Monitors took place in a press conference testifying to intimidation by New Forces militia in northern districts.

"Tuesday afternoon, Gbagbo's party held a press conference during which the monitors deployed in Bouake and Korhogo testified to attacks by members of the former rebel New Forces (FN), which replied by describing the charges as “poisonous” disinformation."

Sorry there were 3 regions which Gbagbo wanted disqualified - Savanes, Denguele, and Worodougou. In those regions Ouattara got between 85-93% of the vote, according to the IEC, and comprised over 1/4 of Ouattara's total vote tally.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/leaders-backers-rip-up-fraudulent-ivory-coast-election-result-2148788.html

It is important to note that Gbagbo challenged these results in the first round, when he hadn't even "lost" yet.

I don't understand how in the same article where they talk about violence the EU says that procedures were 'acceptable' in 96% of polling stations.

"The European Union had 120 observers here who visited nearly 1,000 polling stations. Observer mission chief Cristian Preda says voting procedures were respected in 75 percent of polling stations visited and were acceptable, in the judgement of his observers, in another 21 percent."

http://www.liberiawebs.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=688:gbagbo-wants-some-election-results-annulled&catid=84:africa&Itemid=528

Here's an account of the chaos which occurred at the IEC. How people can then say the IEC quite matter of factly approved the election results is quite puzzling. Especially since it's clear the IEC acted improperly when they released results before they were all consolidated.

http://www.france24.com/en/20101201-ivory-coast-president--results-delayed-chaos-elections-commission-gbagbo-ouattara

Furthermore, the New Forces flatly denied that anyone was being intimidated or that people were fleeing their villages out of fear of supporting Gbagbo. They denied there were any refugees. Yet even the UN and western media reported that thousands had fled the northern areas and that refugees were registering with their agencies. in Guniea.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/31362
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-19/world/ivory.coast.refugees_1_ivorians-alassane-ouattara-ivory-coast/3?_s=PM:WORLD

3 disqualifications just like the Hayes Election ;-)

FARC may not be good guys, but no way in hell are the Colombian governments good. A report written by the US Defense Intelligence Agency listed Uribe as a friend of Pablo Escobar.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm
Also: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042201144.html?hpid=sec-world

This article says over 2,800 union officials have been killed in the past 25 years or so, http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/colombias_anti-union_violence_rules_out_fta/
while this one states over 3,800 have been killed since the mid 80s. Even accounting for a large difference in numbers

Where do you get this idea that Ecuador is trying to spread a revolution? Trying to stop American businesses from meddling in their politics, yes; revolution, no. As for Uribe's popularity, most of the polls are conducted only in Bogotá, Medellín, Barranquilla, and Cali, Colombia's four major cities.

Ecuador was knowingly hosting a revolutionary group within it's territory and allowing them to operate along its border. Seems pretty comparable to base in Louisiana where the CIA set up the Cubans in the early '60s. And the last 25 years is a period which starts in 1985 and Colombia has had basically 2 complete civil wars during that period. 2,800 hundred trade unionists dead for the period hardly seems extraordinary considering the number of utterly random people who were butchered over the first 15-20 years of the cited time period. How do Colombian trade unionist deaths over that period compare to Peru for the same period adjusted for population? And I spoke of the actual elections, again, unless you imply massive repeated voter fraud. I never referred to polling.

And what American businesses are actively trying to meddle in Ecuador's politics? The pension funds that own the bonds they defaulted on?

"Oddly enough, the friend of mine who is an Africa-centered IR person was for 10 years married to the daughter of the American general who was in charge of Project Colombia at the beginning of the Uribe Administration."

Well, your friend is probably involved with a lot of shady people then, is all I can say. If you base your opinion on the people who lead the murderous Plan Colombia, I don't what to tell you.

The Farc are the good guys. In areas they control, peasants aren't being slaughtered by paramilitary thugs. As I said, many who joined the Farc tried the "non-violent" path, they were killed. Look up the UP and tell me the Colombian government is doing the right thing here. And Largeham already cited for you information on the assassination of trade union leaders. The whole "Killer Coke" campaign sprang up precisely because of the murderous attacks on trade unionists in Colombia. Furthermore, it's been demonstrated that the Colombian government murders peasants and then calls them 'rebels', in order to the inflate the number of 'rebels' killed.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB266/index.htm

" The CIA and senior U.S. diplomats were aware as early as 1994 that U.S.-backed Colombian security forces engaged in "death squad tactics," cooperated with drug-running paramilitary groups, and encouraged a "body count syndrome," according to declassified documents published on the Web today by the National Security Archive. These records shed light on a policy—recently examined in a still-undisclosed Colombian Army report—that influenced the behavior of Colombian military officers for years, leading to extrajudicial executions and collaboration with paramilitary drug traffickers. The secret report has led to the dismissal of 30 Army officers and the resignation of Gen. Mario Montoya Uribe, the Colombian Army Commander who had long promoted the idea of using body counts to measure progress against guerrillas."

Seriously, I don't know how anyone can read the descriptions of fumigation by Monsanto via Plan Colombia, combined with the reports of government ties to paramilitaries and drug cartels, and still side with the government on this one.

"“Previous consultation is not just a procedure, it is a fundamental right of the indigenous peoples,” explained Darío Mejía, a Zenú indigenous leader from Northwest Colombia and member of the ONIC’s board of directors. “It means the right to participation and the definition of their own future, of their own development strategies.”



