Cuba commemorates life and legacy of Commander Hugo Chávez

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 5 (ACN) A panel held at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) celebrated the life and transcendence of Commander Hugo Chávez Frías (1954-2013), leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, on the occasion of the eleventh anniversary of his death.

Orlando Maneiro Gaspar, Venezuelan Ambassador to Havana, along with historian René González Barrios, director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, and Victor Gaute López, vice-president of ICAP, delved into the historical origins of the process initiated by Chávez and the solidarity projects he devised together with the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz.

Gonzalez Barrios made special reference to imperialism’s absurd assertion that the Bolivarian process is influenced by Cuba, an argument that the specialist described as historically untenable once we consider how the figure of the Liberator Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) inspired subsequent independence struggles in America, including Cuba.

On his end, Ambassador Maneiro Gaspar urged those present to remember Chavez and how much he did for justice and equality in benefit of the humble as concepts duly reflected in the tenets of Venezuela’s Civil-Military Union, based on Commander Chavez’s will to bring the uniformed people into the process of changes launched by the Bolivarian Revolution.

“The imperialists sometimes don’t understand how we have kept this project in place after his death, which was a devastating blow, but we Chavistas went ahead hand in hand with our Cuban brothers, from whom we have learned so much about solidarity and confidence in victory,” he stressed.