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Fidel talks with
Chávez on "Aló Presidente"
"I
feel like I have more energy, more strength and more
time for studying"
Hugo Chávez.- Who
is speaking?
Fidel Castro.- Listen.
Hugo Chávez.- I’m listening.
Fidel Castro.- My illustrious and dear friend,
how are you?
Hugo Chávez.- Caramba, it’s Fidel! (Applause
and exclamations of: "Fidel, Fidel, Fidel!")
Fidel Castro.- So, I am listening to you here
on "Aló, Presidente, and all of the information that
you’ve used in the last few minutes. I think your
line of argument is very good on growth, the GDP,
the decline in unemployment, many interesting things.
Hugo Chávez.- [In English] How are you,
Fidel?
Fidel Castro.- [In English] Very well (Laughter).
Hugo Chávez.- So, you have no idea how happy
I am to hear your voice and to know that you are
well.
Fidel Castro.- Thank you very much.
Hugo Chávez.- Here’s a hug. We are very
surprised, pleasantly surprised, and we were talking
about you — like we almost always do — a little
while ago.
Fidel Castro.- I knew that I would end up on
"Aló, Presidente."
Hugo Chávez.- Now it’s on every day.
Fidel Castro.- No, no; don’t make me do that,
I have hard work to do here (Laughter), studying a
lot, above all; but I see that you are not letting
go of your books. What time do you go to bed?
Hugo Chávez.- Well, I sleep for a little
while in the early morning.
Fidel Castro.- A little while.
Hugo Chávez.- I sleep for a little while. I’m
studying a lot; it is one of the tasks of a
revolutionary, and we are following your example.
Fidel Castro.- Yes, and you have been reading
for a long time, and you have an exceptional talent
for retaining everything, remembering everything.
What you sometimes forget are numbers (Laughter).
Hugo Chávez.- Well, I forget them, but not
all that much, either.
Fidel Castro.- But you have everything marked
down there, so as not to miss a single one, because
keeping track of everything is difficult.
Hugo Chávez.- Do you know how many hectares
of corn it takes to produce one million barrels of
ethanol?
Fidel Castro.- Of ethanol, I think you talked
about 20 million hectares the other day, something
like that (Laughter), but remind me.
Hugo Chávez.- Twenty million. No, you are the
one with the exceptional mind.
Fidel Castro.- Ah, 20 million.
Well, of course, the idea of using food for
producing fuel is tragic, it is dramatic. Nobody is
certain about what is going to happen with food
prices, when soy is becoming a fuel, with the need
there is in the world to produce eggs, to produce
milk, to produce meat, and it is one more tragedy of
the many that exist at this time.
I am very happy that you have taken up the cause
of saving the species, because the battle to save
the species is a difficult one, because there are
new, very difficult problems, and you are like a
preacher; really, a great preacher, who has become a
champion of the cause, or a champion of keeping the
species alive, that is why I am congratulating you.
I see you wrestling with the Morality and
Enlightenment Progam [Moral y Luces education
reform initiative] to educate people so that they
understand. And regarding this, there is a ton of
details that I read and go over every day, and I
stay very informed: war-related dangers, climate-related
dangers, food-related dangers, because — as you have
noted — there are thousands of millions of people
going hungry, and those are realities.
For the first time in history, governments have
set themselves to thinking about that, governments
that have powers, that have moral authority to do
so, and you are one of those rare examples.
Not long ago I read that Australia was
proclaiming itself the first country in the world to
carry out an energy revolution, and it turns out
that it is a project to be implemented in two or
three years; they make me want to laugh, because in
two months, you all have distributed 34 million
light bulbs, and in four months you will have met
the first goal of taking those light bulbs, which
have so many advantages, to every home. So, there is
another one out there; but now, there are some who
are competing with Australia for that first place.
There is not a single country, in Europe or
anywhere else, that is not concerned about that
problem today.
Excuse me for taking so long, and stealing half
of your program from you.
Hugo Chávez.- No, it’s not long at all; it is
7:49 minutes of today.
We were thinking about you, because you know that
today is February 27, and they told us here, 18
years ago, that one of the reasons for the
Caracazo [Caracas uprising] was that when you
came at that time, you left 200 agitators here who
had lighted the wildfires, so to speak. And today we
were analyzing the causes of the whole issue of the
foreign debt, the issue of Black Friday, the plunder
of the country, capital flight, privatizations,
inflation accompanied by a terrible recession,
unemployment, the breakdown of even the middle class.
