t know. Guess they had to spin this in favor of neoliberal bullshit somehow, or the corporatists behind them would scream. Everyone who’s been following Otto (who is not an Ollanta fan himself) even halfway attentively, knows that “investment grade” Peru’s so-called economic growth is a big lie for the most part. My advice is to take whatever Sara Miller Llana says and rotate it 180 degrees if you want to get anywhere near the truth, and then dump a huge truckload of salt on it.

Or better still, read Upside Down World. They’ve also got good analysis from Mark Weisbrot, who notes that in fact, the big losers here were the traditional ruling caste of Peru. Stick THAT in your crack-pipe and smoke it, Sara!

And The Nation is another solid go-to place. They actually report on LatAm leftists without prejudice, and their piece on Ollanta’s win and what it means is must-read analysis. (It’s also very damning of the imperialist interference revealed by Wikileaks. Read it, read it, READ IT!)

Meanwhile, here are my own thoughts:

Plenty of Peruvians, especially in the working classes, are surely hoping Ollanta will, indeed, be the “Peruvian Chávez”. They’re also looking at the changes in neighboring Bolivia and hoping that some of Evo’s hard-won good luck rubs off. They’ve been waiting an awfully long time; at least five years, probably much more. Of course, how much Ollanta will succeed in copying Chavecito’s and Evo’s success depends on how much of the Peruvian parliament he can get behind him. I don’t know what’s up with that.

It would be nice if Ollanta’s Peru could be the next ALBA signatory; it would be especially hopeful for the indigenous peoples, who’ve seen all kinds of terrible (and bloody) setbacks under the overtly racist rule of Alan García, who had no qualms about selling their land right out from under them and even called them “dogs” for daring to protest against that. (None of them are sorry to see HIM go.) But I don’t know whether or when that will happen; again, a lot hinges on the parliament, and it appears to be a house much divided against itself.

Let’s face it, in a country as counterintuitive as Peru is, any victory over imperialism is worth celebrating, however small. I don’t know if Ollanta will exceed expectations or even meet them. But at least he’s not going in there totally friendless and alone; he’ll have support from Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, at the very least. And in any case, he can do no worse than has already been done. He beat out the worst, so it’s worth hoping for the best. I dare to hope he will change Peru for the better, and I look forward to seeing how he does that.

¡Viva Ollanta PRESIDENTE!

Posted in All About Evo, Brazil is the Bomb!, Chile Sin Queso, Don't Cry For Argentina, Economics for Dummies, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito, Inca Dink-a-Doo, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, Paraguay, Uruguay, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!. Comments Off »

Festive Left Friday Blogging: A big victory for Ecuador

May 20, 2011 — Sabina Becker

Because there’s no such thing as too much Ecuadorability, this week goes to Rafael Correa, again. And I’m sure that when you read this, you’ll agree that Ecuador deserves a high-five:

On Friday, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, celebrated the decision of the Supreme Court of Colombia to declare “without juridical validity” the data from the computer alleged to have belonged to the deceased guerrilla leader, Raúl Reyes.

The president stated that the ruling demonstrates that all the documents extracted were a “tall tale”.

“I’m not surprised by the decision of the Supreme Court. Moreover, I recognize the quality of justice in Colombia, because despite the political pressures that had to come to bear (on the members of the judiciary in this instance), they acted rightly and what they are saying is what we have always known,” said Correa.

[...]

The president had been accused a few days ago by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of having asked for and received financing from the FARC for his political campaign of 2006.

Correa emphasized that only the corrupt media outlets gave echo to those accusations, along with “the planetary powers who try to damage every progressive government.”

He underlined that the archives were allegedly extracted from the computers confiscated by the Colombian army, during an illegal raid on Ecuadorian territory (in the Colombia-Ecuador border region) on March 1, 2008, in which the #2 FARC leader, Raúl Reyes, was killed.

The event generated tensions between the governments of Ecuador and Colombia.

This week, the president of the Supreme Court of Colombia, Camilo Tarquino, declared that the evidence derived from those archives was “null and illegal due to having been gathered with neither authorization nor participation of the authorities” of Ecuador.

