Ecuador requests U.S. envoy leave

BOGOTA, Colombia – Ecuador on Tuesday asked U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges to leave the country “as soon as possible” after a diplomatic cable provided by WikiLeaks revealed that she had speculated that President Rafael Correa was turning a blind eye to rampant corruption in the police department.

The dust up comes after Spain’s El Pais newspaper on Monday published the communique from 2009 in which Hodges laid out corruption charges against the former commander general of Ecuador’s police, Jaime Hurtado, and requested that his U.S. visa be revoked.

Hodges also speculated that Correa must have known about Hurtado’s corruption when he appointed him, but “may have wanted to have a (police) chief whom he could easily manipulate.”

On Tuesday, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said Correa was “surprised and offended” by the allegations and questioned how the U.S. Embassy had obtained internal police documents.

Patino said he called Hodges into his office on Monday to demand an explanation. According to Patino, Hodges said because the cable “was stolen” she refused to provide any additional information.

Patino emphasized that Ecuador was not expelling Hodges and was not breaking diplomatic ties with the United States but had declared her persona non-grata. The U.S. State Department said it was examining its options.

“Ambassador Hodges is one of our most experienced and talented diplomats and the department considers her expulsion unjustified,” State Department Spokeswoman Tanya Powell said in a statement.

Hodges had been ambassador in Ecuador since July 2008 and previously held posts in Venezuela, Guatemala and Peru.

If Hodges is not replaced, that would leave Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador without U.S. ambassadors. Bolivia and Venezuela expelled the U.S. ambassadors in 2008 amid charges that they were conspiring with the opposition.

Correa, a pragmatic populist who has strong ties with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, was seen to be mending his relationship with the United States after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the Andean nation last year.

In the WikiLeaks document, Hodges said there was evidence that Hurtado was taking kickbacks, involved in a police ring that trafficked Chinese immigrants to Central America, and may have acquired a property in Ecuador by having officers threaten the rightful owner.

The WikiLeaks website began releasing more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables in November. Many have been highly compromising but the diplomatic fallout has largely been contained.

But last month, Mexico demanded the resignation of U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual after WikiLeaks publicized his memos in which he criticized that nation’s counternarcotics effort.