How does political persecution work in Ecuador?
x Marco Teruggi: The persecution against former president Rafael Correa and his party has deepened in recent days in Ecuador
How does it work? Who does it point to? Sputnik spoke in Quito with the writer and journalist Orlando Pérez to alert on the current situation.
The street has regained its calm in Ecuador. The surface that was a battlefield is now normal week, with transport, shops, students, as if the country of last week did not exist. But it exists, and people talk, comment on what they saw, did, celebrate that Lenin Moreno had to repeal decree 883 even though it is not yet clear that he will replace it.
The calm is, however, superficial. The storm is now under the sea, invisible, but violent. Arrested in recent days: the former president of the National Assembly, Gabriela Rivadeneira, and six militants of the Citizen Revolution Movement took refuge in the Mexican embassy, the police stormed the home of the prefect of Pichincha, Paola Pabón, who was arrested, and of former Assemblyman Virgilio Hernández, whose whereabouts are unknown. Also the local Citizen Revolution was raided in the early hours of Tuesday.
The political objective has a name: correísmo. So Moreno said since the mobilization that lasted eleven days began and turned Ecuador into a theater of crisis. But the persecution had already begun before, and, as the journalist and writer Orlando Pérez affirms, it is a major, regional plan that has its national format.
A regional design
"There is a very strong deterioration in terms of freedoms, rights, which I don't think is Ecuador's heritage," says Pérez. The regional map shows a similar scenario in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile, for example.
The reproduction of similar variables in different countries in a contemporary time allows us to induce that there is a constructed plan: "It comes from the US, they do not want to let the progressive decade of Latin America reproduce, and that leads to a deterioration in terms of the policy of human rights, of freedoms ”.
In this context, political, media and judicial persecution have been installed. The case of Brazil, with the imprisonment of former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, or Argentina, with the judicial persecution of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, are cases of that scenario set up to criminalize, put behind bars and banish politically main leaders of past progressive processes or to emerge.
"Correism, like Kirchnerism, like petism [of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil], are a threat to factual powers such as the International Monetary Fund. They will not allow a new Lula da Silva, a new Evo Morales, a new Correa, a new Cristina emerge with comfort. "
The central head of the plan resides in the US and applies to each scenario according to its own characteristics: "Let Mike Pence come to Ecuador twice, who are high-ranking US military commanders, can tell you many things without even going into detail" says Orlando Pérez, who conducts the En Clave Politica program on the international Telesur channel.
National application
"In Ecuador, after the assumption of Lenin Moreno, it is noted that there is an injection of a repressive speech, an attempt against freedoms, there are paradigmatic cases such as Julian Assange and Ola Bini, this citizen detained 72 days accusing him of things that he did not they existed, "he analyzes.
Moreno's mandate, initiated in 2017, which was to continue Rafael Correa's project, began with what Pérez calls "actions to decapitate." First it was the imprisonment of the vice president, Jorge Glas and then the accusations about Correa followed. "Then these become judgments, and we see what has happened in recent weeks and months, with a judicialization of politics, lawfare, with the aim of nullifying them because they are a threat."
President Moreno to Ex-president Correa says: It's been ten years since he witnessed the construction of roads, bridges, ports, and airports, of multi-purpose projects. ten years of recovery, of self-esteem of pride and the sense of belonging of Ecuadorians.
This persecution was exacerbated in recent days with "the detention and imprisonment of leaders of the Citizen Revolution that has no justification." It happened while the mobilizations faced a strong repression that left eight dead, according to the Ombudsman's Office, and continued after the agreement announced between the Government and the indigenous movement.
The instruments of persecution
The decapitation process is articulated through three central instruments: media power, political power and the judiciary. "The media begin to build crimes, such as the case of Paola Pabón [prefect of Pichincha], they accuse him that he took out the dump trucks, financed the marches, met Maduro, that goes out in the media," Pérez said.
The media signaling, repeated through the main channels, is articulated with the other two powers: "It passes to the political actors who go out and denounce, some go and put complaints in the prosecutor's office, and then implement the judgments based on a political actor and the media built that. "
Sometimes the complaint does not come from the media but from the president himself, as in this case, in which he has pointed to the correism of being behind the mobilizations and has accused him of trying to turn them into a coup d'etat to dismiss him.
"The President of the Republic, the Minister of Government or other authorities indicate from their condition of authority of responsibilities to correístas, and immediately after there is already trial," says Pérez.
It happened this week: the president and the media accused a group of leaders of the Citizen Revolution who hours later saw their houses raided.
