Message from Fidel to President Nicolás Maduro

 

Honorable Mr. Nicolás Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:

 

As has been announced in the media, tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17, an ALBA Summit will take place in Caracas to discuss the weird US government policy against Venezuela and ALBA.

It was Chávez himself who came across the idea of creating that organization, for he was willing to share with his Caribbean brothers and sisters the abundant economic resources with which Nature had endowed his home country and which had ended up in the hands of powerful US companies and a handful of Venezuelan millionaires.

Corruption and squander were the main incentives of the first fascist-like oligarchy which was addicted to violence and crime.  Violence and crime then became so intolerable for the heroic people of Venezuela that they could hardly ever forget about it and they will never consent to going back to the shameful past of the pre-revolutionary era that led to the storming of shopping centers and the murder of thousands of persons whose numbers no one has been able to accurately estimate even today.

Simón Bolívar fully devoted himself to the colossal task of liberating the continent.  More than a half of the best sons and daughters of his people fought and died throughout many years of ceaseless struggle.  With less than one per cent of the planet surface, Venezuela has the biggest reserves of hydrocarbons in the world.  For an entire century, it was forced to produce all the fuel that the European powers and the United States needed.  Even today, when the hydrocarbons that were formed after millions of years would be consumed in no more than a century, and we, the human beings, who are today 7.2 billion will double that figure within a hundred years time and will total 21 billion within two hundred years time, only the prodigies of the most advanced technologies could perhaps allow the human species to survive for a little longer.

Why isn’t the fabulous media being used to inform and educate peoples on these realities, that should be known to every person in his or her right mind, and it is being used instead to promote deception?

An ALBA Summit can not ignore these realities that are so close to us.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has unmistakably declared that it has always been ready to hold discussions, in a peaceful and civilized way, with the US government, but it will never accept threats or impositions from that country.

I should add that I have been able to observe not only the attitude adopted by the heroic people of Bolívar and Chávez, but also the existence of a special circumstance: the exemplary discipline and spirit of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces.  No matter what the US imperialism intends to do, it will never be able to count on their support to do what it did for so many years.  Today, Venezuela has the best equipped soldiers and officers of Latin America.

Recently, when you met with the army officers, it was obvious that they were ready to give their last drop of blood for their Homeland.

A fraternal hug to all Venezuelans, to the ALBA peoples and to you.

 

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 16, 2015

11:14 p.m.