CHAVEZ HAS NOT GONE!
Maria Páez Victor
Political Commentary
Panorama Newscast
Radio Voces Latinas
Toronto, Canada
12 March 2013
Our beloved President Hugo Chávez,
Commander of the Bolivarian Revolution, champion of Our America, Abya Yala has
died. But we have witnessed how it
seems that instead of disappearing, he has been cast like red seeds amazingly
all over Venezuela, and also among the peoples of the South who saw in him also
a champion and who repeat in a multitude of voices the slogan, “We are all Chávez.
Like the great Bolívar, Chávez was
another Liberator. Without the
blood of battles, he liberated Venezuela, that due to oil riches was a prisoner
of the elites and their imperial masters.
He gave to the oppressed people of Venezuela, bread, shelter, health,
and a sovereign nation.
His life is like a fairy tale: that
poor boy from the tiny town of Sabaneta, in the plains state of Barinas, who
sold at school the sweets his grandmother made, and who wanted to be a baseball
player - who was to know that happy smile and that sweetness in the child also
contained a fierce determination to fight for social justice? Most notably, when he reached the power
of the Presidency and became a player in the great world stage, he did not lose
that joyfulness and that sweetness.
This is something the outside world, the North in particularly, never
understood. Chávez would sing to
his people, educated it with his example, filled it with hope, urging them on
towards what they were capable of doing and achieving.
En 1998, after an electoral
campaign carried out in borrowed cars and with borrowed money; Chávez became
president of a bankrupt nation.
The barrel of oil was at $7, there was hardly any money in the treasury,
70% of the population was poor, one third in extreme poverty, schools and
hospitals were insufficient and in deplorable conditions.
Today, Venezuela is one of the
happiest countries in the world according to three independent studies above
reproach.[i] There is no illiteracy. It is the second country in the region
where people read the most. It has
a very high rate of school attendance.
There are physicians in every neighborhood and village thanks to Cuba. The economy is flourishing with a GDP
increase of 5.5%. It is the
country in the region with the lowest economic inequality according to the GINI
Coefficient. And, all this was
achieved because Chávez, returning the ownership of the oil to the people,
invested its income in the real needs of the population, not the whims of the
unpatriotic and usurping elites.
The history of modern Venezuela will from now on be considered as
“before Chávez” and “after Chávez”.[ii]
But the history of Latin America
will also be from now on considered as “before and after Chávez”, such has been
his geopolitical impact. In 1975,
the CIA united the string of Latin-American dictators in the evil Operation
Condor, the original “rendition”, whereby the enemies of one dictator were
kidnapped to another country where they were tortured: thus, 60,000 reformists, socialists,
communists, Labour leaders were assassinated in the second genocide in our
lands.
In contrast, today there is a union
of democratic, respectful, patriotic leader, the majority on the left, who no
longer obey the CIA. After the
attack on the NY towers, the CIA asked the nations of the world to allow them
to use their land and airspace for secret prisons and to transport prisoners to
them – rendition- where they would be tortured. Fifty-four nations in the entire continent (and yes, Canada
too) permitted it but no one Latin American country – neither right nor left
wing- took part in this infamy.
The only region of the world that said no to the CIA was Latin America. It is no longer anyone’s backyard. [iii]
Chávez gave the people of Venezuela
another treasure: sister nations.
The empire and its minions had divided the Latin American family, to
share the booty and to control it.
Now Latin Americans can see each other through TELESUR. Now they can speak with each other
through RADIO DEL SUR. Now their leaders can defend themselves through UNASUR
without the intervention of the North.
Now the leaders can speak to each other directly in CELAC without the
Northern tutelage. Now they can
help each other mutually without buying dollars, with ALBA. Now Latin American petroleum is not
just used to fuel the luxury consumption of the North as with PETROSUR and
PETROCARIBE it is used for its own economic development. Now, there is a trade block - MERCOSUR-
that does not obey blindly the rules of the neo-liberal market. This is a real infrastructure for
regional integration.
Chavez was the leader of all these
changes with his astute intelligence and the attraction of his charismatic
personality. If not, how can one
explain that at his funeral, also sadden also praising him, were the leaders of
countries that did not follow his policies such as Colombia, México, Peru,
Chile? Because as a human being,
Chavez was loved, because he respected others and, despite being a military
man, always tried to achieve peace.
Just as happens with Fidel Castro,
the beasts of corporate capitalism were thrown against him. He was insulted, laughed at, called a
dictator and a clown – those eyes and ears that have no time for Latin American
voices, that do not understand our history, culture or politics, yet set
themselves up as our judges and executioners.
One is offended time and again by
the stereotypes - yes more than tinged with racism- that are hurled at Chávez:
caudillo, dictator, autocrat. It
seems politicians and journalists in the North do not watch TELESUR to try to
find out what is really happening, what Chávez meant to the world of the South.
I am heartbroken that we will no
longer see his contagious smile, hear his songs or those speeches full of
sparkle. But Chávez has not gone,
he remains in his ideas, in the socialist, democratic and, spiritual Bolivarian
Revolution that his people vow to defend, his achievements remain, he remains
in our memory and in our hearts.
Chávez was loved, and love is not
forgotten. Can you say that about
many world leaders?
Good-by President Chávez, we remain
here in the battle for social justice and the sovereignty of Our America. We will not give up.
[i] Gallup Poll,
2012; www.gallup.com/poll/147167/High-wellbeing-Eludes-Masses-Countries-worldwide.aspx#1
Happy Planet sustainable Wellbeing Index, Global
footprint Network, 14 June 2012, AVN; New Economic foundation 24 Oct. 2012,
Correo del Orinoco, World Happiness Report, University of Columbia, USA; www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/20120/world%20Happiness%20report.pdf
[ii] Carles
Muntaner, Joan Benach, Maria Páez Victor, “The Achievements of Hugo Chavez”,
Trouthout
[iii] Greg
Grandin, Latin America Escaped the CIA,
Salon, 19 Feb. 2013,
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/latin_america_territorio_libre_from_the_cia_partner/
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