YESTERDAY I spoke of the Venezuela allied with the empire, where Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch organized the brutal in-flight explosion of a Cubana aircraft, which led to the death and disappearance of all its passengers, including the juvenile fencing team which had won all the gold medals at the Central American and Caribbean Championship hosted by that country, sadly recalled now with the Pan American Games in Guadalajara.

It was not the Venezuela of Rómulo Gallegos and Andrés Eloy Blanco, but that of the turncoat, traitorous and venomous Rómulo Betancourt, resentful of the Cuban Revolution, allied with imperialism, and which cooperated so fully with acts of aggression on our homeland. After Miami, that oil property of the United States was the principal center of the counterrevolution against Cuba; historically, it is responsible for a significant part of the imperialist adventure in Girón [Bay of Pigs], the economic blockade and the crimes against our people. That was the beginning of the dark era, which ended on the day when Hugo Chávez took the oath of office over the "moribund constitution" held with trembling hands by ex-president Rafael Caldera.

Forty years had passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and more than a century of yankee plunder of oil, natural resources and the sweat of Venezuelans.

Many of them died in the ignorance and misery imposed by U.S and European gunboats!

Fortunately, the other Venezuela now exists, that of Bolívar and Miranda, that of Sucre and a host of brilliant military leaders and thinkers who were capable of conceiving the great Latin American homeland of which we feel part and for which we have resisted more than half a century of aggressions and blockades.

"…with the independence of Cuba, to prevent in time the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, allowing that nation to fall, ever more powerfully, upon our American lands. Everything I have done, everything I will do, is toward this end," revealed José Martí, our hero of independence, the day before his death in combat.

Among us during these days is Hugo Chávez, as a visitor to a piece of the great Latin American and Caribbean homeland conceived by Simón Bolívar; he understands better than anyone the Martí principle of "…what he left undone, remains undone until today: because Bolívar still has things to do in America."

I had long conversations with him yesterday and today. I explained to him the intensity with which I am devoting my remaining energies to dreams of a better and more just world.

It is not difficult to share dreams with the Bolivarian leader when the empire is already showing the symptoms of a terminal illness.

Saving humanity from an irreversible disaster, these days, could depend on the stupidity of any mediocre president among those who have led the empire in the most recent decades, or even one or another of the constantly more powerful heads of the military-industrial complex which controls the destiny of that country.

Friendly nations of growing weight in the world economy, given their economic and technological advances and their position as permanent members of the Security Council, such as the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, together with the peoples of the so-called Third World in Asia, Africa and Latin America could attain that objective. The peoples of the developed and rich nations, constantly more impoverished by their own financial oligarchies, are beginning to play their role in this battle for human survival.

Meanwhile, the Bolivarian people of Venezuela are organizing and uniting to confront and defeat the nauseating oligarchy in the service of the empire which is once again attempting to take government power in that country.

Given its exceptional educational, cultural, social development and its immense energy and natural resources, Venezuela is called upon to become a revolutionary model for the world.

Chávez, who came from the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and untiring. I have observed him for 17 years, since he visited Cuba for the first time. He is a supremely humanitarian person and respectful of the law; he has never taken revenge against anyone. The poorest and most forgotten sectors of his country are profoundly grateful to him for responding – for the first time in history – to their dreams of social justice.

I see clearly, Hugo—I said to him—that in an extremely brief period of time, the Bolivarian Revolution can create jobs, not only for Venezuelans, but also for its Colombian brothers and sisters, a hardworking people who, alongside you, fought for the independence of America, 40% of whom live in poverty and a significant portion in conditions of extreme poverty.

I had the honor to discuss with our illustrious visitor, the symbol of the other Venezuela, these and many other issues.