It almost seems as if colonos can go to the beach – the word is finally out and spreading slowly, but safely – just as we’ve been on about all along:
“What is little understood outside of Ecuador, is that, despite Correa’s rhetoric of the “Socialism of the 21st Century” for Ecuador, the president seems to be committed to a capitalist dependency model of development for the country. As Daniel Denvir puts it, only outside Ecuador is Correa viewed as a “leftist,” while inside Ecuador itself “conflicts between Correa and the social movement Left—the indigenous movement, environmentalists and unions, among others—have become increasingly heated” (I recommend the full article – linked and quoted to earlier in this blog).
Speaking from Chongón, in the province of Guaya, the day after accepting the new Constitution from the Assembly, Correa again castigated the “infantile leftists” and “infantile environmentalists” and “infantile indigenous” without being more specific about what made them “infantile” and why they caused him so much ire. After all, he’d gotten what he wanted: his people had “edited” the entire Constitution prior to the final vote by the Constituent Assembly, some argued so as to make it more amenable to his “reformed-capitalist extractionist policies” and also to strengthen his own presidential powers. Because his party, Alianza País (Country Alliance) was the majority, all the “infantile” sectors had to choose between approving the illicitly redacted document or voting against it and allying themselves with the oligarchy and its religious lackeys.”