Rafael Correa: We have recovered Ecuador’s self-esteem
• Ecuadoran President talks about essential regional and national issues

Jorge Petinaud Martínez *

MOSCOW.—Rafael Correa’s victory with Alianza País in the 2006 presidential elections and his reelection in 2009 and 2013 has transformed Ecuador, previously ungovernable, into one of the most prosperous and stable nations in Latin America. During this period, his project of a Citizens’ Revolution against the neoliberalism of previous governments, has contributed indisputable advances to the economy, education and the training of human resources in the country. On a recent working visit to Moscow, Correa kindly agreed to an interview with Prensa Latina about the alleged "economic miracle" which has taken place in Ecuador, a term which he rejects.

Russia has become one of the principal markets for Ecuador; at the same time there are important Russian investments underway, such as large hydroelectric plants and other projects in which Russian enterprises could be interested (…).

At the political level, we are in agreement in terms of international policy in relation to the crisis in Syria and, in general, having a multipolar world without arbitrators who believe themselves to be above good and evil.

Look at the contradiction here; you have named presidents who enjoy immense popular support, but suffer constant media lynching. If you read the press of Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and you didn’t know our countries, you would imagine that the prisons are full of political opponents, those advocating an independent free press. This is a crude lie. Why this lynching? Because we are confronting a powerful media lobby, one being sown by the capitalist empire, the real enemy of the modern left. They do not need bombs, bombardments, missiles in order to subject our countries. They need dollars, arbitration centers, all these structures in the name of a supposed legal security; in reality, security and abuse by the transnationals (…).

It is evident that there is a reconstruction of the neoconservative right in the region. We should not overestimate our advances, everything could be reversed. There are things which sound very nice in name, but there is a gap in relation to their real scope. You have mentioned CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), which is being consolidated, UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America). But, we still have an OAS (Organization of American States) which, as Fidel (Castro) said, is none other than a ministry of colonies. An OAS with its headquarters in Washington, when this is the country which, for half a century, has committed the greatest attack on the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the UN Charter, the blockade of Cuba.

How many times, virtually unanimously, has the United Nations rejected the blockade? What could be a more evident attack on Inter-American law (…)? What could be a greater attack on human rights? How much has the blockade cost Cuba in every sense, in human lives, in economic advances, job loss (…)? As long as the OAS and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights fail to resolve, conclusively, without any abandoning of principles, this serious attack on all aspects of international law constituted by the blockade of Cuba, all the rest is pure hypocrisy. •