Fidel Castro: We Lost Our Best Friend

Fidel: Not even Chavez himself was aware of how great he really was.

“We Lost our Best Friend” is the title of an article written by Cuban Revolution leader on Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, which was published by the Cuban media on Monday.

In his article, Fidel Castro recalls the news about the passing away of Hugo Chavez on March 5; he said that although he was aware of the critical health conditions of the Bolivarian leader, the bitter news strongly moved him, and that he recalled that Chavez at times played jokes by telling him that once they concluded their revolutionary task, he would invite him on a tour along the Arauca River, which reminded him of the leisure time he never enjoyed.

We are honored to have shared with the Bolivarian leader the same ideals of social justice and the support of the exploited ones. The poor are the poor in any part of the world, Fidel wrote.

In his article, the Cuban Revolution leader recalled the words of National Hero Jose Marti when he visited Venezuela and went straight to pay tribute to the statue of Bolivar.

Fidel recalled Marti’s words about the United States when he said that he lived in the monster and knew its entrails, as well as his last letter before he was killed in action in Cuba, in which the National Hero said that he was about to give his life to prevent the United States from expanding on Latin America.

Fidel also brings to mind the words by the Liberator Simon Bolivar when he said that the United States seemed to be destined by Devine Providence to plague the Americas with miseries in the name of freedom.

Fidel Castro said that on January 23, 1959, twenty two days after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, he visited Venezuela to thank the people and the government that took power after the Perez Jimenez dictatorship for the shipment to Cuba of 150 rifles in 1958.

On that occasion, he said that the fatherland of the Liberator, was the land where the ideas of Latin American unity were forged, and that Venezuela should be the leading nation in promoting the unity of Latin American countries and that the Cuban people supported their Venezuelan brothers and sisters.

He said that his ideas were not encouraged by any personal ambition, or the ambition of glory, because in the end, the ambition of glory is mere vanity, and he recalled the words by Jose Marti that all the glory of the world fits in a kernel of corn.

“If we want to save the Cuban Revolution, the Venezuelan Revolution and the revolutions in all the countries of our continent, we have to get together and back one another strongly, because by our selves and divided we will fail”, Fidel recalled his own words.

“That is what I said that day, and I ratified it 54 years later”, he pointed out and said that he had to include on that list of countries those nations that for over half a century have been the victims of exploitation and plunder. That precisely was the struggle waged by Chavez.

And Fidel concludes his article by stressing that not even Chavez himself was aware of how great he really was.

Onward to victory for ever, unforgettable friend!