Ecuador Offers US Human Rights Aid, Won’t Hand Snowden Over

[heading]Ecuador Offers US Human Rights Aid, Won’t Hand Snowden Over[/heading]

The US is no longer a superpower, in part thanks to Edward Snowden.

There is one aspect of the Edward Snowden saga – above and beyond any “revelations” of PRISM, etc. – that has signaled the world has moved beyond the post-World War II Breton Woods order: the utter disrespect shown the US by the international community. Ecuador’s government, with President Rafael Correa  as its’ head,  has continued in the steps of Hong Kong and Russia by telling Washington it could not have what it wanted. The South American country renounced US trade benefits, but offered to pay for human rights training in America in response to pressure over intelligence contract Edward Snowden.

“Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests,” government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.

In fact, Ecuador even offered the US $23 million per year to the US to finance human rights training.

According to Alvarado, the funding would help “avoid violation of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity,” Alvarado said. He said the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade benefits.

“Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits,” he said.Just last year, President Correa granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Correa is a 50-year-old US trained economist who won re-election in a  landslide victory in February due to generous state spending to improve infrastructure and health services, and his Alianza Pais party holds a majority in the legislature.

Ecuadorean officials said Washington was unfairly using the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which allows customs benefits in exchange for efforts to fight the drug trade, as a political weapon.

Ecuador is an OPEC nation of 15 million people and exported in 2012 $5.4 billion worth of oil, $166 million of

Correa, say supporters, say he has simply taken on media and business elites who were trying to erode what the president calls his “Citizens Revolution.”

Supporters of Correa say he has simply taken on media and business elites in an effort to further his “Citizens’ Revolution.”