Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:29Kesease.
00:00:30Perera
00:00:33perera here.
00:00:3525,
00:00:43become, as Washington puts it, one of the predera district of Manta a
00:00:46Pacific port
00:00:47city,
00:00:51every morning at dawn to feed their families, local fishermen head
00:00:54out to sea hoping for modest catch to take to the local
00:00:58market.
00:01:05Maria's life was like everyone else's in the village, but one
00:01:09day her husband louise set sail and never
00:01:12returned.
00:01:16his fishing boat and its crew of 18 vanished into the ocean without
00:01:22not, I i trace.
00:01:27for 24 years she's waited for Louis. searching for
00:01:30answers, she barely made and meet while
00:01:34raising her son
00:01:35alone,
00:01:39only now is she breaking her silence to tell her
00:01:43story.
00:01:49needed to sustain forces already in Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom
00:01:52come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,
00:01:56give us this day our daily bread.
00:02:01Luis, wherever you are, I hope
00:02:05you are well, I know we promised
00:02:08to take care of and raise our children, our
00:02:11children together, but God
00:02:14decided that it
00:02:16shouldn't be so, your son misses
00:02:20you, he needs you and it
00:02:24hasn't
00:02:27I have, I been easy, because neither he nor I were.
00:02:30Because you said you were only going to fish and that you would return, that we
00:02:34would baptize him, that we would celebrate his 2
00:02:38years,
00:02:47this is a book, this is the boat, here
00:02:50it is clearer, here it looks
00:02:52better,
00:02:56this is the name of the 18 crew members, this one
00:02:59here, they are all here, Luis
00:03:02Quigije, my son is named
00:03:04after him, yes, you can
00:03:06show it, this is here, this
00:03:10photo here
00:03:12begins the clippings
00:03:14from here begin the newspaper
00:03:18clippings,
00:03:25on June 5, 2002, they depart
00:03:28from the port of Manta. at night, 8
00:03:32PM, 18 people to carry
00:03:35out fishing activities with the positive
00:03:39mentality that for Father's Day they
00:03:43would return to spend time with their family, they did
00:03:46not return, they raised the
00:03:49alarm through some colleagues, through
00:03:53the captain's wife of the vessel who
00:03:56indicated, after June 7,
00:04:00that contact had been lost with the
00:04:01vessel,
00:04:05the crew members had disappeared without a trace, without
00:04:08leaving any marks, and we presumed
00:04:11it was a forced disappearance because the American
00:04:15base was here, that we are not in the Bermuda
00:04:18Triangle where a vessel
00:04:22of 120 tons disappears overnight
00:04:25and leaves no trace whatsoever for
00:04:28it not to have left traces, it must
00:04:32have been with some type of
00:04:36weapon, some bombing that sank the vessel with all
00:04:40its crew members, because there is no other
00:04:43logic that
00:04:46they either drilled it and sank the
00:04:50vessel completely so as not to leave
00:04:53evidence because they found nothing, they had
00:04:56nothing, there is nothing, there is no in the reports
00:05:00they made, there is no that they have seized a gram of
00:05:04drugs on any vessel,
00:05:07but damages are reported, so son
00:05:10says: no it can't be, you can't, it doesn't
00:05:14make sense, having a base
00:05:16here,
00:05:22at some point they found a gas cylinder and a
00:05:26vest and it was presented to the press and the
00:05:29captaincy and the port captain says it is
00:05:32presumed that they have been there for 15 to 22 days because the
00:05:36seashells were stuck, but that's what I
00:05:39always say, it wasn't to presume, there is a... an investigation
00:05:42unit here which is the judicial police that could do
00:05:46the expert report on that and determine truly how long
00:05:50that had been in the water and they never
00:05:53did it, finally after a few
00:05:55years they handed over those evidences to a
00:05:59junk dealer and they were found discarded on the
00:06:03Abarbasquillo road,
00:06:07mountain passes were found, wallets, evidence of
00:06:11violations, and it was said that there were
00:06:14documents of our
00:06:15relatives,
00:06:23well, the first story begins in Galapagos, with the
00:06:27military base in Baltra, during the Second World
00:06:30War, the pretext that existed there was
00:06:33that Ecuador was going to be attacked and that
00:06:37the base was placed in Galapagos to prevent attacks on
00:06:41Ecuador. What it did from Galapagos was monitor the Panama
00:06:45Canal,
00:06:54another US military base was established
00:06:58in the city of Manta through an international
00:07:02agreement, this base had a
00:07:05duration of 10 years, that's what the
00:07:08agreement said and it could be renewed by the parties.
