Reflections by Comrade Fidel
Rafael
Correa Read Spanish Version
I
remember when he visited us, months before the electoral campaign
when he was thinking of running as a candidate for the Presidency of
Ecuador. He had been the Minister of the Economy in the government of
Alfredo Palacio, a surgeon with professional prestige who had also
visited us as Vice President, before becoming the President in an
unexpected situation that took place in Ecuador. He had been
receptive
to a program of ophthalmologic operations that we
offered him as a form of cooperation. There were good relations
between our two governments.
A while earlier Correa had
resigned from the Ministry of the Economy. He was unhappy with what
he called administrative corruption instigated by Oxy, a foreign
company that explored and invested important sums of money, but was
holding on to four out of every five barrels of oil that it
extracted. He didn’t talk about nationalization, but about taxing
them heavily; these taxes would be assigned in advance to specific
social investments. He had already approved the measures and a
judge had declared them to be valid.
Since the word
"nationalize" had not been mentioned, I thought he felt
apprehensive about the concept. It didn’t surprise me because he had
graduated as an economist with much acclaim from a well-known U.S.
university. I didn’t bother getting into much depth; I bombarded him
with questions from the arsenal accumulated in the struggle against
the Latin American foreign debt in 1985 and of Cuba’s own
experience.
There are high-risk investments that use
sophisticated technology and that no small nation like Cuba or
Ecuador could take on.
Since this was already in 2006 and we
were determined to promote the energy revolution, –ours was the
first country on the planet to proclaim this as a vital issue for
humankind– I had dealt with the subject particularly emphatically.
But I halted, as I understood one of his reasons.
I related to
him the conversation I had had a while ago with the president of
REPSOL, a Spanish company. This company, associated with other
international companies, would undertake an expensive operation to
drill the ocean floor, more than 2000 meters down, using
sophisticated technology, in Cuba’s jurisdictional waters. I asked
the head of the
Spanish company: How much is an exploratory well
worth? I ask you this because we would like to participate, even if
it is for one percent of the total cost and we would like to know
what you want to do with our oil.
Correa, for his part, had
told me that for every one hundred dollars taken out by the
companies, only twenty remained in the country; it didn’t even get
into the budget, he said; it was left in a separate fund for just
about anything other than improving the living conditions of the
people.
I abolished the fund, he told me, and directed 40
percent towards education and health, technological and highway
development, and the rest towards buying back the debt if the price
was favorable, and if not, investing it in something more useful.
Before, every year we had to buy a portion of that debt which was
becoming more expensive.
In the case of Ecuador -he added-
oil policies verged on treason against the country. Why do they do
it? I asked him. Is it because they are afraid of the Yankees or due
to unbearable pressure? He answered: If they have a Minister of the
Economy who tells them privatization would improve efficiency, you
can just imagine. I didn’t do that.
I encourage him to go on
and he calmly explains. The foreign company Oxy is one that has
broken its contract and according to Ecuadorian law it requires an
expiration date. It means that the oil field operated by this company
must go over to the State, but because of Yankee pressure the
government does not dare to occupy it; a situation is created which
is not contemplated by the legislation. The law just states that an
expiration date must be set, and nothing more. The judge at the court
of first instance at that moment was the president of PETROECUADOR
and he made it happen. I was a member of PETROECUADOR and they called
an emergency meeting to expel him from his position. I didn’t attend
and they couldn’t fire him. The judge declared the expiration
date.
What did the Yankees want? I asked him. They wanted a
fine, he quickly replied. Listening to him I realized that I had
underestimated him.
I was in a hurry because of a great number
of commitments. I invited him to sit in on a meeting with a large
group of highly qualified Cuban professionals who were leaving for
Bolivia to be part of the Medical Brigade; it had staff for more than
30 hospitals including 19 surgical positions that could do more than
130 thousand ophthalmologic operations per year; all in the manner of
free cooperation. Ecuador possesses three similar centers with six
ophthalmologic positions.
Dinner with the Ecuadorian economist
took place into the morning hours of February 9, 2006. There were
scarcely any view points that I didn’t cover. I even spoke to him
about the very harmful mercury that modern industry scatters
throughout the planet’s oceans. Consumerism was of course a subject
that I emphasized; the high cost of the kilowatt/hour in the
thermoelectric plants; the differences between socialist and
communist forms of distribution, the role of money, the trillions
spent on advertising which people had no choice but to pay for in the
prices of goods, and the studies made by university social brigades
who discovered, among the 500 thousand families in the capital, the
number of elderly folk lived alone. I explained the stage of
university courses for all that we were involved in.
We became
friends even though he perhaps received the impression that I was
self-sufficient. If that happened, it was truly not my
intention.
Since that time I have observed his every step: the
electoral process, focusing on the concrete problems of Ecuadorians
and the people’s victory over the oligarchy.
In the history of
our peoples there are many things that bring us together. Sucre was
always a highly admired figure, along with The Liberator Bolivar; as
Marti said, what he hasn’t done in America remains to be done, and as
Neruda exclaimed, Bolivar awakens every hundred years.
Imperialism
has just committed a monstrous crime in Ecuador. Deadly bombs were
dropped in the early morning hours on a group of men and women who,
almost without exception, were asleep. That has been deduced by all
the official reports right from the beginning. Any concrete
accusations against that group of human beings do not justify that
action. They were Yankee bombs, guided by Yankee
satellites.
Absolutely no one has the right to kill in cold
blood. If we accept that imperial method of warfare and barbarism,
Yankee bombs directed by satellites could fall on any group of Latin
American men and women, in the territory of any country, war or no
war. The fact that this happened on undisputed Ecuadorian territory
is an aggravating circumstance.
We are not an enemy of
Colombia. Previous reflections and exchanges demonstrate how much of
an effort we have made, both the current President of the Council of
State of Cuba and I, to abide by a declared policy of principles and
peace, proclaimed years ago in our relations with the rest of the
Latin American states.
Today, with everything at risk, we have
not been transformed into belligerent people. We are determined
supporters of that unity among peoples which Marti named Our
America.
If we keep quiet we shall become accomplices. Today
they would like to have our friend, the economist and President of
Ecuador Rafael Correa, seated in the dock; this is something we
couldn’t even conceive that morning of February 9, 2006. At that time
it seemed that my imagination was capable of embracing all kinds of
dreams and risks, but never anything like what has occurred in the
early morning of Saturday March 1, 2008.
Correa has in his
hands the few survivors and the rest of the bodies. The two which are
missing prove that Ecuadorian territory was occupied by troops that
crossed the border. Now he can cry out like Emile Zola: J’accuse!
Fidel
Castro Ruz
March
3, 2008.
