Last May, I met an American woman who lives in Riobamba. She said rumor had it that a munitions plant explosion there this time last year was no accident: lots of people think it was orchestrated by the military in order to hide evidence that the army had sold small arms to Colombia’s FARK rebel group.
Now comes more info: Reuters’s Amy Taxin says continuing scandals threaten to undermine “the role of Ecuador’s military as a calming, central power broker in an unstable nation.” She writes:
In the latest scandal, two acting sergeants were detained on accusations of trafficking arms to rebels in August and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe last week said a rocket launcher used in a Bogota attack belonged to Ecuador’s army.