Fidel’s Message to President Nicolás Maduro

Dear Nicolás:

I join the unanimous opinion voicing congratulations to you for your brilliant and brave speech on the night of December 6^th, as soon as the election results were known.

In the history of the world, the highest level of political glory that any revolutionary can attain belongs to Simón Bolívar, the illustrious Venezuelan combatant and the Liberator of the Americas; his name belongs not only to that sister country but to all the peoples of Latin America.

Another officer of Venezuelan lineage, Hugo Chávez, understood and admired him and he fought for his ideas right up to the final moment of his life. From his childhood, attending primary school in the country where Bolívar’s impoverished heirs also had to work to help support their families, he developed the spirit that had forged the Liberator of the Americas.

The millions of children and young people who are today attending the largest and most modern chain of public schools in the world are from Venezuela. We can also say a few things about its network of medical care centers and the health care for a people who are courageous but impoverished because of the centuries of pillage by the Spanish metropolis and subsequently by the huge transnational companies that for over one hundred years ripped from its entrails all the best of that immense wealth of oil with which Nature had endowed that nation.

History must also leave the record of the fact that workers exist and they are the ones who make it possible for us to enjoy the most nutritious foods, the medicines, education, security, homes and the solidarity of the world. But also, if they wish, ask the oligarchy that question: do they know all that?

The Cuban revolutionaries, just a few miles from the United States which has always dreamt of taking over Cuba in order to turn it into a sort of casino-brothel hybrid as a lifestyle for the children of José Martí, have never renounced their full independence and the total respect for their dignity. I am certain that it is only with peace for all the peoples of the Earth and the right to make the planet’s natural resources, as well as the sciences and technologies created by human beings for the benefit of all its inhabitants, common property, that we can preserve human lives on this Earth. If humankind continues its course along the paths of exploitation and the transnational companies and imperialist banks keep on looting its resources, the representatives of the Governments who met in Paris will be able to arrive at the pertinent conclusions.

Today security no longer exists for anyone. Nine Governments have nuclear weapons; one of them, the United States, dropped bombs that killed hundreds of thousands of persons in just three days and caused physical and psychological harm to millions of defenseless persons.

The People’s Republic of China and Russia know much better than the United States about the problems of the world because they had to withstand terrible wars imposed on them by the blind egoism of fascism. I harbor no doubts that because of their historical tradition and their own revolutionary experience they will take maximum efforts to avoid war and to contribute to the peaceful development of Venezuela, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Fraternally,

Fidel Castro Ruz

December 10, 2015

6:42 p.m.