That relationship soured in early April 2011, when the Ecuadorean government expelled the American ambassador, Heather M. Hodges, angered by comments she had made in confidential cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, in which she accused Mr. Correa of appointing a corrupt police chief in order to have someone in the post “whom he could easily manipulate.”
The topic of the cable was particularly sensitive given the timing: Mr. Correa had just survived the greatest challenge to his presidency — and an attempt on his life — in the form of a police mutiny following the passage of legislation designed to standardize pay for public employees, which would have curtailed pay and benefits for the police force.
The United States retaliated by declaring the Ecuadorean ambassador in Washington persona non grata. In an interview conducted with Mr. Assange in June 2012, Mr. Correa also expressed his anger at the “imperialist attitude” of Ms. Hodges, who refused to either apologize or retract her comments.
While the two countries have new ambassadors in place, the wound remains raw. The opportunity to settle a grudge with the United States by refusing to deliver Julian Assange to authorities in either Sweden or the United States, where he could be charged with leaking classified documents, was simply too good to miss.
