Fidel not only belongs to Cuba, he belongs to this world of ours, to this Our America
Originally posted on Granma Internacional Aug. 12.
Brother, ¡Hasta la victoria siempre! And may you have very many more birthdays among us, giving demonstrations of this integrity which you have given all your life, giving demonstrations of courage, example, and driving forward, as always, the waves of the peoples.
Homeland is humanity: it is the legacy of what is the living embodiment of Comandante Fidel Castro.
When you meet with Fidel Castro, he is going to ask you 100 questions in the first five minutes. He wants to know about everything.
Fidel is a boy of 75 years (…), a dreamer, an example without any doubt to all of us, and for entire generations of Latin Americans, Caribbeans and fighters all over the world.
Fidel can show his face with total integrity and absolute morality, not only to the Cuban people, but to all the peoples of the world. Cuba blockaded, almost without resources from the material point of view, but led by Fidel and constructed by his people, has entered the 21st century in a social situation which is the envy of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. Here there are historic differences which will remain and are already sown in the judgment of history.
Many years ago, Fidel said, “History will absolve me,” I saw a book around here titled Absolved by History. Your face is infinite, gigantic, before the history of our peoples, and from there, Fidel, nobody will ever be able to extract you.
I feel the honor of being close to Fidel. And my gratitude and my admiration are only comparable with my affection.
I wish to honor Fidel and his long walk among us in order to awaken us.
At the end of the 80’s, Fidel said that a new revolutionary wave of change, a new wave of peoples, would be unleashed on the continent when it seemed – as some naive people pointed out to him – that we had reached the end of history, that history was petrified and that there were no more ways or alternatives…
When many people began to surrender and give in, Fidel continued saying, new waves will come. We are seeing the beginning of these new waves.
Fidel continues being in the frontline of battle: he has never left it and never will leave it. From the trench of ideas, this great father of revolutionary men and women of Our America has continued directing us. More than ever, his word is necessary and illuminating, now when the empire is counterattacking.
Forty centuries remain for him, because the image of Fidel Castro is written for the pages of the history of our peoples for ever.
Fidel, who sees everything, is wiser with every passing day (…). His wisdom has grown like his white beard.
Fidel Castro is the Caesar of dignity and socialism.
These comments by the Comandante Supremo of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, were compiled from Tribute to Fidel Castro, Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, August 13, 2001, based on the book Absolved by History; President Chávez’ speech on the 10th anniversary of the Cuba-Venezuela Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement, November 10, 2010; Cuentos del Arañero, a book by Orlando Oramas and Jorge Legañoa; Las Líneas de Chávez: La function debe continuar, August 15, 2010; Hugo Chávez Nuestro, a book by journalists Rosa Miriam Elizalde and Luis Báez; Las Líneas de Chávez: Fidel… ¡Viva Fidel!, August 16, 2009; Chávez’ words on the rugby field, University of Córdoba, Argentina, July 21, 2006; Exchange of Messages between Fidel and Chávez, September 15, 2010, published in Granma; and Chávez’ words at the signing of agreements between Venezuela and Cuba, Caracas, January 24, 2007.