As well, they were in document format, and were not taken from an e-mail address that might demonstrate that they had been sent and received, Tarquino added.

Translation mine.

BTW, the IISS is about as smelly a source as you can get for allegedly incriminating information about a foreign leader. Venezuelanalysis notes that they were also the source of the “dodgy dossier” that was sexed-up to incriminate Saddam Hussein. That dossier provided a pretext for the Coalition of the Killing to declare war on Iraq…illegally, as it turns out. And since they’re agitating for war on Ecuador and Venezuela (Ecuador partly for refusing to keep the Manta base open to the gringos, and partly for refusing to let ChevronToxico off the hook, Venezuela for a multitude of reasons, all stemming from her popular democratic leader), I think we can spot a dirty agenda at work here.

Happily, Colombia is no longer playing along the way it once was (rather surprisingly, considering that its current president was El Narco’s defence minister at the time the Raúl Reyes raid went down). Juan Manuel Santos is being remarkably decent to his neighbors, which must have the whole region breathing a quiet but definite sigh of relief. Ecuador has dodged a bullet here, and Venezuela no doubt will be the next country exonerated. That, surely, is worth celebrating this Festive Left Friday, no?

Posted in Ecuadorable As Can Be, El NarcoPresidente, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito. 2 Comments »

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Grooving in green

May 12, 2011 — Sabina Becker

Yay, I love spring! Especially since you get to see this beautiful color a lot as the trees start delicately coming into leaf:

And, oh yeah: It perfectly matches the eyes of the red-hot president of Ecuador, too.

PS: Anyone wanna caption this? It seems to be asking for it.

Posted in Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging. Comments Off »

Mario Vargas Llosa, concern troll

April 28, 2011 — Sabina Becker

Ye Gods. Just when you thought he couldn’t get more repugnant, crabby, fuddy-duddy or racist, Peru’s most tragic export to the First World has piped up again…and surpassed himself in a show of sheer subhuman backwardness that makes me want to take up blushing on his behalf:

The literary Nobel prizewinner from Peru, Mario Vargas Llosa, considers that “young people” who abbreviate words and break grammatical rules in internet chats or on Twitter and Facebook, think “like a monkey”, according to an interview published today in the Uruguan weekly paper, Búsqueda.

“The Internet has done away with grammar, has liquidated grammar. In such a way that there is now a species of syntactical barbarism,” said the 75-year-old author of Conversation in the Cathedral, in a lengthy interview published on Thursday.

Vargas Llosa also referred to South American politics, calling Argentina “a barbarity” and claiming that the Kirchners “are the owners” of that country. He also said that Ollanta Humala won the first round of elections in Peru because of Wikileaks.

He also opined that daily newspapers are living through a “difficult” moment, and that they have been contaminated by the people’s fondness for “being entertained and diverted” by periodicals, a phenomenon which neither the English nor the Spanish press has escaped.

Similar things are happening with the fine arts and with literature, according to Vargas Llosa, who says the young Latin American writers of today “crack up laughing” whenever “anyone talks to them about literary commitment” and accept that “literature is a very high form of entertainment.”

However, he reserved his harshest words for the language “the youngsters” use on the internet or mobile phones, which he called “frightful”.

“If you write like that, you talk like that; if you talk like that, you think like that; if you think like that, you think like an ape. And to me, that’s worrisome. Maybe people are happier to live that way. Maybe monkeys are happier than human beings. I don’t know.”

Reiterating his criticisms of the Wikileaks phenomenon, which he views “with terror”, he said that “a good part of the electoral catastrophe in Peru owes” to the leaked United States embassy cables from Lima to the State Department in Washington, which “favored Humala”.

Regarding Argentina, he opined that “it’s a terrible case”, because it is “a developed country when three-quarters of the world is underdeveloped” and “extraordinarily cultured” but has become “a barbarity”.

“Argentina is, potentially, the richest country in the world. So, how is it possible that this country could be the barbarity it is? How is it possible that the Kirchners are, shall we say, the owners of Argentina?

“How is it possible that the phenomenon of Peronism, in the end, has surpassed what is Argentina, and that Argentina is Peronism?”