00:07:29It wasn't only used to monitor the eastern Pacific, but supposedly to
00:07:33conduct anti-narcotics operations in the
00:07:35region.
00:07:42As... the war on drugs, the US military patrols the areas
00:07:45around Cocos Island in Costa Rica, the Gargona and Melpelo
00:07:49islands in Colombia, and Koiba in
00:07:51Panama,
00:07:54but the Galapagos islands, where America hopes to have new military
00:07:57base, are a long way from traditional South American cocaine trafficking
00:08:01roots. All of this suggests that the true
00:08:05goal is to expand the US military
00:08:07presence.
00:08:12my investigation was a compilation
00:08:16of the agreements that were
00:08:18made, how the agreement for the base was
00:08:22reached, what the objectives were,
00:08:25so we started to investigate, to see what was offered to
00:08:28Manta so that the Manta base would
00:08:32be accepted and there would be no protest, there was a
00:08:35discourse of
00:08:37seduction, not for the
00:08:41elites, they evaded it, but they were sold
00:08:44that, that they were going to disavow, many people
00:08:47went into debt to open nightclubs, to open
00:08:50restaurants, but the Greeks never left,
00:08:54they never went and it broke, the
00:08:57portfolio of loans increased
00:09:01by almost 300%. to the poor, the
00:09:05working people, they were told they would have
00:09:09employment, that there would be jobs at the base, seats
00:09:13of work, the only people who had employment at the base
00:09:16were domestic workers,
00:09:19cleaning, with very basic salaries,
00:09:23no,
00:09:30the negative thing about the base here in Manta was that
00:09:33it generated prostitution,
00:09:36uh, many women were deceived that they would be given
00:09:40citizenship, that did not happen. a
00:09:44I believe a US military hit
00:09:47someone, he was kept at the base, he was sent to the United States and there
00:09:51was no justice for that person, so it was
00:09:55a mini United States within our
00:09:58territory.
00:10:05A call to the national police, to the CONSEP,
00:10:08to the narcotics police to give us information about drug seizures
00:10:12in coordination with the United States,
00:10:16the report we have there says,
00:10:19we had no coordination with the United
00:10:22States, the seizures we made. from the anti-narcotics
00:10:26police are our
00:10:29seizures without US support and
00:10:33they seized around 250 tons per
00:10:37year,
00:10:42and we also analyzed the
00:10:44plans, here are the plans of the base
00:10:48that is, the plan and finally the complaints about
00:10:52the sinking of the ships were built. the
00:10:55runway with a thick layer of
00:10:58cement, of asphalt, and of course
00:11:01when we started looking at that, we said well, why
00:11:05is that layer necessary,
00:11:09if only monitoring aircraft like the Agua
00:11:13or the Orion are going to come,
00:11:16a structure of that thickness of that layer is not necessary, which
00:11:20was the first thing that caught our attention, and
00:11:22of course, when we finally learned about the agreement, it
00:11:26established that not only the Orion and Agua
00:11:30would land in Manta, and the first thing that caught our attention was, if it is a
00:11:34cooperation to fight drugs, why do we have
00:11:37planes like these, not
00:11:41the Galaxies and all that
00:11:44stuff, and it established
00:11:47that not only the Orion and Agua would land, but
00:11:51also the Galaxies, the Contelios, the DC3s, which are the cargo planes
00:11:58The C5 Galaxy is a military transport jet designed to carry
00:12:01very large cargo. It can rapidly deploy fully
00:12:05equipped combat ready units, including tanks
00:12:08anywhere in the world, providing vital field logistics
00:12:14a combat area.
00:12:25here we have documented the sunken boats, that
00:12:28is, copies of the legal processes
00:12:31that were
00:12:33initiated where the ownership
00:12:37of the boats, the number of boats, the IDs
00:12:40of the fisherman owners, the
00:12:43complaints, no, so here are
00:12:47documented the boats that were sunk.
00:12:51"I'm a fishing boat
00:12:56captain. A
00:12:59US chopper spotted us, flew around our vessel many times and
00:13:03ordered us to stop. A US
00:13:05frigate arrived. I was alone at the helm. They were
00:13:09following me. They signaled for me to stop. They
00:13:13intended to sink our ship. I complied and boarded the
00:13:16frigate. After that, they fired about
00:13:20150 cannon shots and the boat
00:13:23sank."
00:13:27'While my vessel was in Ecuadorian territorial waters,
00:13:30160 miles off the island of San Cristoval of the
00:13:34Galapacus Islands, it was intercepted by a US Navy
00:13:37frigate. After evacuating my crew, the frigate opened fire
00:13:41and sank our
00:13:42ship.
