ECUADOR`S PRESIDENT DEFIANT AFTER HOSPITAL RESCUE
Baku, October 1 (AZERTAC). A defiant Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa returned safely to the presidential palace late Thursday after spending hours held by police inside a hospital room outside Quito.
Minutes earlier, members of the Ecuadorian army -- wearing gas masks -- rescued him, a reporter for Ecuadorian Television reported.
Speaking from a balcony, Correa told thousands of jubilant supporters that he saw one person who was shot during the rescue, which he regretted.
He thanked his supporters -- in particular his bodyguards -- for standing behind him and said the rebel police effort to oust him had failed.
"Nobody has supported the police as much as this government, nobody has increased their salaries as much," he said about police protests about what they thought were salary cuts. "After all we`ve done for the police, they did this!" he said, adding that he was held inside the room and not allowed to leave.
"Supposed national police!" he spat. "Shame on you!"
"We never accept negotiating anything under pressure," he added.
Correa also said the actions of the police left him "profoundly sad, like there was a knife in my back."
Earlier Thursday, national police took to the streets of Quito, the capital, and physically attacked the president over what police said was the cancellation of bonuses and promotions.
The minister of security, Miguel Carvajal, said one person was killed and several were wounded, but did not offer details.
The government declared a one-week state of emergency Thursday afternoon and put the military in charge of security. The military said it will support the president and the nation`s democratic institutions.
"This is a coup attempt," Correa said in a TV interview from the hospital, where he had been taken after police lobbed tear gas at him.
Correa, 47, said police were trying to get at him there.
"They`re trying to get into my room, maybe to attack me. I don`t know," he said in a telephone interview with state-run Ecuador TV, referring to his attackers as "cowards."
"But, forget it. I won`t relent. If something happens to me, remember my infinite love for my country, and to my family I say that I will love them anywhere I end up."
A video by CNN affiliate Ecuavisa later showed a defiant Correa standing at an upper floor window, shouting to a crowd of supporters who had gathered outside the hospital, "If they want me, here I am," and then ripping his necktie loose.
Later, he told a television station by telephone from the hospital that, if he were killed, he would be replaced by thousands of revolutionaries. "The most I have to lose is my life," he said. "They`re going to achieve absolutely nothing!"
But Doris Solis, the coordinating minister of politics, disagreed with his characterization of events. "This is not a coup," Solis told CNN en Espanol.
Correa said a law passed Wednesday by the National Assembly does not cut compensation bonuses of police, as some have asserted, and he accused the news media and his political opponents of misinforming the public about the legislation.
Thursday night, he said that police -- "not one of them" -- had read the law.
"When they demanded that I revoke the law to let me out, I told them, `Don`t waste time with me. I leave as president of a dignified nation, or I leave as a cadaver," he said, his voice hoarse from shouting into a microphone.
"Of course, the law will not be revoked," he added, stabbing his finger into the air for emphasis.
Meanwhile, schools were closed, and children were sent home around noon Thursday. The schools are to remain closed Friday and until a new mandate overturns the decision.
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