Ecuador Slams Door On Hosting US Military Base In National Referendum

Ecuador just had a major vote which has gone some underreported in US mainstream media, given perhaps the current focus on the Venezuela crisis. The Latin American country held a referendum Sunday on allowing allowing the return of foreign military bases in the country.

This was ultimately seen as a vote on allowing an American military presence, which the US has long sought to reestablish. Ecuadoreans voted down the proposal in a significant blow to President Daniel Noboa, who has sought a change in the constitution. Since 2008, the constitution has banned foreign bases on Ecuadorean soil.

One of Noboa’s key rationales for seeking a reversal of the prior legislation was to have outside assistance in fighting soaring crime and drug-trafficking in the country and region. 

The referendum was held 16 years after the United States was made to shut down a military site on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

The New York Times suggests that Ecuadoreans currently see the Trump administration pushing its military might around in the Caribbean while threatening countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and even more recently Mexico:

They soundly rejected a national referendum on Sunday that he had backed, aimed at authorizing a foreign miliary presence in Ecuador. With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, 61 percent opposed the measure.

The vote comes as the region has been roiled by the intensifying U.S. military campaign against boats the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs.

The Ron Paul Institute also sees in this a grass roots movement among foreign peoples to reign in US foreign policy and militarism in their lands. Journalist and pundit Adam Dick writes the following:

There is not a lot of reason for hope for the US to start adhering soon to a noninterventionist foreign policy. Indeed, President Donald Trump has been moving the US in the opposite direction. He continued US participation in the wars of his predecessor. This includes the Ukraine and Israel wars, in regard to which Trump had promised, in the lead-up to becoming president, to bring peace very quickly. Further, Trump has begun a new war against Venezuela and is threatening to pursue a new “Global War for Christians,” starting with threats of US military attacks in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Congress does nothing to stop or curtail the intervention.

There seems to be little hope of the US government choosing to move toward nonintervention abroad soon. Maybe some of the best hope for change in that direction comes from people in other countries saying “no more” to aiding the US government’s interventionist pursuits.

On Sunday, a majority of voters in Ecuador voted in a national ballot measures election against allowing the US government to have military bases in the South American country. The “no” vote win occurred despite Ecuador President Daniel Noboa strongly campaigning for the ballot measure’s approval.

So long as Americans fail to put an end to their government’s interventions abroad, there is hope that people in Ecuador and elsewhere around the world can impose some restraint.

Also in the background has been Trump admin officials really pushing and reviving concept of influence in the world based on the 18th century Monroe Doctrine.

The historic Monroe Doctrine declared the Western Hemisphere off-limits to other countries, while vowing at the same time the US would stay out of European affairs. Of course, Washington is currently only interested in the former part of this and not so much the latter.