Economic Hit Men Behind Destabilization, Assassination Threats Against Ecuador and "Bank of the South"

May 31, 2007 (LPAC)--Foreign financial and banking oligarchs have unleashed the current "corruption" scandal targeting Ecuador's Finance Minister Ricardo Patino, aimed at destabilizing the government of President Rafael Correa, if not assassinating the President himself. On May 21, while Patino was in Asuncion meeting with other South American Finance Ministers to discuss the Bank of the South, Teleamazonas-TV transmitted part of a video, purporting to show him engaging in insider trading and "market manipulation" schemes with foreign creditors, allegedly to make a financial killing for the government just days before a scheduled February payment of $135 million on its Global 2030 bonds.

Enraged, London's Financial Times claimed on May 25 that Ecuador "could be hit with legal action" by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and foreign bondholders, as Patino had violated "the Securities Act," which "could be the basis for enforcement action." The London Economist as well as mouthpieces for Wall Street's interests predicted that bondholders might try to seize Ecuador's assets, while opposition legislators announced May 31 they were beginning impeachment proceedings against Patino.

But what lies behind this so-called scandal is the fact that Correa and Patino are not only challenging the financial predators who have run roughshod over Ecuador's economy for decades, but are also collaborating with other South American leaders to challenge the premises of the International Monetary Fund's bankrupt system. When Patino emerged from the Asuncion meeting, he pointedly told reporters that agreements made there represented "a fundamental historical framework for the creation of a new international financial system. The Bank of the South is the inflection point in the international financial system." Not what the Financial Times ' bosses wanted to hear.

As for the infamous video-tape, Patino has already shown it in its entirety--he secretly taped it--because, as he explained, "it was my obligation... to use the circumstances of my public office to thoroughly investigate how these perverse mechanisms of indebtedness operate." For years, he reported on May 23, he has worked as part of the Jubilee 2000 Commission created by the late Pope John Paul II, to scrutinize and expose how foreign debt is used to impoverish entire nations.