President survives Ecuador police siege

Quito, Friday

Ecuador President Rafael Correa made a triumphant return to the presidential palace after loyalist troops rescued him from a police rebellion amid gunfire and street clashes that left at least two dead.

The Red Cross said two police were killed and 37 people wounded in the operation late Thursday that freed Correa from the National Police Hospital after 12 hours under siege by rebel police who he said wanted to kill him.

“We got him out, we got him out,” Interior Vice Minister Edwin Jarrin told AFP.

Hustled to safety by troops and an elite police special operations unit, Correa emerged on a balcony at the presidential palace to a hero’s welcome from cheering throngs of supporters.

“We will never negotiate anything under pressure,” Correa exulted, telling the crowd that he had told his captors: “I either come out as the president of a worthy country or I come out as a corpse.”

The rescue capped a dramatic day of violence and confusion that began early Thursday when police angered over a law that would cut their bonus pay rose up in rebellion and seized barracks in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca.

Correa went to the police barracks to face the mutineers, telling them he would not back down.

“If you want to kill the president, he is here. Kill him if you want. Kill him if you can. Kill him if you are brave enough, instead of hiding in the crowd.”

But tempers flared at the barracks, and the president had to leave when scuffles broke out and tear gas exploded near him. Overcome by the fumes, he was taken out by stretcher to the nearby hospital.

Once inside, though, Correa was unable to leave, surrounded by mutinous police as clashes broke out in the streets of the capital and rebels stormed the Congress and seized the main airport for several hours.

A loyal police special operations unit protected the president and kept the rebels out, Correa said after his rescue.

“If not for them, this horde of savages that wanted to kill, that wanted blood, would have entered the hospital to look for the president and I probably wouldn’t have been telling you this because I would have passed on to a better life,” he said.

With the president under seige, dozens of Correa supporters descended on the hospital, chanting, “Down with the coup, down with the enemies of the people.”

The government declared a state of emergency and ordered the military to restore order.

Correa, 47, a leftist ally of his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, charged that the rebellion was an attempted coup by elements of police and the military loyal to former president Lucio Gutierrez, a retired colonel who was overthrown in 2005.

Interviewed by CNN in Brazil, Gutierrez denied “the cowardly, false, reckless accusations of President Correa.” The chief of police, General Freddy Martinez, resigned, a spokesman said. And Correa vowed to purge the police force. (AFP)