World Tomorrow – A Vocal President - Script

PROGRAMME SPECIFIC INTRO - JA VOICEOVER

00.33 With Chavez and Lula out of the public eye, a new generation of Latin American leaders has arisen. This week, I am joined by the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa. Correa is a left wing popularist who has changed the face of ecuador. But unlike his predecessors he holds a Phd in economics. According to US embassy cables, Correa is the most popular President in Ecuador’s democratic history. But in 2010 he was taken hostage in an attempted coup d’etat. He blames the coup attempt on corrupt media and has launched a controversial counter-offensive. Correa says the media defines what reforms are possible. I want to know, is he justified and what is his vision for Latin America?

01.20 PC Is he hearing me?

01.21 JA I can hear you, President Correa.

01.27 JA Hi. Nice to meet you.

01.29 PC Where are you, In England?

01.31 JA I am in England under house arrest for 500 days in the countryside. RC 500 days, okay. JA Yes with no charge. JA President Correa would, I want this interview you know it will be broadcast in English predominantly and I have done a previous interview with translators and it does not turn into such a....

01.52 JA What is the Ecuadorian perspective on the United States, the sort of long perspective of US, US involvement. I'm not asking for a caricature of the United States but what do Ecuadorian people think about the United States and its involvement in Latin America and in Ecuador?

02.18 RC …Note, as Evo Morales says, the only country that can be sure never to have a coup d’état is the United States – because it hasn’t got a US embassy. [laughing] In any event, I’d like to say that one of the reasons that led to the police discontent was the fact that we cut all the funding the US embassy provided to the police.

02.42 RC Before, and even a year after we took office – we took a while to correct this – before there were whole police units, key units, fully funded by the US embassy, whose officers in command were chosen by the US ambassador and paid by the US. And so we have increased considerably the police pay. However, as their salaries were coming from somewhere else, they didn’t even notice. We did away with all that. But there are some who still long for those times, which will never come back.

03.24 RC Relating to the US, ours has always been a relationship based on affection and friendship, but in the framework of mutual respect and sovereignty. I lived in the US, have two academic degrees from there. I love and admire the US people a great deal. Believe me that the last thing I’d be is anti American, however I will always call a spade a spade. And if there are international US policies detrimental to our country, and to our America, I will denounce them strongly, and I will never allow my country’s sovereignty be affected. 04.08 JA Your government closed the US base at Manta. Can you tell me why you decided to close this base?

04:18 RC ¿But would you accept having a foreign base set up in your country, Julian? In any case, if the matter is that simple, if the matter is that simple, as I have already stated at the time: Ok, there isn’t any problem so a US base can be set up in Ecuador. We can give the gahead as long as we are granted permission to set up an an Ecuadorian military base in Miami. If there isn’t any issue, they will agree. [laughter]

04.49 RC Are you having a lot of fun with the interview, Julian? I am glad to hear that. Me too.

04.53 JA I am enjoying your jokes a great deal yes. Er President Correa... Why did you want us to release all the cables? 05.06 RC We have nothing to hide. If anything, the Wikileaks have made us stronger, as the main accusations made by the embassy were due to our excessive nationalism and defence of the sovereignty of the Ecuadorian Government. Indeed, we are nationalists; indeed we do defend the sovereignty of our country. On the other hand, many Wikileaks spoke about the interests in the national media, about the power groups who go to seek help, to foster relationships with foreign embassies, benefit from the embassy’s contacts. Here we fear absolutely nothing, let them publish everything they have about the Ecuadorian Government. But you will see how many things about those who oppose the citizens’ revolution in Ecuador will come to light, things to do with opportunism, betrayals, self-serving.

06.08 JA You subsequently you kicked out the US ambassador to Ecuador as a result of Wikileaks publication of cables. Why did you kick her out? It seems to me that it would be easier to go well I have these cables from his ambassador, I know now how she thinks, isn't it better to keep the devil you know? 06.30 RC She was told this. But filled with arrogance she said she had nothing to say. She was a woman totally against our government, a right-wing woman who ‘stayed behind’ in the Cold War of the 60’s, and what broke the camel’s back, the last straw was Wikileaks, where she reported that her own Ecuadorian contacts had reported on her, that the Chief of the Police was corrupt, and that surely I had given him that post knowing he was corrupt so that I could control him. The lady ambassador was called and asked to give an account, but with all her loftiness, insolence, hauteur, imperial airs she puts on, she said she had nothing to account for. And as we here respect our country, we threw her out.

07.20 RC I’d like to say that a month ago, or some months ago, after almost a year of inquiry, Commander Hurtado – falsely accused in that Wikileak by the ambassador, was found non-guilty of all the charges, totally clear of all the inquiries conducted into this issue. This shows once more how ill-intentioned US officers, due to their ill will towards progressive governments seeking change, report on anything, groundless, based purely on rumours and gossip provided by their contacts, who are usually those against our government.

08.03 JA President Correa how did you find the Chinese to deal with? They are a big powerful country. Are you stopping one devil for another in dealing with the Chinese?

