Ecuador shook up its army and police leadership on Wednesday, the political fallout from a Colombian raid that shattered the president’s trust in his security forces.
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa had even alleged that the CIA had infiltrated Ecuador’s intelligence agencies.
The leftist president demanded the resignations of Ecuadoran Defense Minister Wellington Sandoval and the national police director in the intelligence and security purge. Two other top military commanders offered to resign on Wednesday.
In an incident that is sure to aggravate tensions with Colombia, Deputy Defense Minister Miguel Carvajal said a Colombian military helicopter violated Ecuadoran air space on Wednesday. He said it flew 3km inside Ecuador at a point about 140km northeast of Quito.
Carvajal said the helicopter returned without incident to Colombia. He downplayed the incident, recalling that an Ecuadoran helicopter had inadvertently crossed into Colombian airspace a few days ago.
Correa is outraged that military intelligence apparently advised Colombian officials — but not him — about an Ecuadoran man’s contacts with Colombian rebels. The man was killed by the Colombian military in a cross-border raid last month on a camp maintained by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
After angrily denouncing his death, the president said he had to learn from media reports that Ecuador’s own intelligence services had been monitoring the man and knew of his alleged links to the guerrillas for years.
Last week, Correa demanded a probe as well as the resignation of the head of army intelligence.
“Ecuador’s intelligence systems are totally infiltrated and subjugated to the CIA,” he said last Friday in a TV interview.
Army commander General Guillermo Vasconez, who on Wednesday offered to step down along with Joint Chiefs commander General Hector Camacho, said that Correa had not shown trust in his leaders.
He denied the allegations of foreign infiltration, saying: “Our attitude has always been the defense of our sovereignty.”
Correa also demanded that national police commander General Bolivar Cisneros resign.
He named Javier Ponce, a journalist who had been serving as his personal secretary, as the new defense minister.
The changes do not signify “a witch hunt but a healthy, critical process and the exercise of transparency,” Ponce said after being sworn in.
Correa’s attacks and the prospect of a probe apparently provoked discontent in military circles.
On Tuesday, the armed forces joint command said it had requested to meet the president to “maintain a direct and transparent dialogue” on the issue and “avoid putting at risk the nation’s security and stability.”
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
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