00:13:48My boat was intercepted and boarded by a US Navy
00:13:51unit. Once on board, the American sailers'.
00:13:55began searching and destroying the ship's
00:13:57hole. Finding no evidence, they proceeded to damage
00:14:01all communication and navigation equipment.
00:14:18Gentlemen, I confess myself increasingly disconcerted by the
00:14:21Russians rather alarming advances in Asia.
00:14:25Indeed, word has reached us that they have of late dispatched
00:14:28their first steamship to Bombay.
00:14:32India must remain
00:14:35hours.
00:14:41Their fears came true, the Russians really did come to
00:14:45India, but not as colonizers and we
00:14:48quickly found a common
00:14:50language.
00:14:56Growing domestic resistance to and criticism of the US
00:14:59military presence, viewed as violation of Ecuador's
00:15:03sovereignty led to President Rafael Korya,
00:15:07declining to renew the United States's lease in
00:15:092008. Article 5 of the new
00:15:13Constitution declared Ecuador, the
00:15:16territory of peace, and explicitly prohibited the
00:15:20establishment of foreign military
00:15:21bases.
00:15:25I confirm the national government's steadfast position not to
00:15:29extend the agreement on the use of the manta base by the United
00:15:33States of
00:15:33America.
00:15:38Little did us Ecuadorians know what the Manta base
00:15:40was for and what it specifically
00:15:44did, to the point that when first Minister of
00:15:47Economy and then President of Ecuador, I am
00:15:50referring to former President Rafael Correa, puts
00:15:54sovereignty in conversation on the table, no,
00:15:57and that is an important issue, because that was the point that allowed
00:16:01him to say, I am not against the Manta base,
00:16:05if you want you can stay, but you leave me.
00:16:17Under his leadership, Ecuador has
00:16:21the strongest partners for the United
00:16:22States.
00:16:25Daniel Neboa, a US citizen born in Miami in
00:16:281987. He's the son of one of Ecuador's wealthiest men, the
00:16:32banana king, Alvaro Naboa. Daniel is one of the Donald
00:16:35Trump administration's most notable.
00:16:40President Neboa wanted to host US military bases in his
00:16:43country, but when a November 2025
00:16:47referendum rejected the
00:16:49idea,
00:16:52the US still sent an air force contingent to the manta base under the
00:16:55old pretense of being a temporary mission to fight drug
00:16:58trafficking.
00:17:02On June 16th, 2026, the country's president also declared a state
00:17:06of emergency.
00:17:17and part of that hypocrisy is saying that with military bases Ecuador's security
00:17:20will improve, no, that when we had the
00:17:23Manta base, homicides per 10,000 inhabitants were 16
00:17:26to 18, when I left the government I left it at
00:17:305.8, we were the second safest country in Latin America, if
00:17:33we truly want to fight drug trafficking, organized crime,
00:17:37for example, detect the money trail, tax havens, prohibit tax
00:17:41havens, detect the route of weapons that
00:17:45come from the United States, detect the ports where drugs
00:17:48leave, in the Ecuadorian case these are the private ports of
00:17:52banana company Novoa, the company of the president of the republic and absolutely
00:17:55nothing is done.
00:18:08but US troops don't take part in anti-drug rates, the
00:18:12Ecuadorian military seems to conduct those operations
00:18:15alone.
00:18:18The US military is again stationed at ilo, now a
00:18:22dual use airport, a small part is dedicated to civilian
00:18:26aircraft, while the rest is used as a US military
00:18:29base.
00:18:33The Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense has signed an agreement with the Manta
00:18:36authorities to
00:19:07officers here have been spotted sporting a US army combat aviation
00:19:11units in Signia.
00:19:26A 30 second video of a military helicopter taking off at Dawn was
00:19:29posted on social media. No
00:19:32details regarding the targets, area of operation or
00:19:36casualties were disclosed.
00:19:39The Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense stated that the operation was
00:19:42classified.
00:19:46Officially, this mission was part of Operation Southern Spear, under
00:19:50which the United States has carried out at least 44 strikes on ships in the
00:19:54Caribbean and Pacific over the past six months, killing more than
00:19:57150 people that Washington accused of trafficking
00:20:01drugs, and it's not just about Ecuadorian
00:20:04vessels.
00:20:17another story here, fishermen are criminalized and
00:20:21they are told that they are all drug traffickers, if all
00:20:24fishermen were drug traffickers as
00:20:28as the United States says, where would
00:20:32we get fish for the local
00:20:33market?
00:20:41The fish has not decreased in the
00:20:44packaging factories,
00:20:47the fish has not decreased in the markets. two
00:20:50local ones, that means that there is still
00:20:53fishing activity by fishermen
00:20:57who are dedicated to it, but they are
00:21:00bombing them saying they are traffickers.