His analysis of the region doesn’t end there. Regarding Ecuador, he said that he hopes that one day the residents of the Peruvian city of Piura, in the north of the country and very near the border of Ecuador, “put up a statue to [Ecuadorian president Rafael] Correa.”

The Ecuadorian leader “has struck such fear into the hearts of businessment, industrialists and shopkeepers in Ecuador that they take all their money and, among other places, take it to Piura,” said Vargas Llosa.

Finally, the author confessed that the novel that has impressed him the most of late is “Soldiers of Salamina”, by the Spaniard Javier Cercas, although he admitted that in reality, he reads “far more dead authors than living ones.”

Translation mine.

There is so much that I could say about him, but these Facebookers say it so much better than I can. I think I’ll just translate a representative sampling of their opinions:

“Better to think like a monkey than like a MUMMY!”

“Since he shook hands with [Chilean president Sebastián] Piñera, now he’s a pig.”

“uh ahah aahahaa (primate noises)”

“And he thinks like a fascist.”

“Fucking fascist…typical conservative ‘without future’.”

“Since when is this guy some kind of authority?”

“HE SAYS THAT B/C NOBODY TALKS TO HIM ON MSN…FOREVER ALONE”

“They gave him the Nobel and now he thinks he’s God, the pigeon-eating prick.”

“He may be a Nobel winner, but that doesn’t concern me as much as a guy who thinks it’s okay for big business conglomerates to steal all the wealth from a country saying that kids think like monkeys.”

“The Nobel prize doesn’t mean anything anymore, since all the prizes get handed out by hidden and opportunist interests. This Vargas Llosa talks trash because he has nothing else to say. It’s really sickening to read [about] him.”

“Who said that? An old relic, one of those who say things like ‘ay, that’s no form of communication, you don’t talk face to face’. Who cares, keep talking face to face, old fart, this is the reality that’s called TECH-NO-LO-GY, get with the times!”

“The subject isn’t as reactionary as you think, but he’s not a dick, he’s a sellout, like many of the literati of our era, who get their undeserved awards by sucking up to the fascists and to power. Pretty crappy, the literary prizes they’re giving out nowadays. But there’s one true thing in what he says, you can write well without being an arriviste or a literato.”

There’s more, but I think you get the general idea. Not only has Mario Vargas Llosa gotten too big for his britches, he’s turned into some other species altogether, something far more sub-human than a monkey or an ape.

He’s become a troll.

Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Chile Sin Queso, Crapaganda Whores, Don't Cry For Argentina, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Kittehs, Under the Name of Spain. 2 Comments »

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Correcting a severe deficiency

April 8, 2011 — Sabina Becker

Hey all, sorry this one’s coming out so late. I’m tired as hell all the time; after checking my symptoms, I concluded that I’m probably deficient on a number of minerals, most critically iodine. I spent most of my afternoon out shopping for supplements today.

And while I was at it, it occurred to me that my blog was suffering a pretty serious deficiency of its own…namely, one of Ecuadorable kickassery and presidential hottitude. So I scoped around for some pictures of Rafael Correa to remedy that, and found something that is exactly what the doctor ordered:

Yum.

I love this kind of supplementation, don’t you? It makes you feel better instantly, without waiting for anything to kick in. And coming the week of His Hotness kicking yet another putschist US ambassador to the curb, well…it just seemed timely somehow.

Posted in Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging. 2 Comments »

Found: One backbone. Location: Argentina!

February 15, 2011 — Sabina Becker

Cristina, you’ve done it again. Besitos:

Argentina has accused the US of trying to smuggle weapons and satellite phones into the country after cargo on a US military plane was seized last week.

Argentine officials say the material was not properly declared.

The US says the equipment was intended for a police training course in Argentina and has demanded its return.

Bilateral ties have cooled since it emerged US President Barack Obama would not be visiting Argentina during a forthcoming tour of the region.

Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman on Monday sent a formal protest to the US embassy, demanding a proper explanation about the seized cargo.

“The United States must understand that they can’t send war materials without informing the government. And now they refuse to co-operate with the investigation,” Mr Timerman told CNN.

[...]

But US state department spokesman PJ Crowley said they were “puzzled and disturbed” by the actions of Argentine officials, who had conducted an “unusual and unannounced” search of the aircraft.

