Ousted Ecuador president
gets Brazil asylum

Support for Plan Colombia
His strong support for the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, which has provided tens of millions of dollars to Colombia to fight leftist rebels and drug traffickers, and his free-market policies made him a close ally of the Bush administration, but further alienated many Ecuadoreans.

The setup to Gutierrez’s political fall was a struggle for control of Ecuador’s judiciary system after he negotiated a loose alliance of legislators to purged the Supreme Court — a move widely viewed as a gross violation of Ecuador’s Constitution.

The crisis boiled over earlier this month with the return from asylum in Panama of another former president, Abdala Bucaram, who was in office for six months before Congress removed him in February 1997 for “mental incapacity.”

Gutierrez served as Bucaram’s military attache during his short-lived presidency.   The presence of Bucaram, a flamboyant populist who calls himself the “Crazy One,” provoked fury in many Ecuadoreans because of his government’s reputation as one of the most corrupt in many decades.

'Our state is decrepit, obsolete'
Gutierrez’s opponents charged he cut a deal with Bucaram to have the Supreme Court clear him of corruption charges, allowing his return, as payback for key votes Bucaram’s political party provided last year blocking an impeachment effort against Gutierrez in Congress.

“People have lost trust in their representatives,” Palacio said in a nationally televised address from the defense ministry, with the four members of the military high command standing behind him. “Our state is decrepit, obsolete,” he said.

Hours earlier, a crowd of some 500 protesters prevented Palacio from leaving the building where congressmen were forced to meet to vote Gutierrez out of office because protesters had blocked the entrance to Congress.

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