Well, as Einstein, whom we were reading a minute
ago, says — I don’t know if you heard — when he
reflected on the whys of socialism, and Einstein
concluded that what capitalism produces is chaos.
So, with the Caracazo, Fidel, we were
remembering you, and I was remembering that during
those days, I saw you from far away here, and wanted
to come up and greet you, even though I could not;
but we were already involved in the revolutionary
movement here. And to say to everyone here, via
"Aló, Presidente," now listening to you and talking
with you, what a great honor, that day that a people
rose up against neoliberalism.
The Caracazo was — Fidel, you know it —
the first response on a world scale, with enormous
weight, to the neoliberal project, when the Soviet
Union was already falling, the Berlin Wall, and it
was beginning to be said that the end of history had
come, along with a single way of thinking.
And that the Caracazo came out of February
4. You know that those events, one without the other,
would not be understood; and then this entire road,
this revolution of ours, in which Cuba is always,
has always and always will be present and Cuba with
you at the helm. So many things to be grateful for;
that energy revolution, which would have been
impossible without Cuba.
Now we will continue on with you. Today, the 7th
Meeting of the High-Level Joint Commission is
meeting there in Havana, as you know, and the
results that I have learned of so far are
extraordinary, of the progress of the ALBA and
bilateral relations.
I should inform you, you should be informed by
now, but to comment to you, so that everybody knows,
that yesterday I approved for Rafael Ramírez, the
minister, to establish a joint enterprise with
Vietnam, and I asked for him to raise that today
there in Havana; because we could make — Cuba,
Vietnam, Venezuela — an enterprise to install here
in Venezuela, or in Cuba, or in both republics, a
light bulb factory to continue spreading the
revolution; energy-saving bulbs and other elements
that are needed for deepening the energy revolution
— solar panels, the system for eolian [wind] energy.
I want us to set up all of those factories here,
Fidel; let’s bring the technology.
What do you think about that?
Fidel Castro.- I think all of that sounds
wonderful.
About three days ago, we inaugurated an eolian
park on the Isle of Youth, still a small one, with
275-kilowatt windmills; but they work for the test
that we are going to carry out there. And there is a
very important area in the eastern part of the
country where we are taking all sorts of
measurements to install more eolian parks, which
will produce electricity with less-costly
investments.
You all have an advantage, which is you have a
land free of hurricanes, and we are constantly
visited by hurricanes; measures must be taken to
protect them, of different types, sometimes using
cranes, sometimes removing the blades, and, in
short, finding solutions. There is solar energy, for
which you have installed technology there in Caracas
that is worthwhile, that has been well-utilized,
although the investment is costly; afterward, if it
is manufactured in the country, it will be much more
economical.
You all are going to build a factory for
stainless steel using the cheap energy that is
available to you today and above all, the energy
that you can save.
Venezuela has almost one million square
kilometers of territory; we are a nutshell, which
the Gulf Stream took very near to your friends in
the North.
Hugo Chávez.- [In English] Our friends.
Fidel Castro.- You say that I learned English,
but I learned it some time ago.
Hugo Chávez.- Have you forgotten it?
Fidel Castro.- The trauma that they left me
with afterward has made me forget, and that is why I
do not have the exceptional memory that you have,
the capacity for summing up, your musical ear, your
ability to remember any song; because I cannot
believe that you have gone to so many parties to
remember all of the songs that you sing on "Aló,
Presidente." So I envy you that.
Hugo Chávez.- No, I have not partied as much
as you; I never went to parties like you did, nor
did I sing as much as you.
Fidel Castro.- No way, man! I remember more
or less the essence of the ideas, but you have the
exact words; I see how you find it, repeat it, and
search for the exact word.
In the end, you are going to go down as one of
the great writers of this hemisphere. And don’t be
sorry about it, because writers have an increasingly
greater power.
Hugo Chávez.- I was going to ask you
something.
What do you think about this breaking news we’re
hearing about here? That 67% of people in the United
States disapprove of Bush’s policy in Iraq. You know
that we are preparing to welcome Bush in South
America.
