Caracas, December 22, 2006 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Ecuador's President Elect Rafael Correa arrived in Venezuela Tuesday to strengthen his friendship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and to sign cooperation commitments. The two presidents signed a joint declaration to promote integration via the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and for energy cooperation. Correa also requested that Venezuela rejoin the trading group of the Community of Andean Nations (CAN).

The joint declaration that Chavez and Correa signed promised to deepen political, economic, cultural, and social cooperation between the two countries. This commitment would be followed up and formalized once Correa assumes the presidency in January 2007.

ALBA, which Ecuador is now interested in pursuing, is Chavez's proposal for regional integration based on fair trade instead of free trade, complementarity, cooperation, and solidarity. So far Cuba and Bolivia have already joined the project.

With regard to energy cooperation, Venezuela committed itself to train Ecuadorian specialists in the areas of oil exploration, production, transport, storage, processing, and commercialization. Also, the state oil companies of the two countries, PDVSA and Petroecuador would create joint ventures in the area of oil refining, so that Petroecuador can modernize and increase its refining capacity in Ecuador. Until this is underway, though, Venezuela would offer to refine Ecuadorian oil in Venezuela.

Another area that the two presidents committed themselves to cooperate in is the area of communication, so that Ecuador might soon join the Telesur TV channel. Telesur is the continent-wide progressive Latin American news channel, which is currently supported by Venezuela, Cuba, Uruguay, and Argentina. Also, they discussed the creation of RadioSur, a new continent-wide radio network and a Latin American news agency.

Correa received important backing from Chavez on the issue of Colombia's drug fumigation along the Ecuador-Colombia border. Correa has complained about the program, saying that it is bad for Ecuadorian crops and people's health. He cancelled a planned trip to Colombia until the country halts its spraying.

According to Reuters, Chavez supported Correa's position by saying, "The battle against drug smuggling has been an excuse that imperialists have used for several years to penetrate our country, trample our people and justify a military presence in Latin America."

After Correa's extended meeting with Chavez, he appeared upbeat about the prospects of Venezuela's return to the CAN. "The president is evaluating it [Venezuela's rejoining of CAN], and let's hope we can move forward. I think that CAN has to be strengthened and from there we have to try to merge the two processes of integration in South America: CAN and Mercosur, said Correa.

Venezuela withdrew from the CAN earlier this year in protest against Peru and Colombia, both members of CAN, for signing bilateral free trade agreements with the U.S. Correa said he understood the position of Chavez. "There is great disappointment about CAN. The results are very poor, the vision is mistaken...but with the will of the presidents that the Andean region is electing we can change that situation," he said.

Correa also visited the tomb of Simón Bolívar, the leader of the independence struggle of the Andean nations (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia) and who dreamt of a united Latin America.

"Who can doubt that we are one people on seeing the Latin American looks of those young people, on seeing the mixed race people, indigenous and brown that said: Enough! to the years of exploitation, to give away governments, to imperial domination, to exclusory systems and to injustices," said Correa.

Correa, who was briefly the Minister for the Economy in 2005, will be formally sworn in as president on January 15 next year. He is renowned for making fiery speeches against the US government much like Chavez. In fact, when asked recently to comment on Chavez's description of President George W. Bush as the devil he said that, "Calling Bush the devil offends the devil. Bush is a tremendously dim-witted President who has done great damage to the world." He was elected president November 27 with 57.9% of the vote after running on a platform that promised to rein in political elites. His opponent was the conservative banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa.