Ecuador: chavista minister sacked
By Alekander Boyd
London 05.08.05 | Forbes carries some good news today "Ecuadoran economy minister sacked over failure to inform on World Bank loan. President Alfredo Palacio has sacked Economy Minister Rafael Correa because he failed to inform him that the World Bank had turned down a requested loan of 100 mln usd for Ecuador, officials said". The article also mentions "scores of Correa supporters" [sic] purportedly "urging Palacio to revise his decision and reinstate Correa in his job". One must wonder how genuine these protesters truly are for it's no secret that the chavista rabble rousing rallying machine, operative now in the whole region, is formidably oiled with our petrodollars.
Kudos to President Alfredo Palacio for this bold move. He should be well adviced to revise the credentials of other members of the Chavez-fan club of his cabinet, such as Foreign Secretary Antonio Parra Gil.
And continuing with the good news, Reuters reports that "PetroEcuador demands end to Occidental contract". The 'request' was made, again singlehandedly and without the backing of appropriate consultation, by Carlos Pareja, whose involvement in corruption scandals in the past, cast shadows over the validity of his decision. But it got better, having Ecuador some sort of institutional independence left, not like Venezuela, the Minister of Energy demanded Pareja's resignation, which was announced only "hours after he demanded an end to a contract allowing Occidental Petroleum Corp. to operate in the country" [sic] according to the LA Times.
It seems that the anti-democratic destabilization campaign of the Castro-Chavez duet in Ecuador isn't working as expected. So far Palacio, having escaped an assassination attempt organized by the Movimiento Popular Democratico -a bolivarian-circle-type of outfit allegedly funded by Chavez- seems to have had the upper hand, which in itself, is fantastic news. It would be foolish to think however that the former pair would rest in their attempt to reinstate puppet Gutierrez et al. As Scott Sullivan rightly pointed out, democratic countries in the region need to devise policies of containment vis-a-vis the advancement of the castroite model of governance, whose sole legacy after 46 years of having been implemented is sheer and utter misery for the people of Cuba. The battle for Latin American democracy needs be taken to the frontline; i.e. to Venezuela.
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