“Fumigation is a weapon of war, a biological weapon. It doesn’t only kill the coca leaf. In fact, it doesn’t kill it, but rather damages the rest of the subsistence crops. The procedures for reporting damages are very tiresome, and what’s more, in the context of an armed conflict, the people are afraid to speak out, as the armed forces actively work to suppress that.”

http://www.narconews.com/Issue48/article2944.html

Since coca is a weed, it's the only thing that survives. Meanwhile people, animals, and the environment must endure the hazards of this chemical weapon - "Round Up", in addition to having their subsistence crops destroyed so they have no food.

Reports indicate that despite fumigation, there is more coca than when Plan Colombia began.

http://www.witnessforpeace.org/downloads/Col_Fumigations_factsheet.pdf

Examples of US corporations meddling in Ecuadorian politics. Well, how about Chevron, who is responsible for an absolutely monumental environmental disaster in Ecuador, refusing to abide by Ecuadorian court's decision to fine it 8.6 billion, and instead appealing to US courts to intervene on their behalf. They even tried to do Acorn-like sting operations to try and prove the plaintiffs in the case were corrupt.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/chevrons-dirty-fight-in-ecuador-2216168.html

Then there was that little matter of the attempted coup in Ecuador, in which Correa was both injured and kidnapped. Who was behind that?

"USAID

Certain progressive social groups have expressed their discontent with the policies of the Correa government. There is no doubt that legitimate complaints and grievances against his government exist. Not all groups and organizations in opposition to Correa’s policies are imperial agents. But a sector among them does exist which receives financing and guidelines in order to provoke destabilizing situations in the country that go beyond the natural expressions of criticism and opposition to a government.

In 2010, the State Department increased USAID’s budget in Ecuador to more than $38 million dollars. In the most recent years, a total of $5,640,000 in funds were invested in the work of “decentralization” in the country. One of the main executors of USAID’s programs in Ecuador is the same enterprise that operates with the rightwing in Bolivia: Chemonics, Inc. At the same time, NED issued a grant of $125,806 to the Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE) to promote free trade treaties, globalization, and regional autonomy through Ecuadoran radio, television and newspapers, along with the Ecuadoran Institute of Economic Policy.

Organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and Pro-justicia [Citizen Participation and Pro-Justice], as well as members and sectors of CODEMPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador [Indigenous Enterprise Corporation of Ecuador] and Fundación Qellkaj [Qellkaj Foundation] have had USAID and NED funds at their disposal.

During the events of September 30 in Ecuador, one of the groups receiving USAID and NED financing, Pachakutik, sent out a press release backing the coup-plotting police and demanding the resignation of President Correa, holding him responsible for what was taking place. The group even went so far as to accuse him of a “dictatorial attitude.” Pachakutik entered into a political alliance with Lucio Gutiérrez in 2002 and its links with the former president are well known:

“PACHAKUTIK ASKS PRESIDENT CORREA TO RESIGN AND CALLS FOR THE FORMING OF A SINGLE NATIONAL FRONT

Press Release 141

In the face of the serious political turmoil and internal crisis generated by the dictatorial attitude of President Rafael Correa, who has violated the rights of public servants as well as society, the head of the Pachakutik Movement, Cléver Jiménez, called on the indigenous movement, social movements and democratic political organizations to form a single national front to demand the exit of President Correa, under the guidelines established by Article 130, Number 2 of the Constitution, which says: “The National Assembly will dismiss the President of the Republic in the following cases: 2) For serious political crisis and domestic turmoil.”

Jiménez backed the struggle of the country’s public servants, including the police troops who have mobilized against the regime’s authoritarian policies which are an attempt to eliminate acquired labor rights. The situation of the police and members of the Armed Forces should be understood as a just action by public servants, whose rights have been made vulnerable.

This afternoon, Pachakutik is calling on all organizations within the indigenous movement, workers, democratic men and women to build unity and prepare new actions to reject Correa’s authoritarianism, in defense of the rights and guarantees of all Ecuadorans.

Press Secretary

PACHAKUTIK BLOQUE”

As for your saying that murdering 2800 trade unionists isn't so bad, Colombia year after year leads the world in murdering trade unionists.

http://www.ituc-csi.org/ituc-annual-survey.html

"The ITUC’s Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights has documented a dramatic increase in the number of trade unionists murdered in 2009, with 101 killings – an increase of 30% over the previous year. The Survey, released today, also reveals growing pressure on fundamental workers’ rights around the world as the impact of the global economic crisis on employment deepened.
Of 101 murdered, 48 were killed in Colombia, 16 in Guatemala, 12 in Honduras, six in Mexico, six in Bangladesh, four in Brazil, three in the Dominican Republic, three in the Philippines, one in India, one in Iraq and one in Nigeria. Twenty-two of the Colombian trade unionists who were killed were senior trade union leaders and five were women, as the onslaught of previous years continued. The rise in violence in Guatemala and Honduras also followed a trend developing in recent years."

Since overall violence related to the civil war was low in 2009, according to Colombian authorities, what's their excuse?

Here's the numbers for 2008

http://www.usleap.org/colombia-again-leads-world-trade-unionists-killed

Here's 2010 - where we saw an increase, 51 dead

http://www.newsbalita.com/51-trade-unionists-killed-in-colombia-in-2010/
I'm sure I could do this for decades. Colombia is over and over again called the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist.

http://www.gregpalast.com/crisis-in-ecuadorgreg-palast-interviews-president-correa/

Read this interview and then tell me if Correa sounds like a 'revolutionary' to you. Heaven forbid anyone in Latin America stand up for their own people against US multinationals.