Rafael Correa's double standards

 

Payment of Ecuador to company selling surveillance hardware and software

From www.alekboyd.blogspot.com

King James Bible :  Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not

Posing as defender of nature Rafael Correa demanded from European nations a substantial amount of money not to drill for oil in Amazonia, in a protected and fragile ecological sanctuary. If the money was not forthcoming, he threatened,  I will start drilling for petroleum. This is not defending nature, this is extortion.

In the cases of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden he has claimed the defense of free expression to extend Assange and promise  Snowden Ecuadorian protection. However, he has maintained a national policy of severe curtailing of free expression that has led to the closing of TV stations and newspapers that opposed his government, to the imprisonment, exile and harassment  of newspapermen , to the passing of a highly restrictive Law of Communications and, to top it all, to a program of surveillance of private persons which is typical of totalitarian regimes. Alek Boyd has documented te existence of this program in his blog www.alekboyd.blogspot.com , where he says: “Wikileaks still hasn't published leaked documents about pervasive surveillance programs set up by Rafael Correa's regime in Ecuador. But I got more intel on the whole scheme (see below), specifically details about Banco del Pacifico's $2,925,000 wire transfer to Bank Leumi's former address at Graybar Lexington Av. in New York, account no. 0547946601, whose beneficiary is 500 Smart Solutions LLC, one of a shell group of companies set up by Gabriel Guecelevich for the purpose of selling Israeli's latest surveillance and phone tapping technology to Ecuador”.

 Boyd’s research leaves no doubt that Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are very selective about whom they denounce and that Correa is cynical and hypocritical about freedom of expression.

But few people seem to realize this. Most have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear.