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Moreno blames Correa for what happens on the northern border
Posted On 29 Mar 2018
Ecuadornews:
The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, today blamed the government of his predecessor, Rafael Correa for the situation on the border with Colombia, since “permissiveness” made these terrorist groups believe they can do what they want, criticized that the Armed Forces have been dismantled and the purchase of helicopters that fell, as well as radars that never worked.
“The permissiveness, the dismantling of our Armed Forces, our Police, the decline in their moral behavior, the decline in morals, the decline in ethics, but above all the extreme permissiveness is what has allowed this to happen; Of course, at the time that one allows everything, these guerrillas and drug traffickers, is practically giving the possibility that they do what they want, “said the Ecuadorian president.
About the journalists, said today that his government is doing everything possible to get the release of the newspaper El Comercio team kidnapped last Monday.
“I want to express my deep concern for what is happening today on the border and in particular with our three dear journalists,” Moreno said today at an extraordinary meeting of the State Public Safety Council (Cosepe).
Moreno, who headed the meeting at the Palacio de Carondelet, headquarters of the presidency, added “everything is being done that is within our reach to release them immediately.”
And without revealing “all the procedures that are being carried out,” he said he had summoned the Council “to analyze precisely the situation of our borders.
“We are not going to rest until we have them,” he said about his determination to return the two journalists and a driver of the newspaper El Comercio that disappeared on Monday in the province of Esmeraldas.
Ecuador confirmed on Tuesday that the three had been kidnapped and that contact had been made with the captors.
The meeting involves representatives of Cosepe, which includes a dozen members, including the vice president, the head of the Assembly, ministers of defense and the interior, the foreign minister, and others responsible for coordinating state security apparatuses.
The security situation on the border with Colombia has been deteriorating since last January and was exacerbated the previous week with the death of three Ecuadorian Navy infantrymen in an attack with explosives and the kidnapping on Monday of the news team.
The Ecuadorian Minister of the Interior, César Navas, considered today that the kidnappers are not looking for money and said that to date they have not asked for a ransom.
According to revealed the commander of the Colombian Military Forces, General Alberto Mejía, to the radio station RCN Radio, the head of the dissidence of the FARC in the southwest of Colombia Walter Patricio Artízala Vernaza, alias “Guacho”, is responsible for the kidnapping.
Navas said on Tuesday that the captured were presumably in Colombian territory, although the Colombian Defense Minister, Luis Carlos Villegas, considered today that, at the moment, there is no information that indicates that those kidnapped at the border have been transferred to Colombia. (I)
