Significance: The row over the latest Colombian incursion shows no signs of abating for now. Once again Colombia appears relatively indifferent to Ecuador’s complaints over the violation of its territorial sovereignty, but President Rafael Correa clearly wishes to establish its unacceptability in order to prevent further such incidents. Correa has made it clear Ecuador does not wish to play any part in the US-backed Plan Colombia to defeat leftist guerrillas, and has launched his own Plan Ecuador to protect and regenerate the northern border area.

Speaking on his weekly radio show, Correa said that the foreign ministry had sent another protest note to Bogotá on 30 March. The note expressed Quito’s disagreement with the Colombia incursion and the deaths of the Ecuadorean Jorge Plaza Manquillo and the Colombian Daniel Marroqui. According to the Ecuadorean government, Manquillo was a peasant farmer; according to the Colombian authorities he was a member of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. The diplomatic also called on the Colombian government to investigate the deaths of three other Ecuadoreans killed by Colombian troops in 2006.

“Colombia is a brother country, but between brothers there can also be abuses,” the president said. “We will not tolerate any more abuses. We will continue to take the necessary measures, such as going to the international court at The Hague, among other things.”

Separately, Correa also ruled out allowing the Organization of American States (OAS) to intervene over the political crisis the country is experiencing. It is not clear whether congress will sit today (2 April), due to the fact a regional judge reinstated 57 congressional deputies after the supreme electoral court had suspended their political rights for a year and after many of their alternates had taken their place in parliament. Correa denied there was an institutional crisis, and said it was merely a political one, caused by those “who have been accustomed to rule the country”.