Fidel Castro.- Ah! You’re going to welcome
him.
Yes, I’ve heard something about it, I think that
there are going to be mass organizations, all in a
very peaceful and very respectful spirit.
But I bet you don’t know about two new pieces of
news today.
Hugo Chávez.- Tell me, let’s see, give me an
exclusive for "Aló, Presidente."
Fidel Castro.- For example, the Shanghai
stock market fell 9% today, and the New York stock
market, which is the queen, fell 4% today. It is one
of the largest falls that it has had in recent years,
and that really does nothing but confirm what we are
thinking.
Hugo Chávez.- Well, that news, I did not... .
Fidel Castro.- Today they lost $8 billion
there, and that is the queen of the stock markets,
and it fell more than when the crisis happened in
South East Asia.
So, I don’t know what is going to shake up the
leaders of the United States more — well, the one
leading the United States muto proprio —
whether it is the news of what happened over there,
or his tour of South America. What do you think?
Hugo Chávez.- No, I’m telling that I didn’t
know about that news, those falls on the Shanghai
and New York stock markets.
You should know by now — because you know
everything — that the [International] Monetary Fund
is in crisis, and I was saying yesterday, and today,
that most likely they are going to have to ask for a
loan from the Bank of the South. The Monetary Fund
does not have the money to pay its salaries; it is
selling its gold bars.
Fidel Castro.- Yes, it is selling gold, which
is the only thing worth anything these days; what it
should sell is papers, the papers that the United
States pays with. To sell gold now is crazy; but,
well, the Bank of the South is a serious bank, it
aspires to be a serious bank.
Hugo Chávez.- It will be a serious bank.
Fidel Castro.- The International Monetary
Fund never was, but the crisis is proving it, the
crisis is proving it. Just look at how this happened
two or three days before this fall by the stock
markets.
Hugo Chávez.- It is the same crisis — as you
well know — the crisis of the world economy, but of
the alternative one. At the national level each one
has its own model: we have socialism, there in Cuba,
here in Venezuela, with their particularities, and
at the international level, the ALBA [Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas], which we are
accelerating, Fidel, as you well know, accelerating.
Everybody asks how you are. We went to Martinique,
we were in Dominica and in Saint Vincent; the prime
ministers sent many greetings to you, Roosevelt
Skerrit, our friend, and the Prime Minister of Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines; we were observing the
project to expand the airport. There, I got together
with the Cuban and Venezuelan workers, the
Venezuelan Army engineer corps. We inaugurated the
first fuel storage facilities in Dominica and the
gas-filling plant in Saint Vincent, with Ralph
Gonsalves.
Everybody asks me about you, and I tell them what
I know, about your recuperation, your new Sierra
Maestra, that great battle that you have waged and
that you keep waging, and in which we are with you
every day, asking God, who, like you said, "Helps
Chávez and his friends," to keep helping you in your
full recovery. All of us, there are millions of us,
you know it Fidel, in the world who want to see you
completely recovered soon, as I am sure you will be.
Well, Daniel Ortega came three days ago, we spoke
for several hours; next week we have the meeting of
the Joint Commission there in Managua.
Kirchner came, as you know, to the Orinoco Belt,
and well, Kirchner has invited me. I’m using this
opportunity to make it public, given your call; we
had not made it public. We are going to have a
meeting in Buenos Aires next week. We are going to
keep making progress on bilateral relations between
Argentina and Caracas, and then there is another
meeting in Bolivia — we are going to visit Evo next
week — of the strategic alliance, the Caracas-Buenos
Aires axis, passing through Brasilia, the axis with
La Paz, and now with [Ecuadorian President Rafael]
Correa.
In Quito, the first ship arrived, you must know
by now; I am just taking advantage of your phone
call to brush up on all of these things about how we
are progressing and will continue progressing.
And you, as an example of resistance and now of
going on the offensive, Fidel. I don’t want let this
opportunity go by of your surprise telephone call,
which motivates us so much, and makes us so happy,
to continue reminding our peoples about the valor of
revolutionary Cuba and your valor; your valor, your
conscience.
