Ecuador’s president: US must respect Latin America's own path

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuador’s president: US must respect Latin America's own path
By By – Wed Mar 9, 1:16 pm ET

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa spoke last week with Abraham F. Lowenthal for the Global Viewpoint Network. Lowenthal is founding president of the Pacific Council on International Policy and professor of international relations at the University of Southern California.

They discussed political and social change in Ecuador, the possibilities for Peru under new leadership, and US arrogance and dominance toward Latin America.

Lowenthal: Ecuador has had weak and discredited political institutions, bankrupt political parties, a highly politicized judiciary, and an exclusionary, unequal society dominated by a few in the private sector. But it is less clear to me what your Alianza Pais movement is putting forward as an alternative vision. How do you propose to achieve change?

President Correa: We seek to put Ecuador firmly on an irreversible path toward becoming a more just and inclusionary society, with less poverty and with a state that serves the majority, not the special interests. We want a country that is sovereign and not submissive; that is part of a more integrated Latin America that follows its own concepts and interests, not the “Washington Consensus” paradigm that has nothing to do with Latin American ideas.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110309/cm_csm/368497