Suddenly the Montesinos connection is starting to make sense, I had always looked on that stuff with a blank stare, not knowing what to think.
Montesinos selling weapons to FARC is not unique, several Ecuadorian officers and officials have been involved in the same thing. A lot of stuff flows through Ecuadorian ports to the FARC. They treat Ecuador as their safe zone, a lot of the lower level people keep their families there, a lot of them invest their money there (buying bars, farms, hotels in the border areas; they get good prices, too, if a FARC guy makes you an offer, are you going to haggle over the price?).
The present Ecuadorian president attempted a coup a few years ago, on Chavez' dime. Similar to Chavez, the coup was only a partial success but he later ran for president and won at the ballot box; he now refers to himself as a "dictocrat"; similar to Chavez he recently fired the Supreme Court (illegally, but they cleaned out their desks and went home anyway) and replaced them with people of his own choosing. He hasn't kicked us out of the country yet, though. He still lets us base our reconnaisance aircraft there.
But its interesting that when Montesinos fell, he went straight to Chavez for protection. I'm surprised that Chavez was embarrassed into giving him up. I think now, in the post-referendum era, when Chavez is feeling a little more confident, he would not be so easily embarrassed.