Mr Crowley said he had heard that one serial number had not been documented properly, an issue that could have easily been resolved.

“For whatever reason, it was elevated to higher levels of the government and we find this puzzling,” he said.

He said the US was calling for its equipment to be returned. The training course which involved US military experts and Argentine federal police and focussed on hostage rescue techniques had been cancelled, he added.

Well, that’s typical. Hope? Change? As far as imperialist foreign policy goes, the US is still the same old same old.

Undoubtedly that cargo (which included not only weapons and sat-phones but morphine) was intended for the kind of uses one might see in State of Siege, the sort of “police training course” that Dan Mitrione taught until the Tupamaros served him in Uruguay. His Barackness is no better than Dubya on this front, and the State Dept.’s “puzzled and disturbed” whining (shut up, PJ!) was to be expected; they’re used to getting their way. Used to be they could smuggle in all kinds of weaponry and torture devices in the so-called diplomatic pouch, and no one would dream of questioning it. It’s how they kept their local vassals in line. As Yves Montand, playing Mitrione’s character, Santore, in State of Siege, said: “Régimes come and go, but the police stay.” Which is why the State Dept. has such an active interest in “training” them. The local police, as we’ve seen from Ecuador, are those who wield the big stick when talking softly with the elected leadership doesn’t work.

But at least the countries who have long been on the shit end of that big stick are now grabbing hold of it and yanking it out of Uncle Sam’s hand. That’s new, and if kept up consistently by everyone, it might just be the change these countries have long hoped for. Certainly there seems to be no other way of bringing it about.

Posted in Don't Cry For Argentina, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Fascism Without Swastikas, Guns, Guns, Guns, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Obamarama!, Sick Frickin' Bastards. 1 Comment »

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Simón Bolívar approves

December 17, 2010 — Sabina Becker

Chavecito and neighbor-president Santos shake hands under the watchful eyes of the Liberator of their two countries (and three more). This is the 180th anniversary of Bolívar’s death, so it’s a snapshot with added significance. Bolívar’s dream was of an independent, united “Gran Colombia” (the region roughly spanning modern Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.) Treachery and infighting between Bolivarian forces ended up dividing the nations, a conflict that still has echoes to this day. Sadly, it was a Colombian general, Santander, who bears the blame for that.

But positive change is happening, and for that, thank Chavecito. Trade and diplomatic relations are moving rather nicely between Venezuela and Colombia today. And yes, it means Chavecito has won; remember, he’s the one who broke the relations off in the first place, in solidarity with Ecuador; it was a diplomatic and economic blockade. Santos has caved; considering what a major trading partner Colombia has in Venezuela, it’s not hard to see why. Chavecito’s friendly gesture of sending the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra to Colombia is the icing on a very sweet cake.

Meanwhile, the presidents of Argentina and Uruguay have called for Venezuela’s full inclusion in the South American common market, Mercosur. And the people of the Bolivarian nations take more pride in their democracy than those allied with the US, too. And with that, we can definitely say Gringolandia’s efforts to drive wedges have failed.

Bolívar vive, la lucha sigue. Bolívar lives, the struggle goes on.

Posted in Don't Cry For Argentina, Ecuadorable As Can Be, El NarcoPresidente, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito, Paraguay, Uruguay. Comments Off »

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Democracy Now in Cancún!

December 10, 2010 — Sabina Becker

Here’s Amy, talking with Evo today:

“I prefer the dignity of the people to ‘Evo’s knee’.” Spoken like a true trouper.

Transcript here. You won’t want to miss what he says about Cablegate, or the Nobel prizes. Evo’s sweet jabs at dumb diplomats and unintelligent US intelligence agents are proof positive that the so-called First World has nothing to teach Bolivia. This “clown”, despite his modest formal education, is smart enough to school them all. Including Mario Vargas Llosa, the successful author and miserably failed politician, who has sadly become what he spitefully calls Evo. Nota bene: Evo’s government is much envied in neighboring Peru. Gee, do you suppose someone might be suffering from a touch of envy himself there, having lost the Peruvian presidential elections so badly way back when? The late, great Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti nailed it when he said that you have to read Vargas Llosa, not listen to him. (He was referring to Vargas Llosa’s literary work, not his political essays, which are all drivel.) Appropriately, not-so-super Mario had a pratfall on Monday in his Stockholm hotel–while posing for a photographer. Who’s the buffoon, again?