00:21:07At the same time, lawyers and human rights activists claim that
00:21:11those actions violate international
00:21:13law,
00:21:16by using armed force against people, not participating in
00:21:19hostilities, "the military is putting them in mortal
00:21:22danger with no lawful investigation or
00:21:25trial, this is a clear
00:21:29violation of human rights,
00:21:32no, this has happened in the Caribbean, it has happened in the
00:21:36Mexican Pacific, it has happened in the South
00:21:39American Pacific also in Ecuadorian
00:21:41ecuatorianas.
00:21:53As the years go by, it's still
00:21:57tough, it's 24
00:21:59years, where my son has always
00:22:03asked, they have always asked me,
00:22:06Mom,
00:22:09what would it have been like if my dad were with us,
00:22:12Mom,
00:22:17how nice,
00:22:21and he took you, he took you, he took you to
00:22:24work, and tomorrow he will
00:22:27work,
00:22:30Belén wrote to Jorge and Jorge sent me because I told him
00:22:33I wanted, my friends please tomorrow a person
00:22:37works in nine trucks and or
00:22:41serious things, son,
00:22:43wash your hands, come here,
00:22:47come, he is approximately. people 6
00:22:50years old, this 6 years old, but he is special, he
00:22:54is albino,
00:22:56albino,
00:23:03difficult because my dad was our support.
00:23:05for us, she had to work for
00:23:08me until now, support me in everything
00:23:11because she is the only one
00:23:17found strength in my mother. The only one
00:23:20I have
00:23:25the versions that the Gringo military had sunk the
00:23:28boat, that's what is
00:23:30known, as there are several
00:23:33cases, that's what is known, nothing
00:23:36else,
00:23:43that they continue investigating and give us an answer, what happened to the
00:23:46boat, that they would investigate the case for us.
00:23:52yes, there would be an answer,
00:23:54but
00:23:57they still wouldn't bring him back.
00:24:15I would tell him that I love him and that I'm still
00:24:17waiting for him.
00:24:25Despite that response, fishermen are still
00:24:27being mistreated on the high seas, their rights are still being
00:24:31violated out there and the
00:24:34state still fails to defend them, two
00:24:37vessels were intercepted
00:24:40within 200 nautical miles, they were
00:24:44bombed by drones, that's in the
00:24:46news, it's on the channels, but the news doesn't
00:24:50say that drugs were seized, we can
00:24:53say that history repeats itself, but thank
00:24:56God they are alive because of the social
00:25:00pressure that was exerted, because the family
00:25:03came out and reported that they were missing,
00:25:06securitization or militarization of the
00:25:09fight against drugs is a tradition that is almost 60
00:25:13years old and has failed in the United States and throughout the
00:25:17hemisphere, drug trafficking has not been able to be controlled by
00:25:20military means and will not be able to be in the foreseeable
00:25:24future, there was no fight
00:25:27against drugs at all, the fight against drugs for
00:25:31us from our perspective is a
00:25:34pretext for military intervention in the countries of
00:25:37America, sometimes very subtle, sometimes very
00:25:41grotesque, other times, but a process of US military
00:25:44intervention to control the social processes
00:25:48that occur in Latin America. that is the intention of a military
00:25:51base, at this moment we are experiencing a
00:25:54restructuring of the world, a new
00:25:58order is being born and it is a new multipolar
00:26:00order
00:26:02where the United States no
00:26:06longer has the power of an
00:26:08empire,
00:26:13and many times they are pushing it back by force, as in the
00:26:15case of the Middle East, the case of Iran, no, the
00:26:19process we have now has no turning back, we are going to a multipolar
00:26:23world.
00:26:38While this film was being edited, a massive fire broke
00:26:42out in Ecuador's main fishing port, Manta,
00:26:45destroying dozens of ships. This is the
00:26:48second major marine fire in the city in the past
00:26:50year, the cause remains
00:26:53unknown.
00:30:22Russia's first parliamentary election since the beginning of the
00:30:26Ukraine conflict have wrapped up and the counting of the votes has
00:30:29commenced. There's still a lot to see and to... discuss as the final
00:30:33figures won't be officially confirmed until next Friday. We're
00:30:37bringing you our special coverage as the world's geographically biggest
00:30:40country has its democratic
00:30:42say.
00:30:44And with the first preliminary results coming in, the ruling
00:30:48United Russia party is firmly top with solid
00:30:52majority. The runner-up is the Communist Party with almost
00:30:5514 percent and the Liberal Democratic Party is in
00:30:59third.