The announcement by the government of Ecuador that Julian Assange was being evicted from the embassy coincided with this important event that happened just three weeks earlier.



Ecuador’s passionate re-embrace of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offers one of the clearest and most dramatic signs that the country’s leadership is dead-set on shedding any vestiges of the “post-neoliberal” era it was said to have entered a decade ago during former President Rafael Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution.

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Pence’s visit to the Andean nation last month to meet with President Lenin Moreno offered one such occasion for the groveling attitude the once-proud government of Ecuador has adopted toward the U.S. and IMF. It comes amid the rolling reversal of fortunes faced by the wave of left-nationalist social democratic governments that rose in response to the devastation wrought by U.S.-dictated neoliberalism.

To get $4 Billion in loans, Ecuador agreed to "tax reductions and exemptions for foreign investors for up to 15 years, as well as exemptions for all new investments on paying the tax on currency sent abroad." The measure insures austerity for the poor.

Former President Rafael Correa had a few choice words about the IMF loan.



But the former head of state said he later took the real measure of the “betrayal,” when members of Alianza Pais were probed on corruption charges, governing and using “political power to favor private interests” while “taking away subsidies for the poorest.” “This is the real corruption,” he added.

As for the economic policies, Correa said they were “a disaster.”

Under Correa's semi-socialist government poverty was dramatically reduced, and he ended his presidency with a 58% approval rating.

Which is why they changed the constitution to keep Correa from running for the presidency again.

But that wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.



A court in Ecuador ordered the arrest of former president Rafael Correa on Tuesday over his alleged involvement in the 2012 kidnapping of an opponent. Mr Correa, who now lives in his wife's native Belgium, denies the allegations. Judge Daniella Camacho said she has alerted Interpol in a bid to have the 55-year-old extradited. Former lawmaker Fernando Balda was briefly kidnapped in Bogotá, Colombia, where he fled during escalating tensions with Mr Correa. He accuses the then-president, who led the Andean nation between 2007 and 2017, of masterminding the abduction. At the time, Mr Balda faced charges in relation to a failed 2010 coup against Mr Correa, and he was later sentenced to one year in jail for endangering state security.

So the guy was "kidnapped" by the government for launching a failed right-wing coup.

I must be missing something.

Yesterday Correa requested asylum in Belgium.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, a similar story is being played out in neighboring Brazil.

Tens of thousands marched in the streets of Brasilia recently in support of imprisoned former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Then the U.N. chimed in.



The United Nations Human Rights Committee, a panel of independent experts, on Friday said it had requested that the Brazilian government allow imprisoned former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to exercise his political rights as a presidential candidate.

Lula is the candidate for his Workers Party (PT) and leads presidential polls ahead of the October ballot, but is widely expected to be banned from running by an electoral court. He was jailed in April on a corruption conviction.

As expected, the right-wing court ruled that Lula can't run for president.

But that wasn't enough.



Brazil's Worker's Party (PT) has suffered a major blow after prosecutors charged vice presidential candidate Fernando Haddad with corruption. The former Sao Paulo mayor will likely become the PT's presidential candidate within days as embattled former President Luiz Inacio (Lula) da Silva was barred from running by the top electoral court last week. Haddad's campaign press team in a written statement on Tuesday denied he had committed any wrongdoing and said the prosecutors' case was based on false plea-bargain testimony.

What a "coincidence"!

It's so coincidental that it's probably difficult for any journalist to report this without laughing out loud.

