Politicians in Washington and the presstitutes in the media shrug off political assassinations unless, of course, they occur in countries that are continually portrayed as evil, like Russia and China.

Last week, Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist running for president in Ecuador, was gunned down during a campaign stop after addressing supporters at a high school. 

“When he stepped outside the door, he was met with gunfire,” a member of his campaign told The New York Times. “There was nothing to be done because they were shots to the head.”

Robert F. Kennedy, the Democratic presidential candidate in the U.S. who was denied secret service protection, tweeted that Villavicencio’s death was “tragic and sobering.”

“The corrupt knows no limits. Let us rise up and forge a society that does not tolerate corruption in any form,” he posted. 

Kennedy linked out to an Al Jazeera article that said Villavicencio, who was 59, was running on an anti-corruption platform and wanted to expose links between the country’s government and criminal gangs. He was considered a “right-wing” candidate and was polling around mid-pack. He said received death threats before his killing.

Days before his killing, Villavicencio addressed a crowd and said, “Here I am Mrs. Luisa González. They have told me to wear a bulletproof vest but here I am in a sweaty shirt, let the drug lords come, let the hitmen come.”

González is the front-running candidate from the socialist Citizen Revolution party. National Interest wrote that the U.S. would lose significant influence in the country if she were elected.

González has “aligned herself with Presidents Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina. Both are veterans from the Pink Tide era who have made standing up to ‘American neoliberalism’ a key tenet of their governing ideology,” the magazine wrote.

Six Colombian suspects were taken into custody after the shooting, and one died in a shootout. 

President Guillermo Lasso, the outgoing president who dissolved a National Assembly to prevent his impeachment proceedings, called for three days of mourning but said the snap elections will continue as planned on 20 August.

“This is a political crime, which has the character of terrorism, and we do not doubt that this murder is an attempt to sabotage the electoral process,” he posted. 

The Al Jazeera report noted that Lasso reached out to the FBI in the U.S. to help with the investigation.

TRENDPOST: Can you imagine, for a moment, the collective outrage in the news media if a candidate for president was killed in the U.K., China, or Russia? 

On the U.K. side the mainstream media would label it as a crime against democracy, China would be called a commie plot to remove its dictator and they would suggest that any killing in Moscow was carried out by a KGB henchman who is personal friends of Vladimir Putin. 

The news stories watched and read by the masses are assigned by editors who, naturally, want to succeed in their organizations. The way of success as what is called a “journalist” is to support your parent company’s line. The more loyal you are to an idea or party, the faster you will advance. (See “WESTERN MEDIA NOW REPORTING WHAT CELENTE, RITTER, AND MACGREGOR HAVE BEEN REPORTING FOR MONTHS: UKRAINE WON’T WIN” 1 Aug 2023.)

This assassination in Ecuador has been barely mentioned in the U.S. because most journalists only know Ecuador to be an impoverished country with fresh seafood. They have no clue that China’s influence there will likely increase after the election. The country has already expanded its trade ties with Beijing. (See “BIDEN VS. CHINA’S BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE: U.S. LOSES,” 30 Mar 2021.) 

González has used Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador, as an example of how she would like to govern. He was close to Beijing and used China as a lifeline in 2008 after defaulting on the nation’s debt.