A brilliant and valiant statement

(Taken from CubaDebate)

ATTENDING to other matters currently
priorities momentarily took me away from the
frequency with which I wrote Reflections during
2010; however, the proclamation of the revolutionary
leader Hugo Chávez last Thursday, June 30, obliges
me to write these lines.

The
President of Venezuela is one of the men to have
done most for the health and education of his people;
given that these are subjects in which the Cuban
Revolution has accumulated the most experience, we
were happy to cooperate to the maximum in both
fields with this sister country.

It is absolutely not the case that
that country lacked doctors; on the contrary, it
possessed them in abundance, including quality
professionals, as in other Latin American countries.
It is a social question. The finest doctors and the
most sophisticated equipment might be, as in all
capitalist countries, in the service of private
medicine. Sometimes, not even that, because within
underdeveloped capitalism, like the capitalism which
existed in Venezuela, the wealthy class had
sufficient income to have recourse to the best
hospitals in the United States or Europe, something
which was habitual and which nobody can deny.

Worse still, the United States and
Europe were and are characterized by seducing the
best specialists from any exploited Third World
country into leaving their homelands and emigrating
to the consumer societies. Training doctors for that
world in the developed countries implies fabulous
sums that millions of poor families in Latin America
could never ever pay. That happened in Cuba until
the Revolution accepted the challenge, not only of
training doctors capable of serving our country, but
also other nations of Latin America, the Caribbean
or the world.

We have never stolen the
intelligences of other peoples. Instead, tens of
thousands of doctors and other high-level
professionals have been trained free of charge in
Cuba in order to return them to their own countries.

Thanks
to their profound Bolivarian and Martí revolutions,
Venezuela and Cuba are countries in which health and
education have been exceptionally developed. All
citizens have the real right to receive general
education and professional training free of charge,
something that the United States has not been able
nor will be able to guarantee to all its inhabitants.
The real fact is that the government of that country
invests one trillion dollars in its military
apparatus and its military adventures every year.
Moreover, it is the largest exporter of weapons and
instruments of death and the largest drugs market in
the world. Due to that trafficking, tens of
thousands of Latin Americans lose their lives every
year.

This is something so real and so
well known that, more than 50 years ago, a president
of military origin condemned, in bitter tones, the
decisive power accumulated by the military-industrial
complex in that country.

These words would be too much if it
were not for the odious and repugnant campaign
unleashed by the Venezuelan oligarchy's mass media
in the service of that empire, utilizing the health
difficulties that the Bolivarian President is
experiencing. We are bound to him by a close and
indestructible friendship, which emerged out of his
first visit to our homeland on December 13, 1994.

Some people were surprised that his
visit to Cuba coincided with the need that arose for
medical attention. The Venezuelan President visited
our country with the same objective that took him to
Brazil and Ecuador. He did not come with any
intention whatsoever of receiving medical services
in our homeland.

As is known, a group of Cuban health
specialists have been providing their services to
the Venezuelan President who, faithful to his
Bolivarian principles, never saw them as undesirable
foreigners, but as the sons and daughters of the
gran Patria (Greater Homeland) for which the
Liberator Simón Bolívar fought until his last
breath.

The first contingent of Cuban
doctors left for Venezuela at the time of the
tragedy in the state of Vargas, which cost the lives
of thousands of noble Venezuelans. This action of
solidarity was nothing new, it has been a rooted
tradition in our homeland since the early years of
the Revolution; ever since, almost half a century
ago, Cuban doctors were sent to the recently
independent Algeria. That tradition deepened as the
Cuban Revolution, in the midst of a merciless
blockade, continued training internationalist
doctors. Countries like Peru, Somoza's Nicaragua and
others in the hemisphere and in the Third World,
suffered tragedies due to earthquakes or other
reasons which required Cuba's solidarity. Thus our
country became the nation with the highest rate of
doctors and specialized health personnel in the
world, with a high degree of experience and
professional capacity.

President Chávez went to great pains
to attend to our health personnel. Thus the bond of
confidence and friendship was born and developed
between him and the Cuban doctors, who were always
very appreciative of their treatment by the
Venezuelan leader who, for his part, was capable of
creating thousands of health centers and furnishing
them with the equipment needed to provide services
free of charge for all Venezuelans. No other
government in the world did so much, in such a short
time, for the health of its people.

A high percentage of Cuban health
personnel provided services in Venezuela and
moreover, many of them taught certain subjects as
part of the training of more than 20,000 young
Venezuelans who are beginning to graduate as
doctors. Many of them began their studies in our
country. The internationalist doctor members of
Battalion 51, graduated in the Latin America School
of Medicine, have earned sound prestige in
fulfilling complex and difficult missions. My
relations in that field with President Hugo Chávez
developed on those bases.

I should add that throughout the
more than 12 years since February 2, 1999, the
President and leader of the Venezuelan Revolution
has not rested for one single day and, in that
respect, he occupies a unique place in the history
of this hemisphere. He has devoted all his energies
to the Revolution.

It could be affirmed that for every
extra hour that Chávez dedicates to his work, a
president of the United States rests for two.

It was hard to believe, almost
impossible, that his health would not suffer some
kind of breakdown and that happened during the last
few months.

As a person used to the rigors of
military life, he stoically endured the pain and
problems affecting him with increasing frequency.
Given the relations of friendship developed and the
constant exchanges between Cuba and Venezuela, plus
my personal experiences in relation to health, which
I have lived through since my July 30, 2006
proclamation, it is not strange that I would notice
the President's need for a rigorous health check. It
is too generous on his part to attribute any special
merit to me in this context.

I admit, of course, that the task
which I imposed on myself was not an easy one. It
wasn't hard for me to notice that he was not in good
health. Seven months had passed since his last visit
to Cuba. The medical team dedicated to attending to
his health had asked me to make that move. From the
very first moment the President's attitude was to
inform the people, with total clarity, of his state
of health. For that reason, being already at the
point of returning, he informed the people about his
health up until that moment via his Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and promised to keep them informed
in detail.

Every treatment was accompanied by
the rigorous cellular and laboratory analyses
undertaken in such circumstances.

One of the examinations, a number of
days after the first operation, produced results
that indicated more radical surgical measures and
special treatment for the patient.

In his dignified message of June 30,
the President, notably recovered, speaks about his
state of health with total clarity.

I admit that the task of telling our
friend of the new situation was not an easy one. I
could appreciate the dignity with which he received
the news which – for him, with so many important
tasks on his mind, among them the commemorative
event for the Bicentenary and the formalization of
the agreement on Latin American and Caribbean unity
– much more than the physical suffering implied by
radical surgery, signifies a test, as he expressed
it, comparable to the hardest moments that have
befallen him in his life as an unyielding combatant.

Together with him, the team of
people attending to him, people whom he described as
sublime, have waged the magnificent battle to which
I have been witness.

I unhesitatingly affirm that the
results are impressive and that the patient has
unleashed a decisive battle which will lead him, and
with him, Venezuela, to a great victory.

His plea has to be communicated
exactly in all languages, but above all translated
and subtitled in English, a language which can be
understood in this Tower of Babel into which
imperialism has converted the world.

Now Hugo Chávez’ internal and
external enemies are at the mercy of his words and
his initiatives. Doubtless, there will be surprises
for them. Let us give him the strongest support and
confidence. The lies of the empire and the betrayal
of the traitors will be defeated. Today there are
millions of combative and conscious Venezuelans whom
the oligarchy and the empire can never subjugate
again.

Fidel Castro Ruz

July 3, 2011

4:12 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

Taken From Granma