Ecuador voters appear to approve constitution

Voters in Ecuador overwhelmingly approved a new constitution Sunday that would concentrate power in the hands of socialist President Rafael Correa, advance his reformist agenda and enable him to remain in office until 2017, exit polls indicated.

The constitution was drafted last summer by a special congress convened by Correa, who was elected in a 2006 landslide by voters exasperated by this country's chronic corruption, political instability and ineffectual lawmakers.

According to the exit count conducted by government-commissioned pollster Santiago Perez, 66% approved the constitution and 25% voted against it. The independent Cedatos-Gallup poll said the yes vote was 70%. Voters were required by law to vote on the constitution as a package, not by individual provisions.

Very early returns showed 65% support with 5% of the vote counted.

Read the rest of the dispatch on Ecuador's new constitution here, and for more on Ecuador in general, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Southern California's dual citizens see little conflict

Salvador Gomez Gochez was 25 when he first came to Los Angeles with $3 in his pocket and painful memories of his Salvadoran homeland torn apart by repression and war, reports Teresa Watanabe.

Working his way up from a parking lot attendant to a manager, he learned English, bought a home, volunteered for a Salvadoran community organization and became a U.S. citizen, grateful to the country he says saved his life.

But Gomez Gochez, now 54, also retained his Salvadoran citizenship. Now, as a dual citizen, he has made the dramatic decision to return to his impoverished hometown in El Salvador and run for mayor after nearly three decades away. His hope: to revive his town's agricultural base with his U.S. contacts and empower the villagers with U.S. practices of participatory democracy.

As international business, travel and communications explode, a growing number of nations are allowing dual citizenship, and more immigrants are claiming it. Some, like Gomez Gochez, aim to use their bilingual and bicultural experiences to infuse their homelands with U.S. values and strengthen bonds between both countries.

But the trend is also stirring some unease.

Read more about Americans with dual citizenship here.

Image: Mario Fuentes poses at outside of Trinity Episcopal Church that hosts his L.A.-based community organization. Fuentes, an immigrant from El Salvador, is a middle-class homeowner, fluent English speaker and labor and community organizer. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival to begin Sept. 12

In the film "Paraíso Travel,” a young immigrant named Marlon finds himself lost and broke shortly after arriving in New York and being separated from his girlfriend, the cunning and sexy Reina, played by Angélica Blandón. He meets an older man, a fixer for new arrivals, who helps him find shelter and asks the naive illegal what else he might need, writes Agustin Gurza.

"How do I get rid of this fear?" asks Marlon, somewhat overplayed by Aldemar Correa.

Of course, the old man can't help him with the dread that haunts strangers in a strange land, except to say that in time it goes away. That small, intimate moment in this occasionally overwrought drama offers a glimpse into the emotional and mental toll of the immigrant experience, which is often seen through ideological eyes.

"Paraíso," the year's biggest box office hit in Colombia, will have its West Coast premiere during the 12th annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, which begins Friday. It's one of 132 films that will screen at the festival, co-founded by Edward James Olmos, Marlene Dermer and the late George Hernández to spotlight Latino films. Ironically, the festival has suffered from the very success it has sought as top Latino filmmakers now find themselves courted by other festivals. Still, many consider the festival (which counts The Times as a sponsor) as a special opportunity to show their work in the U.S.

Read more about the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival here.

For more on film on La Plaza, click here.

Image: The film, featuring Aldemar Correa and Angélica Blandón, middle, is one of seven from Colombia that is screening at the festival. Camilo George Jimeno / Grand Illusions Entertainment

Ecuador asks Colombia to send troops to border to contain rebels

With no sign of a thaw in their frozen diplomatic relations, Ecuador this week called on Colombia to increase its military presence along their shared border to check the spillover of rebel groups, drug trafficking and war refugees.

The demand was one of several laid out by officials as they argued that their nation had paid too high a price for its neighbor's decades-long civil conflict and that Colombia must take more responsibility for the encroaching violence.

The two nations seem far from repairing the rift triggered six months ago, when Colombian troops crossed the border to kill a rebel leader holed up in Ecuador. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa deployed troops along the border and two days later cut diplomatic ties.

Read more of Chris Kraul's report on Ecuador and Colombia here.

Click here for more on Colombia and here for more on Ecuador.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Ecuadorans appear to favor new constitution

Thousands marched Saturday to back Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who polls show appears closer to winning a Sept. 28 vote to pass a new constitution that would expand the leftist leader's authority, reports Reuters.

