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View Full Version : Ecuador offers refuge to Assange - whats your opinion of Ecuador under Correa?



Yazman
30th November 2010, 12:08
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2010/11/2010113033515743921.html

Click spoiler tag for snippet. Click the above link for the full article:


An Ecuadorean minister has offered residence in his country to Julian Assange (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/11/20101129123639239818.html), the reclusive founder of WikiLeaks, without conditions.
"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Kintto Lucas, the deputy foreign minister, told the website Ecuadorinmediato on Monday.
"We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the internet but in a variety of public forums."
Assange has enraged the US, and many other countries, by releasing masses of classified US documents, including a dump of embarrassing diplomatic cables (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/11/20101129162137921391.html) and documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq earlier this year.
After the latest leak, Australian police (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/11/2010112961154954144.html) said they had begun investigating whether any of the country's laws were broken by the release. Assange is an Australian national.


This is something small and let me address it directly first of all - I'm quite pleased to hear this coming out, especially as I had been thinking Assange would be well-advised to seek asylum in Cuba as others have done in the past, but in a Bolivarian nation even easier for Assange. So I'm quite pleased to hear this.

The article itself however got me thinking about Ecuador's direction under Correa (which I haven't seen a good topic on in a while). There seems to have been quite a few changes in this time and while Correa is certainly more moderate than Chavez, they seem to be getting many more significant changes through (like constitutional changes). I tend to think as far as reformists go I am beginning to much prefer Correa over Chavez (even if I don't agree with reformism), particularly as changes actually seem to be getting made whereas Venezuela seems to go through periods of stagnation rather than progress.

What does everybody think of the government of Ecuador and how it has been under Rafael Correa?

The Vegan Marxist
30th November 2010, 12:37
President Correa seems a bit center-left. Used to be more right-wing, but his policies seems to have changed as his presidency went on. I like him somewhat, though I want to see a lot more to come out of his presidency. I prefer Chavez a hell of a lot more than I do Correa.

Vladimir Innit Lenin
30th November 2010, 13:10
Correa seems to be to the right-wing of the bolivarians. Nonetheless, he seems to be a part of the centre-left. I don't expect revolution or anything remotely Socialist in Ecuador, but he's worth defending against Friedmanite right-wing bullies. That's all.

RadioRaheem84
30th November 2010, 16:22
The fact that his main economic advisor is Ha Joon Chang is a good thing but only in the vein that he is anti-neo-liberal, nothing more.

He is a social democrat but at least to the left of Lula.

Theory&Action
1st December 2010, 05:44
Just to clarify Correa's position on providing asylum for Assange. According to the BBC:


Meanwhile, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has said he did not approve an offer of residency made to Mr Assange.


On Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas praised the 39-year-old's investigative work and said he was welcome to live and lecture in the country "without any conditions".


But Mr Correa told reporters that the offer had "not been approved by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino - or the president". Mr Patino said it would "have to be studied from the legal and diplomatic perspective".

Yazman
1st December 2010, 06:17
Thats interesting. Are they backtracking on this proposal? Perhaps Correa doesn't want to piss off the yanks too much.

Savage
1st December 2010, 06:19
What nationalization has there been under Correa? Also I remember hearing something about Venezuela's economy moving out of recession I don't know if this is true or not

TwoSevensClash
1st December 2010, 06:41
Thats interesting. Are they backtracking on this proposal? Perhaps Correa doesn't want to piss off the yanks too much.
Maybe the cables have unflattering things about him or his allies?