(WMR) -- Ecuador’s
President Rafael Correa has now found himself, like his ally Venezuela’s Hugo
Chavez, in the neocon crosshairs for ordering Ecuador’s Deposit Guarantee
Agency (AGD) to seize control of some 200 companies belonging to fugitive
Ecuadorian banker brothers William and Roberto Isaias.
The neocons, especially those that inhabit the greater Miami
area and hail from Cuba and New York, are accusing Correa of cracking down on
press freedoms. It is the same cant heard from the neocons after Chavez
closed two TV networks, RCTV and Globovision, for doing the bidding of the
neocons in Washington and Miami.
In Ecuador, Correa’s actions had nothing to do with press
freedom. The Isaias brothers’ Isaias Group owned Ecuador’s Filanbanco bank.
Filanbanco collapsed in 1998 and the Ecuadorian government was left holding the
bag. Ecuador’s government claims the Isaias brothers embezzled $661
million from the bank. However, the Ecuadorian government cannot do very much
to recover the losses because the Isaias brothers fled Ecuador and now live
comfortably, under the protection of the Bush regime, in Florida. They fled to
the Miami area in 2000 before an arrest order was issued by Ecuador. The
Correa government has asked the United States to extradite the Isaias brothers
back to Ecuador and outgoing U.S. ambassador to Ecuador Linda Jewell said the
request is being studied.
The Isaias brothers and their friends in Miami, including Miami Herald
Latin America correspondent Andres Oppenheimer, are falsely charging that
Correa is stamping out press freedom in his seizure of Isaias Group companies
because they include three media companies: TC-Television, Gamavision, and
Cablevision. However, among the other Isaias companies seized are a sugar mill,
construction firms, and trading and insurance companies. Correa has
not moved to take over other media companies that have criticized him
much more vociferously than the Isaias Group TV stations.
Much like the Russian oligarchs who raided the Soviet and
Russian treasuries and then absconded abroad with the funds, the Isaias
brothers lorded over a business empire amid the collapse of the Ecuadorian
economy in 1998. Ecuador was even forced to scrap its national currency and
adopt the U.S. dollar.
Correa, a U.S.-trained economist, is now trying to
revive Ecuador’s economy and political system, the latter through a referendum
on a new constitution, and part of his plan is to try to recover the money
embezzled by the Isaias brothers.
U.S. ambassador Jewell, who is leaving her post in Quito,
may see Correa as a victim of the neocon U.S. foreign policy that is being
dictated from their think tanks in Washington and condos in Miami and
Coral Gables. She recently defended Correa and said there is no proof to past
neocon allegations that Correa is supporting the Colombian FARC rebels.
Colombia conducted a U.S.-supported military raid into Ecuador in March of this
year, killing a number of FARC guerrillas, including FARC deputy commander Raul
Reyes, as well as others. U.S. support for the Colombian raid was seen as
retaliation for Ecuador’s ordering the U.S. to leave its military airbase at
Manta on the Ecuadorian coast.
The comments by Jewell in support of Correa are sure to earn
her the wrath of the neocons in Washington and Miami, which will now place a
vendetta against the ambassador high on their “to do” list.
Previously
published in the Wayne
Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne
Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and
nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report.