VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chávez Frías stressed the importance of the "Reflections of Fidel," published Thursday November 19 and titled The Bolivarian Revolution and Peace, at a preparatory workshop for the 1st Extraordinary Congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to the 772 delegates participating in the upcoming event.

In the Caracas Municipal Theater and with his usual eloquence, the Bolivarian leader read out the document in which the Cuban leader refutes, among other elements, the slanderous yanki accusation that Chávez is planning a war against neighboring Colombia and states that Colombian paramilitary forces are "the first shock troops" of the United States against the homeland of Simón Bolívar.

With visible emotion, the Bolivarian president sang the PSUV anthem, the Venezuelan national anthem, and the Cuban National anthem as a demonstration of the profound fraternity between the two revolutionary processes, whose nations are the founder members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA)

A Prensa Latina report states that Chávez has decided to extend the 1st Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV to March 2010. It was initially scheduled to be in session from November 21 – December 13, 2009.

"The extraordinary congress is to convene next Saturday at 5:00 p.m. and initiate its deliberations. There will be a recess over Christmas and then we will begin again in January, February, March," Chávez stated.

He emphasized that delegates have to go out onto the streets, into the barrios and factories, where the patrols (the base delegations of the PSUV) are to be found, for the grand debate.

In his opinion, the congress has to evaluate large or small events currently taking place in the world and on the American continent. It must analyze the threatening situation that is hanging over Venezuela, he affirmed.

In this way the Venezuelan president reiterated his call for the defense of Venezuela in the context of the U.S. government’s installation of seven military bases in Colombia.