Ecuador Disbands Rebel Air Force Unit, Begins Criminal Probe

The Ecuadorean air force Wednesday disbanded the paratroop commando unit that kidnaped President Luis Febres Cordero last week, and the attorney general launched a criminal investigation of the unit’s 150 members.

The actions were taken despite the president’s written pledge, as a condition for his release, that there would be no disciplinary or legal action against the rebels.

A senior Ecuadorean official said that Febres Cordero went along with both of Wednesday’s measures under strong pressure from the military high command. But two junior officers said the actions raise the risk of a new rebellion in the air force’s lower ranks.

The leftist-controlled congress passed a non-binding resolution early today calling on the conservative president to resign over his handling of Ecuador’s worst political crisis of this decade.

But a move by some opposition lawmakers to start formal impeachment hearings failed to gain majority support. The military high command had publicly backed the president and warned against such a proceeding.

The resolution asking Febres Cordero to quit passed by a vote of 36 to 29 after a two-day debate that followed partisan lines.

A presidential spokesman, Galo Franco, said Febres Cordero would ignore the resolution.

“What moral value does this congress have,” he asked, “to judge the conduct of a man who was imprisoned and close to death?”

Two sergeants guarding the president were killed, nine other loyal soldiers were wounded and four generals were held hostage with the president last Friday in the uprising at Taura air base near Guayaquil.

The 12-hour revolt ended when Febres Cordero signed an amnesty that freed retired air force Gen. Frank Vargas Pazzos, imprisoned for a failed attempt to overthrow the president last March.

Since then, military and civilian authorities have moved around the president to undo the deal. On Monday, a military court dropped insubordination charges against Vargas but ordered his arrest on an old charge of taking bribes.

Wednesday morning, officers at the base disarmed members of the paratroop unit, which Vargas created two years ago when he was air force commander, witnesses said.

Maj. Gen. Marcelo Salvador, commander of the air force zone that includes Guayaquil, said 74 of the paratroopers were flown to an air base near Quito for reassignment, and the others were to be flown there today.

“This is a routine transfer,” a government spokesman, Marcos Lara, said. “There are no reprisals, no arrests, nothing irregular.”

At the same time, however, Atty. Gen. Guillermo Moran Morbioni announced that he was ordering a civilian court to investigate the revolt and bring charges against any soldier or civilian involved.

Moran said he made the decision after consulting with Febres Cordero and did not feel bound by the president’s word not to punish his kidnapers. He said the president made a “personal commitment” to the rebels “with a gun pointed at his chest.”

“How can a prosecutor stand on the sidelines, indifferent to this crime that has outraged public opinion?” he asked reporters.

“It is up to the president to defend his own word of honor,” Moran added. “I have an obligation to defend the law.”

Febres Cordero was quoted by Ecuadorean newspapers Wednesday as saying a judicial investigation should go forward. He also said “politicians of the extreme left” plotted the uprising.

In an interview in hiding on Sunday, Vargas denied plotting the uprising and called it “a spontaneous action” by soldiers loyal to him.

Rene Vargas, an opposition congressman who is the former air force commander’s brother, said the dissolution of the commando unit shows that Febres Cordero “is not only a coward but a liar.”

But other congressmen critical of the president said they approved the action.

“Febres Cordero could not prevent the military from taking some kind of action even if he wanted to,” a high official close to the president said. “Don’t forget, the commandos acted against the armed forces, not just him.”

The resolution asking Febres Cordero to resign said he abused his authority and brought on last week’s revolt by refusing to free Vargas under an amnesty passed by congress last year.

It also accused his administration of refusing to seat judges named by congress, imposing legislation by decree, torturing prisoners, closing opposition radio stations and using thugs to disrupt congressional sessions.