And here’s Amy with El Ecuadorable:

Transcript here. El Ec, like Evo, is unimpressed with the way the rich countries derailed last year’s Copenhagen climate conference and produced a toothless “accord” which, if we know the rich, will NOT be kept. El Ec’s position is that the state and the people must control the markets, not vice versa; an unregulated market will never protect the environment, but democratic state controls can. Spoken like an economist who has his priorities in order!

Posted in All About Evo, Crapaganda Whores, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Fascism Without Swastikas, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Karma 1, Dogma 0. 2 Comments »

Festive Left Friday Blogging: UNASUR meets in Guyana…

November 26, 2010 — Sabina Becker

…and Cristina Fernández of Argentina paid tribute to her late husband (and former president), Néstor Kirchner:

Love how she makes special mention of Chavecito–as a friend as well as a fellow South American president. (Watch when the camera pans across the front row of seats; Chavecito and Evo are sitting side by side. Chavecito can’t resist interjecting with friendly words, of course.) Solidarity is beautiful!

And speaking of beautiful, I couldn’t leave this out:

Rafael Correa, another of Cristina’s amigos. Looking very indomitable, no? He had some nice words of his own, praising the South American union for helping to lower tensions between nations in the South. Their solidarity (there’s that beautiful word again!) helped him and Ecuador overcome a coup attempt just two months ago. Democracy is flourishing in the region, and so is unity. That’s a thing that can’t be priced in dollars…or euros…or any other monetary unit you can name.

Posted in All About Evo, Don't Cry For Argentina, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!. Comments Off »

Ecuador: More evidence of a coup

November 25, 2010 — Sabina Becker

Who is this Gustavo Lemos Larrea? And what does he have to do with the “police uprising” that wasn’t? Let Jean-Guy Allard tell you…

Gustavo Lemos, the Ecuadorian who burst into the consulate of Ecuador in Miami during the coup events of September 30, along with a handful of partisans of putschist Lucio Gutiérrez and Cuban-American extremists, has been denounced in his country as a torturer and suspected of having covered up the murders of two teenagers.
Lemos is known in Quito as the chief of the torturers during the reign of Social Christian president León Febres Cordero (1984-1988).
Now based in Miami, with the complicity of the State Department, Lemos was found to be participating, a week before the coup, on September 23, in conspiratory activities co-ordinated by Carlos Alberto Montaner in Miami. Montaner is a CIA agent and fugitive from Cuban justice.
Among the “stars” of that “forum”, there was the former colonel, Lucio Gutiérrez, ex-president of Ecuador, deposed by the people. With his habitual cynicism, Gutiérrez disparaged his homeland, saying “all is totalitarianism and total corruption.”
Gutérrez announced from Miami the end of the political model pursued by President Rafael Correa. Later, from Brasilia, he called for an assassination.
An immigrant with “cover” in Washington and Langley, Lemos frequently gave interviews to Radio Mambí, the mafia station in Miami, to defame President Correa. He presented himself as a spokesman for small opposition groups such as the “Francisco Morazán” Honduran Association and the Ecuadorian Society of the Exterior, both associated with fascists of the Cuban community in Miami who are known for their use of terrorism.
Lemos is also known for his ties to the ex-chief of military intelligence, Mario Pazmiño, who was expelled from the army due to his CIA ties.
In recent months, Lemos has been denounced publicly in Ecuador by the Commission for Truth, in conjunction with several cases of torture, illegal arrest, assassination or disappearances which occurred during the reign of León Febres Cordero.
The commission pressed for a court case against Gustavo Lemos Larrea, along with the government minister Luis Robles Plaza (now deceased), based on evidence that they used torture as a police investigation method.
One of the most repugnant instances of repression in which Lemos is involved is, without doubt, the case of the brothers Restrepo.
On January 8, 1988, the police illegally detained Carlos Santiago and Pedro Andrés Restrepo Arismendy, two brothers aged 17 and 14 years, respectively.
According to a key witness, ex-agent Hugo España, the boys were taken to the Criminal Investigations Service of Pichincha, and tortured for several days by investigators of the National Police. One of them died during a torture session. On January 11, the interrogators killed the second brother, a decision made by Lemos in the office of the minister, Robles Plaza, according to the father of the victims, Pedro Restrepo.
The bodies of the two young brothers were dismembered and thrown in Lake Yambo, in the province of Tunguragua.
Lemos is an ardent partisan of colonel Lucio Gutiérrez, the most visible head of the conspiracy and assassination attempt of September 30.
According the the TC Televisión (of Quito) program, In Search of the Truth, close collaborators and partners of the ousted president, Gutiérrez, and of Carlos Vera, ex-TV host and opposition activist, are involved as protagonists of the “police uprising” of September 30.
Among other key players in the failed coup attempt is acting colonel (in passive service) Galo Monteverde, who led the demonstrations called by Vera. Monteverde participated along with Gutiérrez in the coup d’état against then-president Jamil Mahuad, in January 2000.
Fidel Araujo, militant of the Patriotic Society (SP); Pablo Guerrero, ex-attorney for Lucio Gutiérrez; and Max Marin, of the SP, met in the police station. Meanwhile, the brother of the putschist colonel supported the operation in the Parliament, giving instructions to the Legislative Guard, with the complicity of politicians such as Lourdes Tibán, assembly member of the Pachakutik party; Luis Villacís, of the Popular Democratic Movement, and fascists of the movement “Madera de Guerrero”.

