Ecuador expels US Ambassador over Wikileaks (Congress, accuse, party, economic)

[18Montclair]

Er, Wiki has proven itself to be nothing but a political TMZ that has a tea-partyesque following.

ALTHOUGH the American diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks contain damaging accusations about public officials all over the world, no country formally expelled its United States ambassador in response to the documents for five months after they were first released. That streak ended on April 5th, when Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa (above), had Heather Hodges named persona non grata for her “malicious and reckless” comments and demanded she leave the country.

Mr Correa’s ire was triggered by an article published a day earlier in El País, a Spanish newspaper. It reprinted an American cable speculating that he had chosen Jaime Hurtado, a police officer accused of involvement in kickbacks and blackmail, as head of the force in 2008 in order to have a “chief whom he could easily manipulate”, despite knowing about the corruption allegations against Mr Hurtado. The note recommended stripping Mr Hurtado and his wife and daughter of their American visas. Mr Hurtado has denied the corruption charges, and said the claims stem from his moves to stamp out American influence in the police...

Ecuador may pay a steep price for expelling Ms Hodges. On April 7th, America announced that it would reciprocally expel Ecuador’s ambassador in Washington, and had cancelled bilateral talks scheduled for June. Eliot Engel, the chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee in America’s Congress, called Ecuador’s decision “irresponsible”, “whimsical” and “impulsive”, and said the country could no longer expect the United States to restore its expired trade preferences anytime soon. Mr Correa will need the price of oil to remain high to make up for this lost economic opportunity.

Ecuadorean-American relations: A new scalp | The Economist