It´s interesting to watch it happen before your very eyes.
Ecuador is cutting ties with the US and Colombia and Brazil. Refusing to pay debts, not renewing airspace rights, opening up ocean passage rights to Russia. President Correa just got back from Iran today, solidifying relationships there, Iran has promised high tech tools to Ecuador, including talks of a nuclear reactor in the Galapagos and lots and lots of arms dealing. The rational being that Iran wants a strong ally in South America, with good positioning at the US. It´s a pretty key location, which is why the US has tried to maintiain ownerships of the airspace and water rights. Headed the way of Venezuela and Bolivia, both of which are having huge internal wars. US citizens are no longer allowed to cross the border into Bolivia and just a couple of weeks ago, the US emptied the embassies and pulled all the peace corps volunteers out of there.
Ecuador has changed the visa laws, allowing US citizens to spend only 90 days at a time and no more than 180 days per year in Ecuador, with at least 6 months in between. They have put incredible taxes on non profit organizations here with backing from the US so that they are not being able to make it anymore and are having to pull out. Why would you punish your poorest populations in order to choose political allies. It´s all so crazy and doesn´t make any sense.
I happen to have someone around in my daily life that works very high up in the anti-narcotics division of the governement and we talk about this stuff pretty often. She thinks that civil war is on the way and feeling more inevitable with Correa making such strong ties with Iran. That Correa does things like give the poorest population $30 and then they think he´s a hero and will follow him anywhere and clearly he has their best interests at heart and the upper class doesn´t like him and thinks that he promises things that he can´t deliver but it keeps him popular.
It will be interesting to see what happens, I sure hope that nothing comes of all this talk. This country is really beautiful and the people are sweet and even the poorest people are making it because there is so much food grown here that no one goes hungry. It would be a shame for them all to die from bullets.
Hard to know what is real and what is rumor, but most of the news bulletins I´m receiving back up the info I´m hearing. What a crazy world.
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Very crazy world, and if I were you, I'd be thinking about going to Argentina or someplace. Real soon. Brazil is a total treat.
ReplyDeleteJust not cool to be an American in an anti-American country. Too many nice places to visit!
Correa is clearly taking a page from the Eva Peron handbook. A cheap shot, to dazzle someone destitute with a few bucks.
ReplyDeleteMJ, be flexible. There are so many places on that beautiful continent you can enjoy and still come home to us someday. We love you too much.