15.Chavez Says U.S. Is Behind Failed Coup Attempt Against Ecuador's Correa By Charlie Devereux - Sun Oct 03 15:49:50 GMT 2010

Chavez Says U.S. Is Behind Failed Coup Attempt Against Ecuador's Correa

By Charlie Devereux - Sun Oct 03 15:49:50 GMT 2010

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Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa vowed to overhaul the police force after officers protesting a wage cut held him captive, forcing a military rescue mission that left two dead. Bloomberg's Nathan Gill reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says the U.S. was behind a failed uprising in Ecuador, in which President Rafael Correa claims he was held against his will in a hospital by police and soldiers protesting wage cuts.

Washington is supporting coup d’etats against an alliance of Latin American left-wing countries, known as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, or ALBA, which was formed by Chavez to counter U.S. influence in the region, he wrote in his weekly column “The Lines of Chavez.”

“Let’s not forget, the failed attempt, manufactured by Washington, was looking not only to bring down Correa’s government but also the ALBA and Unasur (Union of South American Nations),” Chavez wrote in the column. The U.S. “has revived the old measure of coup d’etats to spoil plans of governments that don’t subordinate to it.”

“In response to the events that happened in Ecuador, Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton immediately came out expressing our support for President Correa,” said Thomas Mittnacht, head of the press section at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. “Any accusations that the U.S. had anything to do with what happened are without foundation.”

Correa was rescued from a Quito hospital that police besieged on Sept. 30 in protest of wage cuts. Fighting between security forces and police, as well as related violence, left eight people dead and 274 injured, the Health Ministry said.

Correa and Chavez both described the incident as an attempted coup.