Category Archives: Ecuador

Far-Reaching Demonstrations Against AZ Law

By Eliot Brockner | Published: May 14, 2010
How divisive is Senate Bill 1070? There was a universal rejection of the law by the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), as well as protests on both sides of the border: But the protests have spread to countries where a large diaspora stands to be impacted by the law. On 14 May, hundreds of Ecuadorians  in [...]
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Beyond Playa del Carmen: Tourism and Diplomacy in Ecuador and Colombia

By Eliot Brockner | Published: March 2, 2010
Last week’s Rio Summit between high ranking dignitaries of the Americas – The United States and Canada conspicuously excluded – produced a number of notable events: The announcement of the creation of a Brazil-led regional bloc to convene in July 2011 Universal [...]
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Manta: What Next?

By Eliot Brockner | Published: February 16, 2009
“We won’t renew the contract in 2009”, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said in December 2006, roughly three weeks before his inauguration as Ecuador’s seventh president in the past 10 years. Citing sovereignty issues, Correa claimed “[Ecuador] would extend the treaty only if the United States allows us to put an Ecuadorian base in Miami.” With [...]
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Iran’s Involvement in Latin America

By Eliot Brockner | Published: December 23, 2008
Tensions between the United States and Iran may soon spill over from the Middle East into Latin America. On a recent 5-day trip to Iran in December 2008, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad declared theirs to be a strategic alliance that transcends bi-national trade in a meeting between [...]
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The Atypical Foreign Creditor

By Eliot Brockner | Published: November 30, 2008
On 21 November Brazilian authorities recalled the Brazilian ambassador to Ecuador following a public announcement by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa that the Ecuadorian government would not pay a $243 million dollar debt to the state-owned Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) for the underwriting of construction on the San Francisco dam. Odebrecht, the Brazilian engineering company that [...]
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Corporate Irresponsibility or Government Interference? The Chevron-Petroecuador Fiasco

By Eliot Brockner | Published: September 28, 2008
The images are enough to make even a non-environmentalist cringe. Lush rain forest coated in black, dredge-filled lakes, and rivers of oil make up a Rhode-Island size portion of the Ecuadorian rain forest in Sucumbíos state. The controversy of who is to blame has lasted since Chevron’s departure from Ecuador. Chevron (then Texaco) operated in the [...]
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Colombia as Israel and the Andes as the Middle East?

By Sebastian Chaskel | Published: March 9, 2008
On March 3, Venezuelan President Chávez called the Colombian government the “Israel of Latin America” stating, “we aren’t going to permit Colombia to become the Israel of these lands.” But this week’s comparisons of the Andes with the Middle East and Colombia with Israel did not stop there. Some of the comments were simply [...]
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The Crisis Has Been Overcome?

By Sebastian Chaskel | Published: March 9, 2008
After six days of tension which led some to fear inter-state armed conflict in the Andes, the conflict was declared “overcome” by Presidents Uribe, Correa, Chávez, and Ortega on Friday afternoon at the Rio Summit in the Dominican Republic. After a week of insulting each other, the Presidents reacted positively to Dominican President Fernandez’s [...]
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Civil Society Reacts in Latin America

By Sebastian Chaskel | Published: March 7, 2008
This week has been characterized by a lot of saber-rattling and microphone diplomacy by the region’s dignitaries. At the OAS, virtually every country in the region took a stance on the conflict between Ecuador and Colombia. Today, civil society reacted to recent events. As the screenshot above from Ecuador’s El [...]
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Raúl Reyes 1948-2008: Internal and Regional Implications

By Sebastian Chaskel | Published: March 3, 2008
Early Saturday morning, the Colombian armed forces bombed a target on the Ecuadorian side of the Colombian-Ecuadorian border where they believed Raúl Reyes, the second in command of the FARC, would be that night. After bombing the location twice, Colombian troops crossed the border and brought Reyes’ body and 3 laptops back to the [...]
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