This is an English translation of this article from the PanAm Post.
A former FARC guerrilla fighter that’s now a witness protected by Justice in Colombia said that the former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa was financed by the FARC to help win the presidency of that country.
Alexander Duque, known as Chorizo on the 48th front, said on the program The Informants of the Caracol that the FARC guerrillas voted in Ecuador to support Correa’s presidential campaign. In addition to obtaining agreements for permanent permits for members of the FARC to have access to Raúl Reyes’ camp, which was located in Ecuadorian territory, he also said that the withdrawal of the US military base in Manta was part of the agreement in exchange for financial support for his campaign.
“That money to finance Rafael Correa’s campaign was delivered directly to my house, one bag of USD $200,000 and USD $300,000. All under the guidance of Raúl Reyes.”
He affirmed that he even worked on one of Rafael Correa’s campaigns: “It was my task to assist the campaign, doing publicity, incentivizing Colombians who had Ecuadorian documents allowing them to vote as well as Ecuadorians who were from the FARC or associated militias, to vote for Rafael Correa” .
On the pact to withdraw the military base from Manta, “Chorizo” said that once Correa came to the presidency “he immediately asked for that base to be removed from there because they were fulfilling the contract, he did not want to renew for FARC requirement”.
After ten years of operations, in 2009 the bilateral cooperation agreement was terminated and US military stopped operations at the Manta base and departed.
Lenín Moreno and the Investigation of Correa
The president of Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, announced in April that this country would not continue to be the guarantor of the peace talks between the Colombian Government and the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN). Renglón often maintained that he had also withdrawn Quito as the headquarters of the negotiations.
In the same statement, Moreno ordered to investigate the veracity of a video that involved Correa with the alleged financing of his political campaign by the FARC guerrillas.
“I just saw a video (…) in which a protected witness shows that the FARC gave money to the campaigns of former President Correa. I asked that its truth be checked, ”he said.
Rumors of the possible relationship between the former Ecuadorian president and the FARC, known as Farcpolitica, intensified after the FARC dissent of the Oliver Sinisterra Front, led by alias “Guacho”, murdered three Ecuadorian journalists of the newspaper El Comercio, and the subsequent kidnapping of an Ecuadorian couple at the border of the two countries.
Correa and the FARC advance on the Border
For years Hugo Chavez denied the status of terrorist organization to the FARC. Simultaneously, Correa did the same in Ecuador, refusing to say they were terrorists and did not allowing the government to give them official status as belligerents. In an interview, the Ecuadorian ex-president indicated that the FARC has always been: “Irregular groups. No country in Latin America calls them terrorists, not even the Colombian government before Uribe.” he explained.
In “Operation Phoenix”, in which Raúl Reyes was discharged, a series of documents were found that established the relationship of the Ecuadorian ex-president and the FARC. Especially an email in which the guerrilla group congratulated Correa on his electoral victory in 2007.
“We visited Ecuador’s Minister of Security, Gustavo Larrea, hereinafter ‘Juan’ who on behalf of President Correa brought greetings to Comrade Manuel and the Secretariat. (…) and expressed interest of the president to formalize relations with the FARC leadership through ‘Juan,’ a willingness to coordinate social activities to help the residents of the border. Exchange of information and control of paramilitary crime in its territory,” read the letter of Raúl Reyes to members of the secretariat, on January 18, 2008.
At the time this military action triggered a diplomatic crisis between Colombia and Ecuador, as Correa accused President Uribe of having stepped on Ecuadorian territory and thus violated the sovereignty of that country and international treaties in order to terminate Reyes.
In 2008, Correa denied having links with the FARC and asked to carry out the necessary investigations in this regard, ensuring that if it were proven otherwise he would resign – a fact that never happened. And yet that year the Angostura Report which detailed the case of the death of Raúl Reyes revealed that Ecuadorian soil was being used as a bridge for drug trafficking.
In an interview for the PanAm Post, Johnny Estupiñán Echeverría, Vice Admiral of the Naval Force of Ecuador in passive service since 2008, said the Correa Government was complicit in the FARC.
“Obviously they were allies and accomplices. All the actions of the previous government favored drug trafficking, fueled by aggressive and widespread corruption.”
Now that the current government wants to fight against all inherited illegalities, it is logical to think that the outgoing government’s link with narcoterrorists, even indirectly, is generating terrorist actions to destabilize the current government, ”he said.