Correa, a former economy minister who took office last year, is widely popular for his spending on the poor and his pledges to fight powerful elites, whom he blames for the political instability that toppled his last three predecessors.

The new constitution would bolster Correa's sway over the oil-producing nation's economy and political institutions, such as Congress and the top courts.

Read the full report on Ecuador's President Correa here.

Click here for more on Ecuador.

Los Angeles needs to go global to fight gangs, says Rocky Delgadillo

Rocky Delgadillo, the Los Angeles city attorney, oversees the enforcement of 57 gang injunctions, including ones against the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. In Opinion today, he talks about how combating Los Angeles gangs is not a local challenge, but an international one.

"The two fastest-growing and most powerful gangs in the world are homegrown products of Los Angeles. The Mara Salvatrucha gang, or MS-13, and the 18th Street gang, known in Central America as Mara 18, sprang up in Pico-Union and the densely populated neighborhoods around MacArthur Park. But unlike many local street gangs, these two were entrepreneurial: They recruited Central American immigrants across the city and then expanded farther -- throughout Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Conservative estimates put MS-13's ranks at 20,000 and 18th Street's at 30,000 worldwide.

"Stopping street gangs is no longer a local matter -- a point driven home to me during a symposium in El Salvador. During the conference, two points of consensus emerged. First, MS-13 and 18th Street have become an international concern -- indeed, even Interpol is now involved in the fight. Second, past strategies to handle these gangs have failed."

Read the full Opinion piece here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Ecuador draft constitution passed

A special constituent assembly in Ecuador has overwhelmingly approved a draft of a new constitution sought by the country's president, Rafael Correa, reports the BBC.

Ninety-four of the 130 assembly members backed the text, which will be put to a national referendum on Sept. 28.

The left-wing leader says the reforms, which would allow him to stand for election again, will tackle political instability and make Ecuador a more just society.

But critics say they will focus more power in the president's hands.

Read more about Ecuador's new draft constitution here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Ecuador president still smarting from Colombian border incursion

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has said he will not restore diplomatic ties with Colombia until its president, Alvaro Uribe, leaves office in 2010, reports the BBC this morning.

It is the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries since they broke off relations in March after a Colombian raid into Ecuador.

Meanwhile, Correa isn't taking any chances and is fortifying defenses on the country's border with Colombia, according to the Associated Press.

"Defense Minister Javier Ponce said in an interview that the government is buying six Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles and new radar so it can get a better handle on its borders, especially the troubled frontier with Colombia."

Read on...

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Ecuador's president may pardon 'drug mules'

Ecuador's President Correa is planning to change the country's drug laws. Stiff penalties unfairly punish the poor, says Correa, who are forced into the drug trade for economic reasons.

This video dispatch from Reuters goes inside a prison in Ecuador to speak to some of those serving long jail sentences for possession of small amounts of drugs. The left-wing president is proposing a pardon for 2,000 "mules," or low-level drug carriers, currently languishing in jail, many of them because they can't afford a lawyer.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Ecuador's president says 'assassination' plot may be hoax

There's a strange story out of Ecuador about an alleged plot to assassinate Ecuador's president Rafael Correa. But the incident later was characterized as a possible con job by ... Correa himself.

Correa lately has been near the center of the regional conflict between neighboring Colombia's government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla rebels. Earlier this year, a diplomatic crisis occurred when Colombian officials alleged that documents found at a FARC camp inside the Ecuadorean border showed evidence of political cooperation between the rebels and Correa.

The alleged documents were seized during a highly controversial March 1 Colombian military raid into Ecuador. Colombia has made similar charges of cooperating with the FARC against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Correa ally.

Correa denounced Colombia's allegations as lies, and condemned the raid as a violation of Ecuador's sovereignty. The Organization of American States also denounced Colombia's attack. Colombia has apologized for making the raid, but verbal skirmishing has continued.

At first, Thursday's incident, in which Ecuadorean police arrested four men, including at least three Colombians, on charges of plotting to kill Correa seemed to augur more cross-border finger-pointing. But Correa himself later cast doubt on the plot. Read the Associated Press account here.

" 'There is a high possibility that they're simply con men,' said Ecuador's leftist president, adding that the men had asked for money in exchange for information."

"Police must 'continue to investigate, but we are not alarmed,' he said."

Stay tuned....

"Photo: Rafael Correa in a May, 2008 file photo. Credit: Remy de la Mauviniere, Associated Press

-- Reed Johnson in Mexico City