That mechanism is explained because the media are part of the power block behind the government, and because justice does not act in the way it should, it has no independence from the government.
"There is abuse with pretrial detention, which is the last thing that can be done in case a crime is so clear and evident, but when investigations such as Paola Pabón's case have not even begun, it is not substantiated or structured the case, and it is already imprisoned, and practically condemned in the media. "
The threat
Rafael Correa is a political and electoral threat. He, as leader, and the main cadres of his party "like Gabriela Rivadeneira, Paola Pabón, Virgilio Hernández, who have consolidated and installed themselves in the imaginary of correismo and its adversaries as well."
Each one of them is persecuted. It is, Perez insists, "to decapitate a movement that, beyond its mistakes and virtues, has a power in the polls. If Correa shows up, he would win the first round." It has, as he explains, a hard core of about 25% of the population, "a sector that may not go out, but when voting, vote for it."
There is no other leadership of that dimension in the country. "Correa had a very popular speech, not very populist, anchored in that he spoke Quichua, related to people in another way. We don't have that leader, I don't see any."
This situation has put the Citizen Revolution bloc in a very difficult situation: media lynching - "Correa was the only one who faced the media because of the factual power they are" -, political loss of emerging or already consolidated leaderships, the distance Geographic of Correa that is in Belgium without being able to return to the country due to judicial prosecution.
"He suffered the impact of this attack, they took the Alianza País party [party led by Correa until 2018], there were betrayals of assembly members who were as correistic as Correa himself, seeking to undermine the moral strength of correismo," Pérez analyzes.
The situation of persecution grows and has American planning and local execution through different powers. This picture extends over the correísmo and hits the political spaces respondents to the government. "I suspect it will not stop, it will not be easy for journalists, for social leaders."
https://mundo.sputniknews.com
The decapitation process is articulated through three central instruments: media power, political power and the judiciary. "The media begin to build crimes, such as the case of Paola Pabón [prefect of Pichincha], they accuse him that he took out the dump trucks, financed the marches, met Maduro, that goes out in the media," Pérez said.
The media signaling, repeated through the main channels, is articulated with the other two powers: "It passes to the political actors who go out and denounce, some go and put complaints in the prosecutor's office, and then implement the judgments based on a political actor and the media built that. "
Sometimes the complaint does not come from the media but from the president himself, as in this case, in which he has pointed to the correism of being behind the mobilizations and has accused him of trying to turn them into a coup d'etat to dismiss him.
"The President of the Republic, the Minister of Government or other authorities indicate from their condition of authority of responsibilities to correístas, and immediately after there is already trial," says Pérez.
It happened this week: the president and the media accused a group of leaders of the Citizen Revolution who hours later saw their houses raided.
That mechanism is explained because the media are part of the power block behind the government, and because justice does not act in the way it should, it has no independence from the government.
"There is abuse with pretrial detention, which is the last thing that can be done in case a crime is so clear and evident, but when investigations such as Paola Pabón's case have not even begun, it is not substantiated or structured the case, and it is already imprisoned, and practically condemned in the media. "
The threat
Rafael Correa is a political and electoral threat. He, as leader, and the main cadres of his party "like Gabriela Rivadeneira, Paola Pabón, Virgilio Hernández, who have consolidated and installed themselves in the imaginary of correismo and its adversaries as well."
Each one of them is persecuted. It is, Perez insists, "to decapitate a movement that, beyond its mistakes and virtues, has a power in the polls. If Correa shows up, he would win the first round." It has, as he explains, a hard core of about 25% of the population, "a sector that may not go out, but when voting, vote for it."
There is no other leadership of that dimension in the country. "Correa had a very popular speech, not very populist, anchored in that he spoke Quichua, related to people in another way. We don't have that leader, I don't see any."
This situation has put the Citizen Revolution bloc in a very difficult situation: media lynching - "Correa was the only one who faced the media because of the factual power they are" -, political loss of emerging or already consolidated leaderships, the distance Geographic of Correa that is in Belgium without being able to return to the country due to judicial prosecution.
"He suffered the impact of this attack, they took the Alianza País party [party led by Correa until 2018], there were betrayals of assembly members who were as correistic as Correa himself, seeking to undermine the moral strength of correismo," Pérez analyzes.
The situation of persecution grows and has American planning and local execution through different powers. This picture extends over the correísmo and hits the political spaces respondents to the government. "I suspect it will not stop, it will not be easy for journalists, for social leaders."
https://mundo.sputniknews.com
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