(PNS reporting from QUITO) You don’t have to be an accused rapist hiding from the Swedish police like Julian Assange or an alleged spy like Edward Snowden to consider asylum in the República del Ecuador.
That’s the message of the new Do Ecuador marketing campaign from Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism, which was announced in this high-altitude capital city Monday.
“There are only 15 million of us here in a country that covers 109,000 square miles, so come on down!” gasping-for-breath State Secretary for Tourism Gandalfo Gordo explained between hits of oxygen at a press conference in the newly-remodeled Safe House Hotel, formerly El Motel Seis.
“We can keep your butts away from Interpol, the CIA, whatever,” said Gordo. “And we have regular tourist stuff as well, like this one really old city and jungles. Also, we own the Galapagos Islands, bitches.”
“We’ve been a democracy since 1980,” he noted, “and El Presidente Rafael Correa shares the same name as an entire Asian peninsula.”
“And remember — if you can’t come to Ecuador, which lies between latitudes 2°N and 5°S — diplomatic extraterritoriality means a little bit of Ecuador can come to you, like, say, in London. Don’t let an arrest warrant in a rape case cramp your style. Do the right thing. Do Ecuador. Calling code +539. We take U.S. dollars.”