The Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro
paid tribute to President Hugo Chávez
(1999-2013), on the day that marked the 10th anniversary of his death, with a day that included an act at the barracks from which he led the coup d'état in 1992 against the then president, Carlos Andrés Pérez.
The invited presidents and former presidents of the region were present
at the event
, such as the Bolivian Luis Arce, the Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega, the Ecuadorian Rafael Correa, Xiomara and Manuel Zelaya, from Honduras, and Evo Morales.
The former president of Cuba, Raúl Castro, also traveled to Caracas.
"At 4:25 in the afternoon, today, March 5, Commander President Hugo Chávez Frías has died," Nicolás Maduro announced on the afternoon of that Tuesday in 2013, through tears.
It is an emblematic date, but not everyone has the day so present.
Nor was it ever clear whether it was on that day that the Bolivarian leader died or it was before, in Cuba, ravaged by cancer that could not be reversed in Cuba.
"We have the enormous commitment, 10 years after the physical departure of our commander, (to)
continue strengthening popular unity
, the vanguard of the revolution in Venezuela and beyond, because this is an internationalist project," said the Venezuelan ambassador. in Cuba, Adán Chávez, and brother of the former Venezuelan leader.
People visit the tomb of the former president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez, in the mountain barracks.
Photo EFE
"Revolutionary"
Rafael Correa, former president of Ecuador and sentenced to prison in his country for corruption, said that "Chávez was that soldier who rescued his homeland from the hands that had always dominated and exploited it, who dreamed and fought to build the great homeland, that revolutionary who
became a legend
”.
In addition, Correa stressed that Chávez achieved in the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, "ignite the anti-imperialist spirit to defend the homeland."
“They have not invaded (Venezuela) because they know that they will find another Vietnam and here we must recognize the value of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, that when there are progressive processes and a country abroad is not blocked, it is because they have not been able to limit their forces. Armed Forces that are owed to their Peoples”, he stressed.
The honor guard next to the tomb of the former president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez in the mountain barracks.
Photo EFE
Meanwhile, Ricardo Menéndez, Minister of Planning, spoke as a representative of the Maduro government, and stressed that, after the physical departure of Chávez, "Maduro came out to build collective leadership, to make unity a strategy, a historical objective
of the fight
”.
In this sense, he affirmed that after "the aggression and the suffocation of the financial coup, Chávez was reborn as a creative force in adherence to the Constitution and the Plan for the Homeland" Evo Morales, former president of Bolivia, expressed his satisfaction at being able to participate in the commemorative acts of the tenth anniversary of the death of Chávez, who he said
was "my soul brother
, a fellow fighter, a great revolutionary."
“The best tribute to 10 years of his death is to be a revolutionary and to be an anti-imperialist.
We must guarantee the second liberation of Latin America”, said Evo.
The act
In the Cuartel de la Montaña, a former military museum renamed Cuatro de Febrero in honor of the 1992 date on which, from its facilities, Chávez led the coup d'état, members of the government and sympathizers of the man who ruled the destinies of Venezuela until 2013 they remembered his legacy.
Nicolás Maduro, Ralph Everard Gonsalves and Raúl Castro.
AFP photo
Luis Arce, president of Bolivia, said upon arriving in Caracas that Hugo Chávez "has opened our eyes that
building a new society
is possible, that revolutionaries and socialists are not an invention but a reality."
There are "so many things that the Bank of the South has raised at the time, precisely the issue of ALBA and, finally, so many things that we Latin Americans have to thank for the initiative of Hugo Chávez," he added.
The Nicaraguan dictator, Daniel Ortega, said upon arriving in Caracas that "now, in the present, it is up to Nicolás Maduro to raise the sword of Bolívar, that Chávez transferred it to him and that it is in the hands of the Bolivarian people, of the Venezuelan people who
travel Latin America and the Caribbean”.
The Nicaraguan president, who is going through a wave of criticism for his decision to deport and withdraw the nationality of nearly 300 personalities opposed to his government, added: "Today more than ever we have to unite our forces, our fighting action, to continue waging the battle for the freedom and unity of our people”.
From Havana, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, sent a hug to Venezuela for the "painful absence" of Chávez.
“Our America lost Bolívar and Fidel (Castro) for the second time, and Cuba lost its best friend.
A decade has passed and it hurts the same," Díaz-Canel lamented on Twitter.
Thousands of supporters of Chavismo
went to the Cuartel de la Montaña to honor the memory of the president.
Source: EFE, ANSA and Xinhua
bp
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