The following statement is reprinted from Granma International, English edition. The translation is by Granma.
With deep and lacerating pain, our people and the Revolutionary government learned of the death of President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías and are preparing to pay him a heartfelt and patriotic tribute on his entry into history as an independence leader of Our America.
We offer our sincere condolences to his parents, brothers, daughters and son and all his family members, who are already ours, just as Chávez is also a son of Cuba, of Latin America and the Caribbean, and of the world.
In this moment of profound sadness, we share the closest sentiments of solidarity with the sister Venezuelan people, who we will accompany in all circumstances.
The Bolivarian Revolution will have our resolute and unrestricted support during these difficult days.
We reiterate our support, encouragement and faith in victory to our compañeros in the Bolivarian political-military leadership and the Venezuelan government.
President Chávez has led an extraordinary battle throughout his youthful and fertile life. We will always remember him as a patriotic soldier in the service of Venezuela and the Patria Grande [Greater Homeland]; as an honest, lucid, daring and courageous revolutionary fighter; as a leader and supreme comandante who reincarnated Bolívar in order to do what Bolívar was unable to complete; founder of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
His heroic and indefatigable fight against death is an unsurpassable example of fortitude. The admirable commitment of his doctors and nurses has been a feat of humanism and dedication.
The President’s return to the Venezuelan homeland, which he loved so much, changed history. “We have a homeland,” Chávez exclaimed with emotion last December 8, and he returned there to confront the greatest risks imposed by his illness. Nothing and nobody can seize the restored homeland from the Venezuelan people.
All of Chávez’ work appears undefeated before us. The attainments of the revolutionary people who saved him from the coup in April 2002 and have unhesitatingly followed him, are now irreversible.
The Cuban people feel him as one of their most outstanding sons and have admired him, followed him and loved him as their own. Chávez is also Cuban! He experienced as his own our difficulties and problems and did as much as he could, with extraordinary generosity, especially in the hardest years of the Special Period. He accompanied Fidel as a true son and his friendship with Raúl was extremely close.
He excelled in international battles in the face of imperialism, always in defense of the poor, of the workers, of our peoples. Impassioned, persuasive, eloquent, ingenious and moving, he spoke from the hearts of the peoples, sang of our joys, and declaimed our impassioned poems with perennial optimism.
The tens of thousands of Cubans working in Venezuela will honor him with their impassioned fulfillment of revolutionary internationalism and will continue accompanying the epic feat of the Bolivarian people with honor and altruism.
Cuba will sustain eternal loyalty to the memory and legacy of Comandante President Chávez and will resolutely continue his ideals of the unity of the revolutionary forces and of the integration and independence of Our America.
His example will lead us in coming battles.
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