08.16 RC First of all, we don’t work with demons. If anyone comes up to us as a demon, we simply tell him: thank you very much. Secondly, you can see a bit of the selling-out, the snobbery, even the neocolonialism of our elites and certain media. When 60% of our trade andinvestment were mainly in the US, and we were given just twenty cents to fund development, there wasn’t any issue. Now when we are the country where most of the Chinese investment in the region takes place, as the Chinese aren’t that tall, nor reddish-looking, nor have they got light eyes; now there is an issue. Then they are demons, and so on. But even the US is being financed by China. How wonderful that it funds Ecuador! How wonderful that it finances good oil exploitation! Mining. Hydroelectric power stations. We are not only getting Chinese funding, but also Russian, Brazilian. We have expanded our markets and our funding sources. However, there are people who were born with a yoke attached to the neck, and who prefer to go on with that level of dependency. That’s all.

09.39 JA President Correa, as you know, for many years I have been fighting a fight for freedom of expression, for the right for people to communicate, for the right to publish true information. How is it that your reforms will not lead to the suppression of true information?

10.05 RC Well, Julian, you are a good example of what the press is like, as well as these associations like the Inter American Press Association, which is simply an association of newspaper owners in Latin America. Many books have been written about your Wikileaks in Latin America, the last one by two Argentinian authors, where there is an analysis country by country, and in the case of Ecuador it shows how, in a shameless way, the media did not publish those cables or news which affected them. For instance, disputes amongst information and news groups. In the end, to avoid being discredited, they reach an agreement not to air their dirty linen in public. I will read you one of the Wikileaks the Ecuadorian press never published. “The fact that the press feels free to criticise the government, and yet it is unable to do so with a fugitiv banker and his family businesses, speaks volumes about where power resides in Ecuador. These are the messages made public by Wikileaks, yet unpublished by the Ecuadorian press. This is just for you to see what we face in Ecuador and Latin America. We believe, my dear Julian, that the only things that should be protected against information sharing and freedom of speech are those set in the international treaties, in the Inter American Convention on Human Rights: the dignity and the reputation of people, and the safety of people and the state. The rest, the more people find out about it, the better. You have voiced your fear, recurrent in journalists of good faith, but who are stereotypes of the fear that the state may restrict freedom of speech. This is hardly ever seen in Latin America. These are just myths. Please, bear in mind that here the media power was, and it probably is, greater than the political power. In fact, it usually has self-serving political and social power, above all, informative power.

12.33 RC And those who have controlled the media have been the big voters, the powerful legislators, the mighty justices; and they have subdued governments, presidents, courts of law. Let’s stop portraying this image of poor and courageous journalists, saint-like media trying to tell the truth; and tyrants, autocrats and dictators trying to hinder that. It isn’t true. It is the other way around. The governments trying to do something for the big majorities are persecuted by journalists who think that by having an inkwell and a microphone, they can vent even their indifference on you. Often they insult and slander out of sheer dislike; media devoted to private interests.

13.31 RC Please, let the world know about what happens in Latin America. When I took office there were seven national TV channels. There wasn’t state-owned television; they were all private, and five of them belonged to bankers. As you can imagine, if I wanted to take measures against banking in order to prevent, for instance, the crisis and the abuses which are now takingplace in Europe, especially in Spain, I faced a merciless TV campaign aimed at defending their owners’ interests: the owners of these TV networks who were the bankers. Let’s not fool ourselves. Let’s get rid of this false image andstereotypes depicting wicked governments persecuting saint-like and courageous journalists and media. Often, Julian, it is the other way around.

14.26 RC These people, disguised as journalist, are trying to do politics, to destabilize our governments so that no change takes place in our region, for fear of losing the power they have always flaunted about.

14.41 JA President Correa I, I agree with your market description of the media. We have seen this again and again that big media organisations that we have worked with like the Guardian, El País, New York Times and Der Spiegel, er have censored our material against our agreements when they published it for political reasons or to protect, erm, oligarchs like Tymoshenko form the Ukraine who was hiding her wealth in London or big corrupt Italian oil companies operating in Kazakhstan. We have proof of this because we know what the original document contains and we can see what they printed and we can see what they have removed. But it seems to me that the correct approach to deal with monopolies and duopolies and cartels in a market is to break them up or to make it so it is very easy for new publishers to enter in to the market. Shouldn't you create a system that protects the ease of entry into the publishing market so that small publishers and individuals are protected and have no regulation and that these bigger publishers are broken up or are regulated?

16.16 RC …That is what we are trying to do, Julian. For over two years there has been a debate about a new communication law so that the radio and television spectrum, that is to say, so that only a third of all radio and televison broadcast can be private and profit-making, another third non-profit and property of the community, and the remaining third state-owned, not just by central Government, but also by local authorities, municipalities, parochial bodies.

16.51 RC Despite the fact that this is a Constitution order approved by voting in 2008, upheld by the Ecuadorian people during the people’s consultation last year, it has taken two years. Despite all this, this new law has been systematically blocked by the media. The paid legislators they have in the National Assembly, who defend their interests, refer to it as “gagging law.” This is what we are trying to do: to democratize information, social communication, the ownership of the media, but clearly we face the bitter opposition of the media owners and their coryphaeus (spokesmen) in the Ecuadorian political arena. 17.39 JA I spoke to the president of Tunisia recently and asked him was he surprised about how little power a president has to change things? Have you found that?

