On 23 September 2010 the former Ecuadorian president Lucio Gutiérrez (deposed by a popular uprising in 2005) gave a talk to the InterAmerican Institute for Democracy in Miami, criticising his nation's socialists for their mysticism, incoherent Marxism and dangerous populism. He told his listeners that to end 21st-century socialism in Ecuador (the subject of his talk),
it would be necessary to get rid of President Rafael Correa.His speech is on record; there's a video that captures the thunderous applause it received. In the audience were Mario Ribadeneira, a minister in the government of Sixto Durán-Ballén (president 1992-96), when Ecuadorian neoliberalism was at its height; Roberto Isaías, wanted for fraud after the collapse of Filanbanco, Ecuador's largest bank, of which he was part-owner; and
Mario Pazmiño, a former head of army intelligence, sacked by Correa in 2008 for having too close a relationship with the CIA.A week later, on 29 September in Quito, a meeting of members of the opposition continued late into the night. Next morning, the leader of the Patriotic Society Party, Galo Lara, appeared on the Ecuavisa network's 7amshow
Contacto Directo (Direct Contact), talking about the Public Service Law that the national assembly had just passed.
This ended certain privileges - bonuses, cash payments with medals and other decorations, Christmas gifts - for some civil servants, including the police. Though it granted other benefits, including overtime pay and access to social housing programmes, Lara claimed that "President Correa has snatched the toys out of the hands of the policemen's children - that's why he is afraid of being lynched. That's why he is packing his bags and getting ready to flee the country." An apocalyptic article by leading columnist Emilio Palacio was published in the daily
El Universo.
Comment: The U.S. military and monetary support of Israel is not only a violation of U.S. law, it is also a violation of International Humanitarian Law based on the Geneva Conventions and its subsequent protocols and the Hague Convention.
- Soldiers who surrender or who are hors de combat are entitled to respect for their lives and their moral and physical integrity. It is forbidden to kill or injure them.
- The wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power. Protection also covers medical personnel, establishments, transports and equipment. The emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red crystal is the sign of such protection and must be respected.
- Captured combatants are entitled to respect for their lives, dignity, personal rights and convictions. They must be protected against all acts of violence and reprisals. They must have the right to correspond with their families and to receive relief.
- Civilians under the authority of a party to the conflict or an occupying power of which they are not nationals are entitled to respect for their lives, dignity, personal rights and convictions.
- Everyone must be entitled to benefit from fundamental judicial guarantees. No one must be sentenced without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court. No one must be held responsible for an act he has not committed. No one must be subjected to physical or mental torture, corporal punishment or cruel or degrading treatment.
- Parties to a conflict and members of their armed forces do not have an unlimited choice of methods and means of warfare. It is prohibited to employ weapons or methods of warfare of a nature to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering.
- Parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare civilian population and property. Adequate precautions shall be taken in this regard before launching an attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is regarded as the "guardian" of the Geneva Conventions and the various other treaties that constitute international humanitarian law. It cannot, however, act as either policeman or judge. These functions belong to governments, the parties to international treaties, who are required to prevent and put an end to violation of IHL. They have also an obligation to punish those responsible of what are known as "grave breaches" of IHL or war crimes.