Dr. Pablo Guerrero on Business and Politics: Socialism of the 21st Century in Latin America

Dr Pablo Guerrero comes from a legal background and was involved in high politics in Ecuador. He received his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Universidad Central del Ecuador's Faculty of Law.  His lecture explained the lack of rule of law in Ecuador, and compared the situation with European fascist and totalitarian struggles. Dr Guerrero cited a numebr of works in his talk, including "Socialism of 21st Century," written by Hans Dietrich, which discusses old Marxist dogma as the law of class struggle; and 'The Value of Goodwill' theory was analysed with a focus on strategy and geopolitics.

Interview with Dr Pablo Guerrero

Can you tell us more about yourself? You started your career as a university professor and a practicing professional lawyer, how did you become involved in high politics and media?

Yes, that is correct. My main interest is the law, which I studied at the Universidad Central del Ecuador School of Law, where I obtained the degrees of Doctor of Jurisprudence and Lawyer of the Courts of the Republic. I was actively involved in the university, first as a student representative to the Board of the Faculty of Law and later on as President of the Association of the School of Law Faculty. At the same time I was actively instructing various legal and criminal justice courses. Being involved in the legal area, as an educator, president of various associations and a practising lawyer, I came to defend many legal cases. In my private practice, my main focus was to defend people involved in the political arena, including high-ranking officials and ministers. Unfortunately, five years ago the regime in Ecuador changed and under the direction of the current president, Rafael Correa, the constitution was changed to adopt the principles of a socialist ideology. The sovereign power of the three legislative branches – executive, legislative and judicial - was also changed, and it was decided that all would be decided in groups under the new direction of the government. Also, the police and army became tools to service to revolution. The new law changed the nature of employment from public to private ownership. The ideas which were introduced were not too different from the Communist ideology of the Soviet Union. Owing to this turn of events, I became more involved in the political arena: first making speeches at the university and later on becoming politically active at a public level.  I knew that the new system could never work in practice, as history proved many times over and over again, and I was determined to fight against the current regime.   

Can you tell us more about your involvement in these areas (politics and media)?

I ran a TV programme called "Pull yourself together" on television channel 29 broadcasting from Quito. It was an independent TV channel discussing the current political situation in Ecuador. After the change of the regime, the TV channel was banned, and only publicly-owned channels controlled by the government were allowed to operate broadcasting censored information. On 30 September 2010 there was a big uprising against the regime. People went into the streets protesting against the government and the president. The president personally stood against the crowds and military and was very aggressive in his conduct. I  recorded all this information and presented it to the independent news. The media were prohibited from showing this event. As a result of this uprising, ten people died that day. While there was an open riot outside of the TV studio, I openly addressed the nation and the president to try to stop this situation from escalating even further and to come to some kind of consensus. This event led to even more difficult situation for me in Ecuador. I was accused of being a terrorist who wanted to overthrow the regime in Ecuador and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. To avoid this punishment I was forced to resort to the mountains of Ecuador and stay there for several months until the situation had become calmer. However, as the courts would not appeal my case, I had to leave the country and everything behind. I had two weeks to arrange my departure leaving my close family and all my possessions behind. I love Europe and Prague. Another driving force to come to the Czech Republic was to be amongst people who can understand the hardships of living under a totalitarian regime. It has been one year now since I sought asylum in the Czech Republic. I am banned from organizing any activities in Ecuador, but I continue to support the fight against the regime any way I can by supporting local groups, and engaging in social network campaigns.