Translation mine.

I’ve already blogged about Pachakutik and its allies in the indigenous group CONAIE, and their strange denial of what was quite obviously a coup. By now, it’s also obvious that Sucio Lucio Gutiérrez is a key villain, and probably in control of CONAIE and Pachakutik both. Get a load of what else I found while looking for photos (which I have yet to find) of the shadowy Gustavo Lemos…

An old State Dept. report on Ecuador, in which CONAIE figures prominently among putschists trying to install Sucio as president in the wake of a coup against Jamil Mahuad:

On January 19, approximately 6,000 persons including members of the Confederation of Ecuador’s Indian Nationalities (CONAIE), students, and leftwing political protesters marched in Quito. On January 21, thousands of protesters, including members of CONAIE, students, teachers, and union members, occupied and took control of the congressional building in Quito. The police and military guarding the building did not oppose the occupation with force, and over 100 soldiers joined the protesters. CONAIE leader Antonio Vargas announced on television from the floor of Congress that he would head the People’s Parliament. He also said that retired army Colonel Lucio Gutierrez would join him in a new “ruling junta” as the executive, and that former Supreme Court President Carlos Solorzano would take over the role of Supreme Court President. The protesters called for President Mahuad to resign. (There also were protests in Guayaquil, where a group of students, unionists, and neighborhood associations seized the provincial government building.)
President of Congress Juan Jose Pons described the small military group that joined the protests as “seditious” and called for support for the democratically elected Government. Mahuad then spoke on television and refused to resign. On the afternoon of January 21, the armed forces service chiefs and joint staff chief General Carlos Mendoza called for the President to resign. Mahuad resisted the call to resign but later fled the palace. The junta (also called the “triumvirate”) originally was composed of Vargas, Solorzano, and Colonel Gutierrez. Later during the night of January 21, at the palace, General Mendoza briefly joined the junta, replacing Colonel Gutierrez. On January 22, President Mahuad appeared again on television and accepted Vice President Gustavo Noboa as president; on the same day, Congress ruled that Mahuad had deserted his post. With Noboa’s assumption of office, order was restored.

And what a coinkydink! CONAIE were front and centre in trying to deny the putschist coup–again, spearheaded by Sucio–this time against a much more popular president, namely Rafael Correa. Whose popularity has only increased since then.

Meanwhile, it looks like Gustavo Lemos is in legal trouble. According to the EFE news agency, Lemos is under investigation, by Correa’s gove
rnment, for those very crimes he committed during the 1980s, including the murders of the two brothers mentioned by Allard in the piece I translated. Looks like this one will be one to watch in the future, kiddies.