Ecuador Coup Attempt Engineered by the CIA

Over the past several years the police of Ecuador was courted by the US Embassy which no doubt had its own interests in mind. Money from funds run by the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, and other US agencies was routinely poured into bonuses for the police top brass and operatives, equipment for various police divisions, etc. The cooperation became so cordial that occasionally the US intelligence community used Ecuador's police and army intelligence service to keep under surveillance the country's politicians, journalists, and others regarded as potential opponents of the US. Ecuador's intelligence services rushed information to their US partners during the crisis that hit the country's relations with Columbia after the latter bombed FARC camps in the territory of the former, leaving their own government blind to details of the situation.

The January, 2007 advent of Correa's patriotic administration largely put an end to the abnormal arrangement as the Ecuadorian government started to regain control over the country's agencies. Among other things, Correa forbade them to maintain unofficial ties with the US Embassy or get on its payroll. The efforts predictably angered Washington which, in one instance, demonstratively demanded that the Ecuadorian drug enforcement agency return the computers formerly supplied to it by DEA. The relations between Ecuador and the US saw another chill when Correa closed the US airbase in Mante. In response, Washington slammed Quito over its friendship with Venezuela and Nicaragua, diapproval of Plan Colombia, and the implementation of an original model of socialism.'

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