EL UNIVERSAL

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa endorsed the 21st Century socialism, which he interpreted in a number of ways during a ceremony late Thursday, when he accepted the decoration Orden del Libertador that President Hugo Chávez conferred on him.

Correa arrived in Caracas late Thursday to pay an official visit that, according to analysts, is aimed at proposing Venezuela to rejoin the Andean Community of Nations (CAN).

The Ecuadorian ruler claimed that "being a Bolivarian person is identifying oneself with the 21st century socialism, which is neither an entelechy nor a manual, but a doctrine that was born out of necessity and dreams."
 
In his view, being a Bolivarian person means "fighting both against neocolonialism and the subterfuges it uses to plague the peoples of Latin America with hunger and misery."

During a ceremony in the Military Academy, just before the premiere of a film called Miranda is back, Correa asserted, "We are one single fatherland, the great fatherland of Martí and Bolívar. This part of America was Bolivarian in the past and will be Bolivarian in the future. We are not flinching at the pressures of the oligarchy."

Meanwhile, President Chávez stated that Ecuador is helping open "the wide paths the martyr president of the Americas Salvador Allende referred to in the last day of his life."

Correa is joining Chávez Friday in a visit to La Goajira department in Colombia to inaugurate, together with Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, the Venezuela-Colombia gas pipeline.

The USD 335 million, 225-kilometer pipeline stretches from Punta Ballena (Colombia) to the eastern coast of Lake Maracaibo (northwestern Venezuela).

Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Fernando Araújo Thursday hailed Correa's attendance to the meeting between the presidents of Colombia and Venezuela.

"We have invited Ecuador President Rafael Correa because there is interest in laying a gas pipeline from Venezuela across Colombia to Ecuador and, in the future, to Bolivia and Peru," said Araújo after taking part in a Congress session.

Regarding the bilateral agenda, Chávez and Correa are expected to deal with other integration initiatives such as the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Bank of the South. Seven countries have pledged to join the bank, which will be officially opened next November 3 in Caracas.

Regarding oil issues, the two rulers are expected to address a joint project to build an oil refinery in the Ecuadorian coastal province of Manabí.

Correa departed from Quito accompanied by his Minister of Foreign Affairs María Fernanda Espinosa, Minister of Mines and Petroleum Galo Chiriboga, and the Chief Executive Officer of Ecuadorian state oil firm Petroecuador, Carlos Pareja.

Translated by Maryflor Suárez R.
msuarez@eluniversal.com