17.54 RC Look, they have tried to demonize even the leaders. One of the main crisis in Latin America during the 90’s, at the beginning of this century, during the long and sad neoliberal night, was the leader crisis. ¿What is leadership? The ability to influence others. Now you can have good leadership, using this ability to serve others, and bad leadership, sadly we have a lot of this in Latin America, leadership that takes advantage of others. I think leadership is paramount, even more so when seeking to make changes.

18.41 RC ¿Can you envisage the US Independence without the great leaders behind it? ¿Can you envisage the reconstruction of Europe after WWII without the great leaders behind it? But in order to oppose these new changes, they now deem leaders tyrants, engaged in populism, as if it were something bad. And this kind of leadership is all the more important…Julian, please, let me finish the idea…when we are not managing a system.

19.16 RC In Ecuador, in Latin America, we are not managing a system but changing it. Because the one we had for centuries was a total failure. It turned us into the most unequal region in the world, a region riddled with poverty and misery, yet having all it takes to be the most prosperous in the universe. It isn’t like in the US. ¿What’s the difference between a Republican and a Democrat? I believe there is a far greater difference between what I think in the morning and what I am thinking in the afternoon; because they are just managing asystem. RC But here we are changing a system. And you need leadership, legitimate democratic power in order to change the institutional structures in our country for the benefit of the majorities.

20.06 JA It seems to me that President Obama is unable to control these vast forces that are around him. Isn’t this true for all leadership? And, how is it that you have been able to change so much in Ecuador? Is it a sign of the times? Is it your personal leadership? Is it your party? What is the…what is the force that is permitting you to do something that Barak Obama is not able to do?

20.42 RC Allow me to begin by the end. The compromise, the consensus, is something desirable, but it is not an end in itself. To me,it would be dead easy to agree to this compromise, to this consensus, giving up, giving in; and it would make a lot of people happy but it wouldn’t change anything at all. It woud please, above all, the powers that be in this country, but everything will remain the same. Sometimes it is impossible to reach a consensus. Sometimes it is essential to deal with things. Corruption, we have to deal with it. Abuse of power, we have to tackle it. Lying, we have to tackle it. Social vices such as these, so damaging to our society, we cannot allow. 21.31 RC What has been attained in Ecuador isn’t down to me. That is a mistake. People change. Countries change, not just because if a leader. Perhaps a leader coordinates, but it is down to the willingness of all the people. What led us to power was the outrage of all the Ecuadorian people.

21.51 RC I think that this is what is needed in the US people, so that President Obama can make real changes in that country, so that that outrage, that “Occupy Wall Street”, that demonstration by the ordinary citizens against the system becomes stronger, more organic, more permanent, and enables Obama to make the changes needed there.

22.25 JA I want to look at where you think Ecuador is going in the long term and where South America is going in the long term. It seems to some degree that there are a lot of good things, you know this greater integration in South America, the standards of living have been increased, the amount of influence er that the United States and other countries outside Latin America can apply to it is also decreasing but where do you think it is going in ten years/20 years?

22.59 RC You have said: the US influence is steadily decreasing, and that is good. That’s why we have stated that Latin America is changing from the consensus with Washington to the consensus without Washington.

23.18 JA Maybe it will be the San Paulo consensus.

23.23 RC: Consensus without Washington. Exactly okay.

23.26 RC And this is great, as the policies dictated by the North had nothing to do with our needs in Latin America, but rather the interests of those countries. Furthermore, they were there for the financial interests of those countries. If you make an analysis of the economic policy, modesty apart, I know something about it; at times the policies coud have been good or bad, but they all had a common factor: they were there for financial interests. And this, luckily, is changing. I have a great deal of hope, but I am very objective. Although I know we have covered a lot of ground, there is still a long way to go. I know that the covered ground isn’t yet irreversible. I know that if we get the same people we used to have ruling our countries, everything could go back to what it used to be. But we are optimistic.

24.21 RC We believe Latin America is changing, and if we keep on going on that path to change, the change will be everlasting. It is not an epoch for changes; it is a change of an epoch / time, what Latin America is going through. And if we carry on with these sovereign policies for change, with economic policies where society rules the market, and not the market ruling over society, turning society and life and people into merchandise / goods. If we carry on with these policies for justice and social equity, overcoming the many injusticies of many a century, respecting our indigenous and afro-descendents, et cetera, Latin America will have a great future. And it is the region of the future. We have everything it takes to be the most prosperous region in the future. If we haven’t achieved it yet, it has been owing to bad leaders, bad policy-making, bad governments; and this is what is chaning in our America.

25.29 JA Thank you President Correa.

25.32 RC It has been a pleasure to meet you, Julian, at least through this means, and Cheer up! Cheer up! Welcome to the club of the persecuted!

25.43 JA Thank you. Take care. Don't get assassinated.