Upon Chávez’s demise
Progreso Semanal
HAVANA: The Cuban government expressed its grief over the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and ratified its unrestricted support for the Bolivarian Revolution.
STATEMENT FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT
Farewell, Comandante.
With deep and lacerating grief, our people and the Revolutionary Government have learned of the passing of President Hugo Rafael Chávez FrÌas and prepare to render him heartfelt and patriotic homage upon his step into history as a Hero of Our America.
We express our sincere condolences to his parents, siblings, daughters and son, and to all his relatives, who are already our relatives, as Chávez is also a son of Cuba and Latin America and the Caribbean and the world.
At this moment of deep sadness, we share the warmest feelings of solidarity with the brotherly Venezuelan people, whom we shall accompany under all circumstances.
The Bolivarian Revolution will have our resolute and unrestricted support in these difficult days.
To our comrades in the Political-Military Leadership and Government of Venezuela we reiterate our backing, encouragement and faith in victory.
President Chávez has been the protagonist of an extraordinary battle throughout his young and fruitful life. We shall remember him always as a patriotic military man at the service of Venezuela and the Great Homeland; as an honest, lucid, bold and brave revolutionary leader; as a leader and supreme commander who reincarnated BolÌvar to accomplish what he could not finish; as the founder of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
His heroic and dauntless struggle against death is an unsurpassable example of strength. The admirable devotion of his doctors and nurses has been a feat of humanism and consecration.
The President’s return to the Venezuelan homeland he so loved changed history. "We have a homeland," Chávez exclaimed with emotion last Dec. 8, and he returned to it to confront the biggest risks posed by the disease. Nothing and no one can wrest from the Venezuelan people the homeland it rescued.
Chávez’s entire task lies before us, undefeated. The conquests of the revolutionary people who saved him from the April 2002 coup d’Ètat and have followed him without hesitation are now irreversible.
The Cuban people embrace him as one of their most outstanding sons and have admired, followed and loved him as their own. Chávez is also Cuban! He felt our difficulties and problems in his flesh and did all he could for us with extraordinary generosity, especially in the toughest years of the Special Period. He accompanied Fidel as a true son; his friendship with Raúl was heartfelt.
He shone in the international battles against imperialism, always in defense of the poor, the workers, our peoples. Fiery, persuasive, eloquent, ingenious and thrilling, he spoke from the heart of the people, he sang our joys and declaimed our passionate verses with perennial optimism.
The tens of thousands of Cubans who work in Venezuela will pay him homage with the fervent fulfillment of internationalist duty and will continue to accompany the epic of the Bolivarian people with honor and altruism.
Cuba will show eternal loyalty to the memory and legacy of Comandante President Chávez and will persist in his ideals of the unity of the revolutionary forces and the integration and independence of Our America.
His example will lead us in the battles to come.
On to victory, always!
