The article by Chávez

IT was the year 2006. I was actually in very grave condition, but at the same time very aware of what was happening. The 14th Non-Aligned Summit, where Cuba was elected president, was ending during those days of mid-September. With a very big effort, I was able to get up and sit at a table. That was how I received important heads of state or government. The prime minister of India was one of them. The highest-ranking visitor that I received in that emergency room in the Presidential Palace was the Ghanaian Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, whose mandate ended a few weeks later.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, one of the individuals with whom I met the most, told me, looking me straight in the eye, "Fidel, if you need my blood, you have it."

I appreciated him very much. He was foreign minister in the government of our friend Houari Boumediene.

For his part, Bouteflika had just gone through a health crisis that took him to the verge of death. It may be said that his recovery was amazing.

His words constituted noble and selfless support for our cause, which was not expected, because our internationalist spirit was never exercised in exchange for something else.

His noble gesture took place years after what happened in the city of Monterrey, Mexico, when a vile traitor to the history of a self-sacrificing and combative people agreed with the demands of the leader of the empire that I should be expelled from a summit taking place there after speaking with those gathered there, with the exception of Bush, who would not set foot on Mexican soil while I was there.

Right before I left, Hugo Chávez paid me an urgent visit, indignant over the arrogant conduct of the host country’s head of state, and exclaimed, "Fidel, tell me how much oil Cuba needs to overcome the Yanki blockade."

The dialogue seemed unreal. It is not easy to remember, through the mist of emotion, exactly what my words in response were. No doubt, refusing to accept.

Whatever the case, Cuba’s destiny continued on its course. The fate of our people was tied to the legendary memory of Che and the ideas of Martí and Bolívar.

Our future is inseparable from what will happen this coming Sunday when the day of the approval of the Constitutional Amendment begins. There is no alternative other than victory.

The destiny of the peoples of "Our America" will depend a lot on that victory, and it will be an event that will influence the rest of the planet.

However, recognition of Hugo Chávez is due for his contribution to Spanish literature. His most recent article, published yesterday, February 12, and titled "The lines of Chávez," is an inspired document of exceptional quality, which only great writers can elaborate. It is Chávez, body and soul, reflected in print, something very few can achieve.

Yesterday’s massive and enthusiastic rally was a spectacle to which a countless number of people in the world had access only through television.

The exposure of the self-provocation staged in the Jewish synagogue is the antithesis of those moving images from 1945 when Soviet troops assaulted and occupied the Auschwitz concentration camp, showing the world what was left of millions of Jews and people from other occupied countries, including children, the elderly and women, placed in captivity by the Nazis. It was not Eisenhower’s soldiers who strove and shed their blood to free them.

The monstrous world of injustice that imperialism has imposed on the planet marks the inexorable end of a system and an era which cannot have much time remaining. It, too, is becoming exhausted. We thank our Venezuelan compatriot for his clarion call.

Fidel Castro Ruz
February 13, 2009
11:30 p.m.