Chavez’s Lines: ¡¡Viva El Che!!

While the Honduran people complete more than one hundred days of heroic resistance and our brother Mel Zelaya in the Brazilian Embassy awaits his restitution to the Presidency, Organisation of American States representatives arrived in the Central American country to try to answer two questions: how far are the putschists willing to go in their barbarous endeavor to draw out a spurious government that is leading Honduras to the worst economic and social crisis that it has experienced in its history? And to see how this sister nation can recuperate the democratic path, making effective the unanimous condemnation a shameful coup, a new imposition, which can be reproduced in any of our countries? The result: they found out the first and could not enforce the latter.

What I have seen so far, in the negotiators intentions, appears to be a stalled script that contrasts with what is happening throughout the territory of Honduras: a people in revolt against a bourgeois dictatorship that permanently resorts to abuse and repression.

In the Honduran crisis two forces of a very different character face-off: one responds to reason and democratic legitimacy, the other to irrationality and the most grotesque fascism. To consider them as equals is an unlimited aberration that stains the dignity of Our America. Let me reiterate: if they are considered equally, there is no possible resolution to the crisis. Honduras, sooner rather than later, with the hurricane force its people on the street, will prevail. It is a battle between the established power of the bourgeois state and the people's constituent power, which has awakened from torpor.

II. The situation in Honduras hurts us doubly: as a country of Our America and, especially, for being a member of the Bolivarian Alliance. An alliance that each day increasingly consolidates unity among the nations that form it. Irrefutable proof of this is the agreements that we signed on October 7 with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa as part of the quarterly meeting between our two governments.
Indeed, as rightly noted by Correa, there are enemies who want to break this unity. This forces us to overcome nonsense such as competition among countries, the supremacy of the consumer and individualism.

Ecuador and Venezuela are moving in a radically different direction, pointing in the direction of cooperation, complementarity, solidarity and fraternity, as befits two peoples who have decided to unite following the Bolivarian mandate: of the heart. As Bolivar always said: “If we don’t call on order and reason, a new colonialism will relegate us to posterity.”

To the extent that we strengthen the bilateral relationship, we will ensure the continuity of our two revolutions, and imparting them with a dynamic acceleration towards a new unitary historical project that ALBA.

We'll meet again in Ecuador in January 2010 to assess the ongoing projects. Projects that move forward- it is good to point out– according to a rigorous schedule because, as Bolivar [1] said, what we want is that our union is real and truly effective, that is, really and truly efficient in terms of the welfare of our peoples.

III. Of the utmost strategic importance was the joint press conference of the Vice-president of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Popular Power for the Economy and Finance and the Chairman of the Central Bank of Venezuela on Thursday 8 October. They dispelled many doubts. Doubts deliberately introduced by the counter-revolutionary media with the deliberate and perverse purpose of creating confusion and mistrust among the people.

Also extraordinary was another press conference, given by the Vice-president of the Council of Ministers together with the Ministers of Public Works and Housing and Basic Industries and Mining on the 4th.

Now, it is necessary to maintain the offensive and the Revolutionary revitalization! Those who predict the collapse of the Venezuelan economy will be left disappointed. We successfully resist the onslaught of this structural crisis, which is not only of capitalism, as well as Jorge Giordani [2] stated, but of capital. Some data allow us to display the appalling magnitude of this crisis: in the U.S. unemployment rose to nearly 10 points and, simultaneously, 50 million Americans are outside the healthcare system.

As I write today Saturday, in the early hours of the morning I receive fresh news about the evolution of the crisis: “According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the economic crisis pushed 61 million people into unemployment in 2009, and the world there are now 241 million unemployed workers, the largest number of unemployed persons in history.” (IAR Noticias) “It is expected that the number of poor people [in the U.S.], will grow to 90 million by 2010, while at least 59 million will join the ranks of the unemployed, as stated by the Central Bank president Robert Zoellick.” (IPS) There's nothing coincidental that Venezuela is one of four countries in the world that advanced four positions in terms of Human Development Index according to the United Nations Human Development Report 2009. And it is no coincidence that, according to the report, we are the country with the best distribution of income across Our America, that is, with the best rate, to use Bolivar’s term, of established and practiced equality.

IV. On October 8 we commemorated the Day of the Heroic Guerrilla and the Day of Integrated Community Medicine. We wanted to pay the warmest tribute to Che, with the act of receiving of the new contingent of Cuban doctors: they come to fight for health and life in the great social battle front called Barrio Adentro.

The re-launch of Barrio Adentro has begun, the most powerful and effective re-vitalisation, especially in Barrio Adentro I, because that's where the revision and rectification process detected the biggest problems. Never forget that Barrio Adentro I marked a before and after in our neighborhoods. A before and after defined by access to free, quality care to those who have always been excluded from the right to healthcare.

To continue honoring our commitment to the people, we count on the unconditional solidarity of a country with one of the best health systems in the world: revolutionary Cuba.

V. Our congratulations go to the Venezuelan team for its most outstanding participation in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Egypt 2009. Our boys marked a before and after for national football, not only did we qualify, for the first time for a World Cup, but we got to the knockout stage. Facing the Arab Emirates we, simply, had a setback, a setback – we need to say – in an extremely even match- full of alternative possibilities.

Our boys gave their all: they acted like real heroes.

Our recognition, full of patriotic fervor, goes to our team as a whole. In particular, to the coaching staff who have contributed so much to create this new generation of players that are a national pride.

Guys, continue forging the Golden Generation!

VI. On Friday we learned, what, in the first instance, appeared to be an error in the news headlines, rather than real news: The U.S. president, Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The first question we must ask is what happened so that the winner was the U.S. President and not any of the 205 remaining nominations.

What has Obama done to deserve this award? The jury praised as crucial feature his wish for a world without nuclear weapons, forgetting his efforts to perpetuate his battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his decision to install new military bases in Colombia. For the first time, we are witnessing an award with the nominee having done nothing to deserve it: rewarding someone for a wish that is very far from becoming reality.  

But that is the world. Imagine someone giving a pitcher the Cy Young Award at the beginning of the season, only because he said he will win 50 games, will not lose any, will strike out 500 batters and his ERA will not exceed 0.5. Rosines[3] said: “No Way!” Meanwhile, daily engaged as were are, in the solution of a thousand problems, it is an immense joy that fills the soul to see how we move with more libertarian determination towards the consolidation of a real alternative for our peoples, although from Washington they tell us that we should be a more "constructive" country for the region. The things people say! In reality what “worries” them is the way we are moving towards a destination that puts the people of America at the epicenter of change and not in their failed "little free trade agreements” that crashed against the united valor of the people determined to be free and sovereign.

¡Viva el Che! ¡Hasta la victoria siempre! ¡Venceremos!

Translators Notes:
[1] Simon Bolivar – Venezuelan independence fighter (1783-1830)
[2] Jorge Giordani – Venezuela’s Minister of Planning and Development.
[3] Rosines – Chavez’s daugher.

Translated for Venezuelanalysis.com by Kiraz Janicke