Ecuador's president Rafael Correa said his government would not kneel down before anyone as the dispute with Britain over granting asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange continues....

Britain says it will not allow the anti-secrecy campaigner from Australia to travel to South America because it is obliged to extradite him to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.

"They're out of touch. Who do they think they're dealing with? Can't they see that this is a dignified and sovereign government which will not kneel down before anyone?" Mr Correa said in his weekly address last night.

"What a mentality, eh? They have not realized that Latin America is free and sovereign and that we'll not put up with meddling, colonialism of any kind, at least in this country, small, but with a big heart."

Trying to present the affair as an international David versus Goliath battle, Ecuador was hosting this weekend foreign ministers from both the ALBA group of leftist-led Latin American nations and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

Yesterday, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez called for ALBA members - which also include communist-ruled Cuba and Nicaragua, among others - to stand behind Ecuador.

"Latin America must be respected, our people must be respected, but only united can we earn that respect," he said.

Support for Ecuador appears to be growing in the region.

"Britain ... is wrong. The threat is not only an aggression to Ecuador, it's against Bolivia, it's against South America, against the whole of Latin America," Bolivian President Evo Morales said.