During his recent Saturday broadcast, President Correa stated that local NGO Fundamedios receives money from the United States as part of a “smear campaign”.
This statement was originally published on fundamedios.org on 21 April 2015.
On 18 April 2015, President Rafael Correa accused Fundamedios of being an NGO that opposes the government in order to “wear it down” and “destabilize it”.
During his 420 Saturday broadcast he stated that the organization receives money from the United States as part of a “smear campaign”.
After questioning US President Barak Obama’s speech in the VII Summit of the Americas held in Panama, he asserted that there has been a history of interventionism by the North American country and declared: “A few days ago the State Department asked the US Senate for two billion dollars. What for? For Congress, to strengthen democracy, human rights and freedom of the press, and explicitly in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela, i.e. they are going to teach us about democracy, human rights and freedom of the press. That is called interference, interventionism, it attempts against the OAS charter, it undermines our own sovereignty, that is what we are talking about”.
The president went on to set Fundamedios as an example. “Governments for change in our America are the target of that smear campaign because those funds go to Fundamedios, they go to all those NGOs that oppose the government to wear it down, to destabilize it, that is what we are talking about. I totally agree. The United States has been the shoulder on which Latin Americans have cried, any time there was a problem we threw stones at the US Embassy and it was solved, but it is clear that there has been interventionism and there still is interventionism. In the Latin America of the 21st Century we will not allow those kinds of actions comrades, we will defend the sovereignty and dignity of our great homeland”, stated the president.
Regarding the participation of the Ecuadorian civil society during the Summit in Panama, he declared that Fundamedios’ executive director, César Ricaurte, and public figures such as Guillermo Lasso, Alberto Acosta,
Andrés Páez, Oswaldo Hurtado and Enrique Herrería were “the great losers”, because according to the President “they were not taken into account, they were not important” and he stated that “this is a sign of the conservative restoration in Ecuador, the coordination of right wing movements and organizations such as IAPA, Asnar, Freedom House and representatives of the world’s most recalcitrant right wing organizations, which tried to smear the Summit and the rulers”.
Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado also lashed out against Fundamedios and through his Twitter account @FalvaradoE:
@tinocotania @ecuavisa @CPJAmericas @sip_oficial Como siempre @FUNDAMEDIOS vendido a la #NED https://t.co/JTwSSnMxCq #mentirosos
— Fernando Alvarado E (@FAlvaradoE) April 19, 2015
(Text of the tweet: “As always, @FUNDAMEDIOS has been bought by the #NED (National Endowment for Democracy) #liars”.)
This tweet was in response to a Fundamedios alert about President Correa’s request for journalist Tania Tinoco’s resignation.
