On Monday, March 2, the U.S. Southern Command’s special operations forces joined with Ecuadorian commandos to launch a series of raids across that country targeting “Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations,” as SouthCom explained in social media posts. On hand were SouthCom commandant Gen. Francis Donovan and Rear Admiral Mark Shater, head of SouthCom’s Special Operations Command (SoCom). Despite Ecuador’s Constitutional prohibition against foreign military personnel operating in the country, neocon President Daniel Noboa has given special temporary authorization to the Southern Command to join Ecuador’s military to carry out these joint operations.
This is a major military escalation in Ecuador and should be seen in the context of the U.S.’s ongoing “Southern Spear” naval deployment in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, and the intensifying oil blockade and regime-change offensive against Cuba. In announcing a strict nightly curfew that will go into effect on March 15 in four provinces, Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Remberg told reporters at a police academy graduation ceremony that “this is war. Stay in your homes.”
It is hardly coincidental that as military operations were beginning, Noboa’s government announced the expulsion of Cuban ambassador Basilio Gutierrez and his entire staff, declared them all to be “persona non grata,” and gave them 48 hours to leave the country, breaking diplomatic relations. Noboa’s government gave no explanation or justification for this abrupt and unprecedented decision, which Gutierrez charged violated all norms of friendly diplomatic relations between nations.
