Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: Quake damages Ecuador embassy, National Cathedral in Washington
The Ecuador Embassy in Washington was damaged in Tuesday’s earthquake at, a recorded message by the DC Fire and EMS agency said. The Washington National Cathedral, the highest building in the city, also suffered damage in the earthquake, with three pinnacles in the central tower breaking off. Richard Weinberg, director of communications at the Episcopal cathedral, said a fourth pinnacle was leaning and might also be damaged. The building’s central tower, which is 30 stories high, also suffered minor structural damage.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-quake-usa-cathedral-idUSTRE77M72Q20110823
Consular affairs: Ecuador consulate remains open amid tension
It all began with WikiLeaks — last week, a Spanish newspaper published a secret WikiLeaks cable that revealed the American ambassador to the South American nation, Heather Hodges, making disparaging remarks about the government. Sparks flew, and within days both the nations’ ambassadors had been declared “persona non grata” and were ordered to leave. American officials even hinted at closing certain Ecuadorian consulates. But in the South American nation’s outpost in New Haven, it’s business as usual. The sense of crisis is distant in the Ecuadorian consulate on Church Street, which, despite the tensions between the two nations, faces no risk of closure or cuts at the present, consul Raul Erazo Velarde said. And while the upper levels of government work through these tensions, New Haven’s consulate will continue with its programming in support of New England’s Ecuadorians — including an event this Thursday at the consulate, during which Yale Law School students from the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic will outline the rights of immigrant workers in Connecticut. The New Haven consulate is one of Ecuador’s 19 consular missions nationwide; it serves Ecuadorians in Rhode Island and New Hampshire as well as Connecticut. In addition to the New Haven consulate, Ecuador operates consulates in New York City, Boston and New Jersey. The U.S. census counts 21,000 Ecuadorians living in Connecticut, and consular officials have estimated that at least as many illegal immigrants live in the state, bringing the total population to nearly 50,000. When it opened in 2008, the consulate became the first to open in New Haven since an Italian one opened its doors in 1910.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/apr/11/ecuador-consulate-remains-open-amid-tension/
Newsline: Expelled US ambassador leaves Ecuador
US ambassador to Ecuador, Heather Hodges, left the country Tuesday a week after being declared “persona non grata” over a leaked diplomatic cable critical of President Rafael Correa. The US State Department has responded to the Ecuadoran action by ordering a tit-for-tat expulsion of Quito’s envoy to Washington, Luis Gallegos. The flap erupted a week ago after whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a 2009 cable in which Hodges says Correa appointed a general, Jaime Hurtado, chief of police knowing he was corrupt. Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said the embassies will be headed by their respective charge d’affairs until new ambassadors are appointed. In February 2009, Correa expelled two other US diplomats, Mark Sullivan and Armando Astorga, accusing them of meddling in the country’s internal affairs. He said Sullivan was the CIA chief in Ecuador.
Newsline: U.S. expels Ecuador ambassador
The Obama administration expelled the Ecuadorean ambassador in retaliation for the expulsion of the U.S. envoy to Ecuador over her comments in leaked State Department cables. The move escalates tensions between the United States and Ecuador and comes amid a fraying of ties between Washington and other Latin American capitals. Ecuadorean Ambassador Luis Gallegos was summoned to the State Department and informed of the decision by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela, the department said. It said Gallegos was declared “persona non grata” and ordered to leave the United States as soon as possible. High-level U.S.-Ecuador talks set for June have been suspended, the department said. The step follows Ecuador’s expulsion this week of Heather Hodges, the U.S. ambassador in Quito, over corruption allegations that she made about senior Ecuadorean police officials in confidential documents released by the website WikiLeaks. “The unjustified action of the Ecuadorean government in declaring Ambassador Hodges persona non grata left us no other option than this reciprocal action,” said Charles Luoma-Overstreet, a department spokesman. He said the United States wants a positive relationship with Ecuador, but the decision to expel Hodges had damaged ties and would have to be taken into account going forward.
Newsline: Ecuador expels US envoy due to WikiLeaks
Ecuador said it was expelling the US ambassador following the publication of a diplomatic cable divulged by WikiLeaks in which the envoy accuses Ecuador’s just-retired police chief of corruption. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino announced the action in a news conference. Ambassador Heather Hodges had been declared ‘persona non grata’, diplomatic language for expulsion. US embassy spokeswoman Martha Youth said the embassy had no immediate comment. Hodges had been called to the Foreign Ministry by Patino on Monday afternoon and issued a diplomatic note complaining about the cable, but she only learned of her expulsion through the public announcement. In the cable released by WikiLeaks, dated July 10, 2009, and published by the Madrid newspaper El Pais on Monday, Hodges recommends that Jaime Aquilino Hurtado, national police commander from April 2008 to June 2009, be stripped of his US visa. The cable says he used the position ‘to extort cash and property, misappropriate public funds, facilitate human trafficking and obstruct the investigation and prosecution of corrupt colleagues’. Separately, Hodges comments in the cable that ‘corruption among Ecuadorian National Police officers is widespread and well-known’ with corruption becoming ‘more pronounced at higher levels of power’.
Newsline: Ecuador President Says No Offer To WikiLeaks Chief
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Tuesday dismissed an offer of residency that a lower level official made to the embattled founder of the online whistle-blower WikiLeaks. The offer by Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas on Monday “has not been approved by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino – or the president,” Correa told reporters. Patino already had indicated earlier in the day that the leftist government was backing away from providing refuge for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying it “will have to be studied from the legal and diplomatic perspective.” Lucas had said Monday that Ecuador was open to giving Assange residence “without any kind of trouble and without any kind of conditions.” The 39-year-old Australian, whose whereabouts are not publicly known, has incensed Washington and many other governments by releasing hundreds of sensitive diplomatic cables.
http://wap.cbsnews.com/site?sid=cbsnews&pid=sections.detail&catId=TOP&storyId=7104741
Newsline: Ecuador offers refuge to Assange
An Ecuadorean minister has offered residence in his country to Julian Assange, the reclusive founder of WikiLeaks, without conditions. “We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions,” Kintto Lucas, the deputy foreign minister, told the website Ecuadorinmediato. “We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the internet but in a variety of public forums.” Assange has enraged the US, and many other countries, by releasing masses of classified US documents, including a dump of embarrassing diplomatic cables and documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq earlier this year. After the latest leak, Australian police said they had begun investigating whether any of the country’s laws were broken by the release. Assange is an Australian national. An international arrest warrant was issued in mid-November against Assange on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation of two women in Sweden. The 39-year-old claims the crime allegations are part of a smear campaign. The US, for its part, has a criminal investigation under way into the release of about 250,000 diplomatic cables. The White House branded those who released the documents “criminals, first and foremost,” but so far US authorities have publicly filed no charges against Assange. Assange’s whereabouts are unclear, although he spoke to a conference in Jordan via videolink before the latest leaks on Sunday. Ecuador’s Lucas praised people like Assange “who are constantly investigating and trying to get light out of the dark corners of [state] information”. He said Ecuador’s government was “very concerned” by revelations in the leaked documents that US diplomats have been involved in spying. WikiLeaks says it has 1,621 cables that originated from the US embassy in the Ecuadorean capital, Quito. Their contents have not yet been disclosed. Ecuador’s leftist government is one of several in the region that have often been at odds with Washington. It expelled two US diplomats in early 2009, accusing one of directing CIA operations in Ecuador and another of interfering in police affairs.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/11/2010113033515743921.html
