The US Empire Plagues Ecuador

In 1829, Simón Bolívar said, “The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”

Bolívar’s words remain true as the US Empire plagues Ecuador with misery.

US Imperialism casts a long shadow in Ecuador. William Blum wrote, from 1960 to 1963, “In virtually every department of the Ecuadorean government could be found men occupying positions, high and low, who collaborated with the CIA.” A CIA agent revealed, “In the end, they [the CIA] owned almost everybody who was anybody [in Ecuador].”

In 1972, General Guillermo Rodríguez Lara overthrew President Velasco Ibarra in a coup. Months after General Rodríguez became the dictator of Ecuador, the US Embassy in Ecuador admitted to the Department of State that “the U.S. is responsible for everything that happens in Ecuador.”

Why are we responsible for everything in Ecuador? Because it’s ours and we control it. The US Embassy admitted its first reason for controlling Ecuador: “First, the U.S. has a positive interest in continued access to Ecuador’s petroleum and gas reserves.” Despite the dictatorship under General Rodríguez, Washington planned “to preserve its traditionally close relationship with the Ecuadorean military establishment,” because “The main interests of the United States in Ecuador were to maintain access to oil and gas reserves.”

President Nixon then gave the dictator, General Rodríguez, a gift: permission to buy taxpayer-funded US weapons.

A dictatorship and harsh repression were of no concern to Washington. The US Embassy admitted “The principal sources of danger to [the U.S.] will be the desire by Ecuadoreans for more rapid social and economic change… and more independent (i.e. less pro-US) national orientation.”

To steal Ecuador’s natural resources and keep Ecuador dependent on the U.S. (and pro-US), Washington continues to give the Ecuadorian military large sums of taxpayer money to wage a war against the people of Ecuador.

In July 2026, Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote, “The United States and Ecuador are deepening their security cooperation against a backdrop of serious human rights violations by Ecuadorian forces… including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.”

Between 2024 and 2025, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances documented “enforced disappearance of at least 51 victims, including children,” committed by the Ecuadorian military and police.

Washington supplies the “equipment, training, intelligence, and direct military support,” the Ecuadorian military needs to disappear children.

President Trump continues to support the U.S.-backed dictator of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, in his war against the people. This includes active military operations between the U.S. and Ecuadorian military, and covert CIA operations.

Last week, the Washington Post revealed that “a covert CIA program” targeted “multiple Ecuadorian fishing boats near the Galápagos Islands.”

In one of the CIA’s covert attacks against fishermen, eight people went missing. In the other two attacks, Drop Site News reported, ordinary fishermen were “abducted, blindfolded, and starved for eight days.”

The U.S. government/military and the Ecuadorian government/military wage a war against the people of Ecuador. It’s funded by US taxpayers.

-Anton Porcari