We remembered that you were here in 1959, at the
start of the so-called democratic experience, which
utterly failed, and that failure led to the
Caracazo, and to the Caracazo of February
4, and from February 4 to today, to what is
happening here; but you, Cuba and your example of
dignity, of battle, of courage, and your infinite
solidarity have always been and will be with us as
an example, Fidel.
Fidel Castro.- Listen, Hugo, I wanted to tell
you that I was meeting precisely with the head of
your delegation, we were talking when news arrived
from over there, so I’m very happy. I will see if I
can talk — I am with him in person — with some of
the other individuals a little later on.
They are working very hard here, very
enthusiastically, using the little time that we have
left. The time factor cannot be forgotten, and in my
opinion, we have little time left, and they are,
apparently, more conscious of that.
I am very thankful to you for all of your
greetings, your good wishes, and above all, I
remembered to return your microphones to you,
because if not, I get enthused, just like you. I
could not compete, but I could emulate a little bit.
I would also like to thank the Venezuelan people
for their greetings, from that people who are so
heroic, so beloved, that they have led you to take
on the responsibilities that you have today. History
has been rewritten again, but 200 years ago, it was
very different. The world has changed tremendously
and above all during the last 60 years, and that is
the time that must be used, and about which it is
necessary to meditate a lot. I dedicate time to that,
and I feel good, because I think there is nothing
that is more important. And I am also happy to see
how your people are working — I already told you
something about that — with enthusiasm, with
seriousness. And I would like to thank everybody for
the proof of the affection and encouragement that
they are giving me, now that I am dedicated to this
task.
I cannot promise that I will travel there soon to
accompany you on one of those trips, but I am
gaining ground, I feel like I have more energy, more
strength and more time for studying. I have become a
student again, to sum it up.
Hugo Chávez.- Morality and enlightenment.
Fidel Castro.- Morality and enlightenment! I
can’t get that out of my head now, because it is the
first time that I have seen somebody trying to win
that moral battle on the basis of conquering what is
inside: people’s hearts and minds.
I don’t know if you have much time left there,
but you were supposed to speak with Ramírez. Tell me
what to do.
Hugo Chávez.- No, I can speak with Ramírez
tomorrow. We are very happy about listening to you,
very happy to hear you and learn about your
recuperation. Keep recuperating; don’t forget about
your "tsunami."
Fidel Castro.- No.
Hugo Chávez.- Keep recovering.
Fidel Castro.- And one thing I was forgetting;
that here, everybody is thankful to you for
receiving news about me, because I talk, and I am
silent, total silence, because I can’t be talking
every day, I can’t create the habit, the bad habit
of having daily news. I am asking everybody for
patience and calm, and I am happy, because I see
everybody tranquil; and the country is running,
which is important. And I am asking for tranquility
for myself, to be able to carry out my new duties as
of now.
Hugo Chávez.- Yes, Fidel, I have become...
well, you have made me into a sort of emissary or
source. Whoever wants to know how Fidel is, well,
comes here, calls me, talks to me, and I always tell
the truth, what is happening: your recovery, your
example, your consistence.
You have said that you would not be able to
accompany me here on a trip here right away, but
that’s not necessary; you are always with us, and I
hope to return soon to Havana so that we can keep
talking, working and gaining time from time, because
you have said so, and it is a good thing for all of
us to think about.
Greetings go out to you from the vice president,
the People’s Power Commission, of Community Power,
whom we are going to meet with right now to end the
program; from all of the kids, Teresita, Elena, the
Venezuelan Television team, Venezuelan National
Radio, and well, all of the millions who are
listening to us.
Do you know how big the audience is for the first
hour of the program? Forty percent! Which is, as you
know, astronomical, the audience for "Aló,
Presidente."
We are gaining time, Fidel, and we are winning
the battle for life.
Fidel Castro.- Very good.
Hugo Chávez.- Thank you for your historic
phone call.
Fidel Castro.- A million thanks for everybody.
Hugo Chávez.- Let’s have a round of applause
for Fidel (Applause). A good round of applause,
brother; a hug, comrade, compañero, and you
that regarding that, I have no complexes — I call
you "father" for all the world to hear!
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
Fidel Castro.- ¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
Hugo Chávez.- ¡Venceremos!
Fidel Castro.- ¡Venceremos!
Hugo Chávez.- Bravo! (Applause and
exclamations of "Bravo!")
February 27, 2007
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