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Ecuador Expelling US Ambassador

   VOA News  April 05, 2011
   U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador Heather Hodges arrives to sign an agreement
   and accord letters in the fight against drug trafficking and
   international crime in Quito, Ecuador, August 25, 2009

Photo: Reuters

   U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador Heather Hodges in Quito, August 25, 2009

   Ecuador is expelling the U.S. ambassador over a 2009 diplomatic cable
   divulged by WikiLeaks in which the diplomat accused the Andean nation's
   former police chief of corruption.
   Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, Tuesday declared Ambassador
   Heather Hodges "persona non grata" and asked her to leave the country
   "in the shortest time possible."
   The U.S. State Department said the expulsion was unjustified and that
   Washington will examine its options. Spokesman Mark Toner said Ecuador
   did not specify why she was deemed persona non grata.
   Patino said he met with Hodges on Monday but had not received a
   satisfactory explanation about the cable. He said it did not mean that
   Ecuador was breaking relations with the U.S.
   The cable, published in a Madrid newspaper on Monday, centers on Jaime
   Hurtado Vaca, Ecuador's former national police commander. According to
   the paper, Hodges says the commander should be stripped of his U.S.
   visa, alleging he used his position to commit financial crimes,
   facilitate human trafficking and obstruct investigations of corrupt
   colleagues. She said corruption in Ecuador's national police force was
   "widespread and well-known."
   Hodges is the second U.S. envoy in Latin America to run into difficulty
   in a host country based on leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks has
   divulged thousands of cables from U.S. embassies around the globe and
   documents related to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
   Last month, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, resigned
   after a leaked cable showed that the diplomat doubted the Mexican
   government's ability to combat that nation's drug war.

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