Chavez is a formidable enemy of imperialism, says Fidel

Chavez is a formidable enemy of imperialism, says Fidel
Written by Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:01:08 PM

CHAVEZ is a formidable enemy of the capitalist production system and imperialism, Cuban revolution leaders Fidel Castro has said. Castro further observed that US governments could change but the instruments they used “to turn us” into a colony were still the same.

The Organisation of American States (OAS) has accused President Chavez’s administration of violating “the freedom of conscience and religion” and charged that Cuba had continued to violate basic rights including freedom of expression.

In his Reflections by Comrade Fidel published on Monday entitled “The Struggle has barely begun”, Castro said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had become a real expert on many of human society’s basic problems.

“He is impressive,” Castro stated. “Considering it calmly, today Chavez is a formidable adversary for the capitalist production system and for imperialism…He masterfully handles even the most insignificant details concerning national production and social services. He is on top of the theory and practice of socialism needed by his country and he makes great efforts through his most profound convictions. “His adversaries understand that it is not easy to win when faced with the tenacity of a man who struggles without even a moment’s rest. They could decide to take his life but his internal and external foes know what that would mean for their interests. There can be irrational lunatics and fanatics, but neither leaders nor peoples or humanity itself are exempt from such dangers.”

Castro stated that President Chavez defines capitalism for what it is.

He stated that President Chavez did not draw caricatures of capitalism but revealed x-rays and pictures of the system.

“We are dealing with a peculiar and horrible ensemble of forms of exploitation of human work - unjust, unequal, arbitrary,” Castro elaborates. “He doesn’t simply talk about the worker; he shows him on television working with his hands, showing his energy, his knowledge, his intelligence, creating the goods or services that are essential to human beings; he asks them about their children, their families, husbands or wives, their kin, where they live, what they are studying, what they are doing to improve themselves, their age, salary, future pension, all the grotesque lies about property that are being spread by the imperialists and capitalists. He shows the hospitals, schools, factories, boys and girls; he provides facts about the factories being built in Venezuela, the machinery, figures on the growth of employment, natural resources, plans, maps, and he provides news on the latest gas discovery.”

Castro also commented on the most recent measure adopted by the Venezuelan Congress leading to the nationalising the 60 key companies supplying services each year to Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA for a value of more than US $8 billion.

He stated that actually those entities were not private property.

Castro stated that Venezuela’s neo-liberal governments created them with resources belonging to PDVSA.

Castro said President Chavez had shown himself to be the political leader in Venezuela who was capable of creating a party, incessantly transmitting revolutionary ideas to its members and educating them politically.

He stated that he had been witness to the unique transformation in Venezuela.

“It is a battle of ideas that has been lost beforehand by the adversary who has nothing to offer humanity,” Castro stated. “No wonder the OAS (Organisation of American States) is hypocritically trying to present him as an enemy of freedom of expression and democracy.”

He stated that almost half a century had gone by since “those chipped and hypocritical weapons [OAS]” came up against the steadfastness of the Cuban people.

Castro stressed that today, Venezuela was not alone and that it had the experience of 200 years of exceptional patriotic history on its side.

“This struggle has barely begun in our hemisphere,” charged Castro.

He stated that since the departure of Jimmy Cater, whom he considers the only US president with a sense of ethics, from the White House the last 28 years had seen three American presidents who committed genocides and a fourth who internationalized the US blockade against Cuba.

“Governments can change but the instruments they used to turn us into a colony are still the same,” Castro stated.

He accused the OAS of being the instrument for those crimes committed by US leaders.

Castro stated that the OAS was not able to prevent Ronald Reagan from unleashing the dirty war against Nicaragua as the US helped unseat Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista administration.

“What did the OAS do to protect it?” he asked. “What did it do to prevent the invasion of Santo Domingo, the hundreds of thousands of people murdered or disappeared in Guatemala, the air attacks, the assassinations of prominent religious leaders, the massive repression against the people, the invasions of Grenada and Panama, the coup in Chile, the tortured and disappeared there and in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and other places? Did it ever accuse the United States? What is its historical evaluation of these events?”