The one who carried his cause, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, identified with Bolivar in the relentless drive with which he thought, decided and acted the continuation of his cause: the final release of all Latin American peoples and their integration, conceived as the release of the external and internal yoke gag them, as well as the reunion from a common origin and culture.
Both understood that Latin America, divided and fragmented as it was, could never be a region of free human beings, as impossible will be the claim for social, economic development and regional integration – understood as the economic and cultural complementarily based in mutual aid and solidarity.
Bolívar thought and gave himself to the fight for an independent and united Latin America; Chavez thought and gave himself to the same ideal in a new historical reality.
Bolívar used the ideas and the sword; Chavez also used the ideas, demonstrating the possibility of a peaceful emancipatory transformation, without renouncing to the battlefield if necessary.
With the birth of Chavez, Bolivar resumed his walk through our Latin American and Caribbean lands. The emergence of Chavez in Venezuela and Latin American history was a definite jolt to the consciousness of an entire continent; shudder in the twentieth century similar to those of precursors Augusto César Sandino in Nicaragua; emancipation movements in various parts of the region and the existence of Cuba under the guide of Fidel and Raul as inspiring beacon of freedom.
The Cuban Revolution has been the starting point on the restart of the battle for independence; the two Declarations of Havana and the OSPAAL encounters (2) are expressions of independence and integrative principles for the unredeemed in the world.
Here are forever Bolivar and Chavez; in these days with all the possible vagaries of all historical development, but inexorably unstoppable in its move in the present and to the future.
As I said at the beginning, sometimes history has whimsical coincidences.
The fact that Simón Bolívar was born on July 24, 1783, and Hugo Chavez on July 28, 1954 makes us think that the closeness of the birthdays – 4 days and 171 years apart – indicates the coincidence of ideal conceived today in new historical circumstances. Both are lights in our integration, this humanity that has started walking and will never stop.
Translated by: Daysi Olano
Revised by ESTI
