Ecuador: US intelligence against Rafael Correa http://www.tiwy.com/news.phtml?id=208

Correa decided to stop the US hegemony in his country. In February of 2009 two American citizens working in the US embassy in Quito were announced personae non-grata. One of them, Armando Astorga, used to supervise anti-drug agencies in Ecuador. The other, Mark Sullivan, headed the CIA branch, and maintained contacts with those secret police agents who were responsible for video surveillance and eavesdropping, as well as web censorship. The US side would ask these agencies to spy on Chinese, Russian, Brazilian citizens, as well as visitors from other places put on the US list of 'unfriendly' countries: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Argentina. Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia militant group, or FARC, were also watched closely by the US. Washington spent billions (in vain) to achieve any evidence that the Correa Cabinet had links to Al-Qaida.

Since July the US embassy in Ecuador has been run by TimothyZuniga-Brown. A graduate of the National War College, he previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Nassau, The Bahamas. Before that, Mr. Zuniga-Brown was the Team Leader of an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in southern Baghdad supporting the U.S. Army's 4th Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. In September it was unveiled that the US Department of State appointed Adam E. Namm as new US ambassador to Ecuador. Also a graduate of the National War College, Namm used to work as a management counselor in Islamabad, and a human resources officer in Bogota.