The last visit of a German President is 26 years old. In Ecuador, Steinmeier wants the 250. Birthday of Humboldt to celebrate, but also the long period of cool political relations continue to normalize.
14.September, 1769, was born in Humboldt in Berlin, 250.Birthday is also celebrated in Latin America.
Bärbel Höhn has created in her political career already, with many power politicians: the North-Rhine Westphalian Prime Minister Wolfgang Clement, as Höhn in the red-green coalition, Minister of the environment icon, Joschka Fischer, with whom she argued about the Kosovo war was, later, Clements’s successor, Peer Steinbrück, and of course with the Green. Many have mouthfuls at the stubborn Green party politician in the teeth. Rafael Correa, the former President of Ecuador, had heard of Höhn. That should change in 2014 – and the political relations of the two countries to a hard test.
Germany has supported the sustainable development in the Yasuní national Park in Eastern Ecuador, with 35 million euros. In December 2014, Bärbel Höhn want to watch with the environmental Committee of the Bundestag, the projects on the ground. “But Correa did not want to and refused a few days before the arrival to Ecuador,” recalls Hoehn, who had not expected it at all. “I was quite surprised about the cancellation, because the journey was long been pending. And the members of the environment Committee had approved aware the funds for the projects in the Yasuní.”
A bizarre dispute over a parliamentary trip to the jungle
Background: Ecuador has begun in the Yasuní, the Region with the highest biodiversity of the earth, shortly before the oil production. And does not want Germany in the cards. The government in Quito, moves heavy artillery, speaks of colonialism and imperialism and lack of respect for the sovereignty of Ecuador. It is a period of several months long-a bizarre dispute over a small MP travel, the development of cooperation in the environmental sector will be put on hold, government negotiations postponed, and only a personal meeting between President Correa and Chancellor Angela Merkel makes for easy relaxation.
The Green party politician Bärbel Höhn, here at the climate conference in Marrakech in November 2016
“There were a lot of forces in Ecuador, which wanted to end the conflict with Germany, in particular in the new government of Lenín Moreno,” says Bärbel Höhn. After the handover ceremony on 24. May 2017, Correa Moreno is the way free at last. Bärbel Höhn visited the Yasuní, after consultation with the members of the environment Committee, but alone, looks at projects and leads discussions. All of this in September of 2017, almost three years after the originally planned date of travel. All’s well that ends well? In Germany, it should not be, in development cooperation even more funds in the environmental sector are now flowing.
Moreno is clearly of Correa
The valiant Rafael Correa as President of Ecuador is history, the former Vice-President Lenín Moreno followed for almost two years, a different policy. Moreno to break with the confrontational policies of his predecessor, focuses on balance instead of polarization, rubbing the bloated state apparatus dramatically and rises in terms of foreign policy of the “Bolivarian axis” with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Correa had on the Venezuelan commander-in-chief Nicolás makes Maduro confessed, those days are gone under Moreno definitely.
At the time, still pretty much best friends: Rafael Correa (l.) and Lenín Moreno, at the handover ceremony in may 2017
Also in the case of the person Julian Assange Moreno takes a contrary Position to that of its predecessor: Correa gives the Wiki-Leaks – founder since 2012 in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London asylum, and this on the offensive as the fight for the global freedom of the press sold (while he was going on in Ecuador against unwelcome media), wants to escape Moreno Assange the asylum and the Australian activists as fast as possible to get rid of.
Sentiment against Venezuelans tilts – from Moreno carried
Currently, Moreno is, however, heavily criticized. After a Venezuelan stabs his pregnant Ecuadorian partner in Ibarra in Northern Ecuador on the open road, the President, the nationality of the perpetrator in the foreground: “We have opened the doors, but we will not sacrifice our safety!” Dozens are attacked Venezuelans in fact, many leave Ibarra from fear of further violent attacks.
Every day thousands of Venezuelans over Colombia to Ecuador to escape, such as here in rumichaca it
To de-escalate the situation instead of exacerbating Moreno, the entry requirements and the demands of the Venezuelan refugees, a notarized certificate of good conduct to give criminal history information. For the Thousands of Venezuelans fleeing every day, according to Ecuador, and the hundreds of thousands who are already in the country, an impossibility. “The integrity of our mothers, daughters, and mates is a top priority for me,” counters Moreno allegations that he laces with his policy of xenophobia.
Humboldt’s trip to Ecuador in 1802
Frank-Walter Steinmeier will speak with Lenín Moreno certainly about Venezuelan refugees, with the trip to Ecuador will go to the Federal President but also on the traces of Alexander von Humboldt. The naturalist had travelled to Ecuador in front of nearly 220 years ago, yet today he is revered as a Hero, hundreds of streets, Parks and schools are named after the scientist.
Humboldt Expert Frank Holl
“Humboldt has brought like no other natural scientific research with political attitude,” says the Humboldt-expert Frank Holl, the scientists have lives, respect for other cultures. “The indigenous natives, he has not treated condescendingly, but on a par with spoken, all the people were the same to him”, stresses the Holl, what did differentiate him from other well-known, but mostly arrogant scientists.
Great contribution to the independence of Latin America
In Ecuador, Humboldt made to the so-called “Geology of the plants” and cataloged 6200 plant species, the “birth of modern Ecology,” as Holl it. In addition to the diverse Vegetation in the vicinity of the capital city of Quito it was the German polymath, particularly the volcanoes impressed. Humboldt ascends the Chimborazo, the 6267 meters the highest mountain in Ecuador, is so high as no man ever was, breaks off the climb because of a huge crevasse but at 5600 meters. “Humboldt also mining specialist was,” says Holl, “he wanted to find out how it looks in the earth.”
The summit of Chimborazo is the earth’s center to the farthest point of the earth’s surface.
The scientists also exploring the cold ocean current along the Pacific coast, later called the Humboldt current to the Galapagos Islands he, “otherwise he would have developed perhaps the theory of evolution as Darwin 30 years later,” says Holl. Humboldt’s importance for Latin America, both on and off the research, is huge. “The freedom fighter Simón Bolívar, Humboldt was a friend, once said: ‘Humboldt has done for the independence of Latin America, more than all the other explorers together’.”