Ecuador president quits summit in protest against OECD, WB
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa walked out of a Latin American summit Saturday here, after censuring the presence of representatives from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Bank.
During the first plenary of the 21st Ibero-American Summit, Correa criticized the presence of OECD General Secretary Angel Gurria, calling it as an "intervention."
"I would request, in return, that OECD also invite a representative of the Latin American countries to explain our position in its next meeting," said Correa.
Correa also called into question the presence of World Bank Representative in Latin America Pamela Cox in the summit.
"Mr. President, why in this forum we have to welcome the World Bank, who openly blackmailed my country?" said Correa, saying that "World Bank must apologize for the blackmail to different countries in the region."
Following the words, Correa walked out of the summit.
In August 2005, then Ecuadorian finance minister Correa visited Washington to collect a 100-million-U.S.-dollar loan as part of the World Bank's fiscal support program for Ecuador.
However, he was left embarrassingly empty-handed as the bank suspended the loan in response to Ecuador's restructuring of an oil stabilization fund. Correa accused the World Bank of blackmailing and threatened to kick out the multilateral lender.
In an interview with the Financial Times at the time, Correa said that by denying the loan at the last moment, the World Bank had broken a contract with the country.
"This is an offense for Ecuador. A loan had been approved and was in place and they are canceling it, completely outside any ethical or legal principle, because we changed a law," he told the FT then. "We are a sovereign country. Nobody can punish us because we are changing our own laws."
Editor: Mu Xuequan
English.news.cn 2011-10-30 06:23:33 FeedbackPrintRSS
ASUNCION, Oct. 29 (Xinhua)
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