Rebellious Ecuadorean General Vows to Keep on Fighting--Even From Hiding

The renegade former general who inspired a 12-hour abduction of President Leon Febres Cordero by air force rebels last week has vowed to keep fighting what he calls a civilian dictator, “if I have to do it from hiding.”

“He stopped being president when he failed to live up to his oath to respect the constitution,” retired air force Gen. Frank Vargas Pazos said in a clandestine meeting with three foreign reporters. “In a practical way, he has shown that he is a dictator.”

Vargas was released from a 10-month imprisonment Friday night in exchange for Febres Cordero and 30 other hostages who had been seized that morning by rebellious paratroopers while visiting an air base near Guayaquil. Two presidential body guards died and 10 people were wounded in the incident.

New Challenge

The former air force commander’s first public remarks since then spelled a new challenge to the conservative president, who already faces an investigation starting today in the opposition-led Congress over his conduct in the long, bitter Vargas affair.

In a nationally televised speech Monday, Febres Cordero called the uprising a “macabre” event staged by a “small group of rebels,” and he had even stronger words for his center-left civilian foes.

“It is an incredible paradox, proof of the extremes of political passion, sectarian hatred and fanatic vengeance that, while I was still a hostage, the most obsessed congressmen succeeded in calling an extraordinary session to analyze the conduct of a kidnaped man,” he said.

Febres Cordero, 55, a millionaire businessman, is this oil-exporting nation’s third constitutional president since a seven-year period of military rule ended in 1979. Since his 1984 election, his popularity has declined because of a severe recession caused by the collapse of oil prices.

Two Failed Uprisings

His troubles have been complicated by his combative personality and his frequent bypassing of Congress to decree such measures as sharp cuts in public spending.

These issues have become personalized in a feud between Febres Cordero and Vargas, a 51-year-old career officer who was air force commander until last March, when he was ordered to retire.

After he reacted by leading two uprisings that month, in which four people died, Vargas went to prison but was cleared of insubordination charges by an amnesty voted by Congress in October. Until Friday’s revolt, Febres Cordero defied the amnesty by refusing to promulgate it and by keeping Vargas locked up. During Vargas’ imprisonment, there were presidential speeches questioning his patriotism and his manhood.

Meeting with reporters late Sunday, Vargas claimed to have a large following in the armed forces but preferred to take his campaign against Febres Cordero into civilian politics as a candidate to replace him as president.

“The code in ancient times permitted duels to defend one’s honor,” he said, “but I am not demanding we do this now, we have more civilized ways.”

Using the florid rhetoric of Ecuadorean politics, the former fighter pilot rattled off a list of national ailments he said his military and university training equipped him to tackle: illiteracy, malnutrition, an acute housing shortage.

“The Congress should demand that the president resign so the country can live in peace,” he said. “The constitution gives me a right to fight for this. . . . I want to walk through the streets to shake the hands of all those who think I can be an alternative, to solve my country’s problems.”

Won’t Seek Coup

Asked if he would try to seek a military coup, Vargas said, “Never. I am a civilized man.”

Later, however, he said he would not rule out any tactics if the president violated the constitution. “It is best not to talk about this. But if you ask, I will fight with all the arms I have . . . if I have to do it from hiding, I will do it.”

He said he did not know in advance of last week’s revolt at the Taura air base but felt he had inspired it “in a moral way, for the manner in which I commanded my troops, not as a chief but as a human being. This moral force was on the minds of the soldiers and motivated them to act.”

The balding, U.S.-trained pilot, wearing a green flight suit, met reporters in a house in the port city of Guayaquil on the condition they not disclose its exact whereabouts. He said he was hiding until the military court here accepted the amnesty by dropping its charges against him.

On Monday, the court dismissed the insubordination case but not a 10-month-old corruption charge growing out of alleged kickbacks to Vargas and two other officers from the sale of a $14-million Fokker jet to the air force. The court ordered Vargas’ arrest in that case Monday.

Vargas has admitted accepting a $250,000 kickback from the plane’s Dutch manufacturer but said he used the money to build an officers club and increase air force pensions.

Crisis Seen as Serious

In his 20-minute speech Monday, Febres Cordero did not mention Vargas and gave no hint of how he planned to handle his rival. But his voice rose as he warned against new “acts of indiscipline or dishonest conspiracies by minuscule groups.”

A foreign military analyst called the revolt a serious crisis because it has threatened to turn much of the 12,000-member air force and its jet fighter pilots based at Taura against the rest of the 40,000-member armed forces.

And while it is thought unlikely that either Vargas or the civilian opposition has enough strength to force Febres Cordero out of office, some independent observers say the sniping by both could keep the country’s turbulent politics near a crisis level for the remaining two years of his term.

The Left Democratic Party, which leads the opposition, announced Monday that it will seek the president’s resignation on the grounds that his failure to accept the amnesty for Vargas led to a dangerous military crisis.

The 71-member unicameral Congress is to debate this week whether to try the president for misconduct. He would be obliged to resign if 48 congressmen voted against him after such a trial, but the center-left opposition bloc has just 40 seats.