By JOHN ROSS - Counterpunch Weekend Edition

At first Lucia Morett couldn't make out where she was and what had woken her up in the pitch-black jungle dark. Then the Mexican graduate student remembered. She reached for her schoolmate Veronica Velazquez's hand but Vero was not there. She would never be there again.

By José Steinsleger - December 09, 2008

The process of popular and social emancipation has started to gather force in Ecuador. In April, after a joint Colombian-U.S. military operation against a FARC camp in Ecuadorian territory, President Rafael Correa entrusted the writer Javier Ponce Cevallos with steering the Ministry of Defence...If the appointment was nitric acid for the Creole oligarchy and the conservative sector of the armed forces, imagine the unease in the CIA and Southern Command of the imperial army.

On July 7, 2008, the Ecuador Constitutional Assembly - composed of one hundred and thirty (130) delegates elected countrywide to rewrite the country's Constitution - voted to approve articles for the new constitution recognizing rights for nature and ecosystems.

Information from Colombian-seized FARC-EP files appears to be fake.

By SIMON ROMERO - April 21, 2008

Chafing at ties between American intelligence agencies and Ecuadorean military officials, President Rafael Correa is purging the armed forces of top commanders and pressing ahead with plans to cast out more than 100 members of the American military from an air base...in...[the] coastal city [of Manta].

Call it another salvo in Bush v. Chavez with Ecuador's Raphael Correa as a secondary target and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe as a proxy aggressor.

by Cory Fischer-Hoffman - Upside Down World

...[W]hile Colombia has attacked Ecuador, provoking a collapse in diplomatic relations and placing the region at risk of a war, the headlines in the United States read: “Chávez sends forces to Colombia’s border.” This is a calculated attempt to create the image of Venezuela as the aggressor in the conflict, when the clear aggressor is the United States, who trains and funds the Colombian Army, not only in counter-insurgency and terror but now as an imperialist army, who has violated the sovereignty of its neighbor nation and created grave tensions within the region.

By JAMES J. BRITTAIN and R. JAMES SACOUMAN - March 4, 2008

After years of increased violations of civilian human rights, the ongoing suppression of trade-unionism, assassinations of left-of-centre activists and politicians, and a political reality that has witnessed 75 governors, mayors, and Congressional politicians alleged or found guilty of having direct links to the paramilitary...the Colombian state has deemed it necessary to illegally encroach upon those nations that deviate from their ideological model of political and economic centralization...[A]fter the actions realized on 1 March, 2008 it is clear that the Colombian state, with the full backing of the United States, will impose its own ideological goals and values, through force...

[Also...] A Response to the Muder of Raúl Reyes in Ecuador
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America by James J Brittain and R. James Sacouman (CounterPunch)

When the U.S. Air Force Southern Command's 10-year usage rights for Ecuador's Manta air base expire in 2009, it can expect to be evicted in favor of China.

By Hernando Calvo Ospina | Spanish Follows

On Sept. 30, elections were held in Ecuador to elect the people who will draft a new Constitution. The Alianza País organization, led by President Rafael Correa Delgado, won more than 70 percent of the votes; the runner-up received barely 7 percent. It was an overwhelming triumph, something never before seen in the history of Ecuador.

With 80 of the 130 representatives, Alianza País will have an absolute majority in the Constituent Assembly. With that advantage, the chief of state will be able to "refound the republic" and initiate a model of development that will break away from neoliberalism.

Signs of social change in Ecuador under a socially democratic president wanting an end to Washington's neoliberal agenda.

Amidst a circus of political manoeuvring, high-level officials breaking ranks, and surprise support from the strangest places, a movement to bring "21st century socialism" to Ecuador is taking shape. So far, Correa has managed to jump the hurdles as they have been thrown in his way, gathering support for his agenda to rewrite the constitution in a way that "runs deeper than a mere rejection of neoliberal economics".

I've found a better account on Counterpunch by Roger Bubach covering Correa's recent election victory and what (Correa says) it will mean for Ecuador. He has already put the US on alert that the military base on Ecuadorean soil will not be renewed. He is moving to regain control of the country's oil resources and has kicked out the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

"At the same time, Ecuador is negotiating special bilateral trade and economic agreements with presidents Chávez and Morales."

Venezuelan Bolivarianism has a new home of Ecuador.

Hugo Chavez Frias gained an Ecuadoran ally last November when voters rejected Washington's choice and the country's richest man and elected Raphael Correa its President by an impressive margin. Correa is a populist economist and self-styled "humanist, leftist Christian" promising big changes for another Latin American country long ruled by and for the elite and against the interests of ordinary people Ecuador abounds in whose voices finally spoke and prevailed.