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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.
8:36 p.m. |
