Ecuador's Correa facing ire over Colombia dispute

By Alonso Soto

QUITO, April 23 (Reuters) - President Rafael Correa's popularity will likely suffer if he further prolongs a dispute with Colombia because Ecuadoreans want him to focus instead on fighting inflation and spurring an anemic economy.

Correa, who has used much of the political capital from his popularity to exert control over Ecuador's institutions, initially boosted his high ratings seven weeks ago with a tough response to Colombia's bombing of rebels inside his country.

The leftist leader severed diplomatic ties with Bogota and rallied regional leaders to condemn President Alvaro Uribe.

But now he is the main obstacle to ending a dispute that the rest of Latin America, including his chief ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, thought was over just days after it began when Uribe shook Correa's hand at a summit.

Correa, whose confrontational style discomfits many Ecuadoreans, still refuses to restore ties or even talk with his conservative counterpart, limiting his comments to a public discourse laced with accusations such as "bare-faced liar."

Correa says he can no longer trust Uribe and has so far shrugged off pleas from the Organization of American States -- the Western Hemisphere's top diplomatic body -- to move on.

That poses a risk to Correa's popularity and means tensions will remain between two neighbors over Marxist Colombian rebels who finance their war against the state with drugs and launch bombings, kidnappings and army ambushes from the border area.

Ecuadoreans are increasingly focused on the problems of a slow-growing economy rather than a dispute that is unlikely anyway to escalate into an armed conflict.