Ecuador revolt: Attempted coup or uprising?

[Bacchus39]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101001/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_ecuador_protest

QUITO, Ecuador – It was the biggest test of Rafael Correa's nearly 4-year-old presidency, a bloody trial by fire for a tenacious politician whose popular government had brought relative calm to a chronically unstable country.

The Ecuadorean leader called the police revolt, which left three dead, dozens injured and briefly paralyzed this Andean nation, a coup attempt. Not an outlandish claim for a country that had eight presidents in 10 years before Correa won office.

Correa's kindred leftist presidents, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, even accused the United States of pulling the strings behind the insurrection at an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Friday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

But skeptical analysts said Thursday's tumult appeared instead to be a revolt that spiraled out of control by hundreds of modestly paid police officers protesting cuts in benefits.

Edited to conform to DU's fairuse policy of copyrighted material"

[Downwinder]

1. Please correct me if i am wong.

It seems that the people who are denying a coup attempt in Ecuador are the same ones that denied a coup in Honduras.

[Bacchus39]

2. yep, you are wrong n/t

s

[Downwinder]

3. Just wondering

Renard Sexton http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/01/ecuador-revolt-coup-rafael-correa

Adam Isacson http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/01/ecuador-police-revolt-strengthen-correa

[EFerrari]

5. It started that very night. I first noticed it on the BBC World News report:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9234195#9234223

[EFerrari]

4. No, you aren't wrong. And had there been a real uprising,

Correa would be dead right now. The intention was to spark an uprising and instead, the people defended their government and their president.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Shutting down 3 airports is "tumult"? I don't think so. That takes PLANNING.

They shut down 3 airports, the national legislature, raised road blockades and staged barracks takeovers, and created havoc, in at least three major cities. That takes COORDINATION. All over the country. All on the same day.

And the excuse--promotion bonuses and a rescheduling of promotions (from 5 years to 7 years), which, according to Correa, whose bill it was in the legislature, were made up for by big salary increases--doesn't compute. Nobody plans and coordinates 3 airport shutdowns, etc., over medals and bonuses.

Correa's read on it--and he is rather close to the situation--is that disnformation was spread among the police forces. He went to the barracks in Quito to explain the bill. He asked them, had they read the bill? Nobody had! Then they wouldn't talk to him, and began shooting tear gas canisters at him.

Why was disinformation spread? Because the coup plotters NEEDED disorder and rebellion to accomplish their purpose of ousting Correa, and, when the plot failed--because the military would not go along with it--"Plan B," as Correa said, was to assassinate him. They shot one his guards on the way out of the hospital, and shot up his car and other cars accompanying it. The guard was killed. Correa believes that that bullet was meant for him.

WHY WERE THEY SHOOTING, if their goal merely had to do with bonuses? They also shot at civilians. They had snipers on rooftops (reported by the military when they took the hospital). That makes no sense at all. Nor any of the rest of it--shutting down the government and the country--out of disgruntlement on such a flimsy basis.

And why didn't they go on strike--just peacefully abandon their jobs? A city can't function very long without police. They would have shown their power and gotten a negotiation. (And then Correa or someone would have read the bill to them and what it actually said.) The answer seems quite obvious--the goal was to oust Correa, by one means or another. Or, rather, that was the goal of the COUP PLOTTERS. Most of the police and a few military who were involved were probably patsies--lied to, disinformed, possibly bribed and given promises, and manipulated. The three top police officers--colonels--who have been arrested and charged with attempted assassination of the president--or whoever is caught and found guilty of the shots at Correa and other shooting, and who coordinated this murderous mayhem around Quito and in other cities--had DIFFERENT, BIGGER goals than the ordinary police personnel or soldiers who were rioting.

That seems so obvious that you would have to be...well, a "tea bagger," an "Alice in Wonderland" thinker, not to see it. You don't shut down the country and shoot up the president over medals and bonuses especially when your salary has been doubled by the person you are shooting at!

[PufPuf23]

7. Posters in favor of covert ops to stabilize non-compliant

democracies in the south west hemisphere exist at DU.

They will even pretend that US interferance in other sovereign nations exist despite a long history and current government funding, law, and activity.