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Chavez vows to keep Castro's political struggle alive
Miraflores Palace
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaks during his weekly
broadcast "Alo President" at Orinoco Belt in July 29, 2007.By Victor Flores
AFP
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 07 30 07Since Fidel Castro gave up power one year ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has often been by his ailing Cuban mentor's bedside vowing to keep alive the legacy of a communist leader he compares to Christ.
Chavez has never hidden his admiration for the 80-year-old Castro, sharing the veteran Cuban strongman's distaste for US "imperialism" while touting his own vision for "21st century socialism."
Close allies on the political stage, Castro is a seeming father figure to the Venezuelan president, who has been seen in images cheering up the grey-bearded Cuban president during bedside visits.
Chavez, who calls Castro "the father of all revolutionaries in the world," recently recalled the shock of the health crisis that forced Castro to temporarily hand power to his brother Raul on July 31, 2006.
"I was putting a tie on," Chavez said Thursday. On an official visit in Vietnam at the time, Chavez made an unscheduled stop in Havana before returning to Venezuela to see his ailing friend.
The Venezuelan president remembered Castro saying: "'I myself can die now, but you, Chavez, you cannot die.'"
"I, the spoiled son, only said: 'You cannot die either. We miss you,'" Chavez said.
Chavez has since urged Castro to put his olive green soldier's garb back on and reclaim the reins of Cuba that he has held since 1959.
But when Cuba celebrated its national day Thursday without Castro, who has yet to make a public appearance since undergoing gastrointestinal surgery, Chavez vowed to keep the Cuban leader's cause alive after he dies.
"I have said it before: Fidel, I take the responsibility of continuing your struggle, your endless battle," Chavez said.
"Men like Fidel end up sacrificing their lives like the Christ," he said.
A strongman in his own country, Chavez has promoted his own socialist model rooted in Christian values and the ideals of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
But Cuba's influence in Venezuela is readily visible. When Chavez spoke Thursday, he was inaugurating an agricultural complex in which Cuban advisers are involved.
"There is no doubt that the alliance between Cuba and Venezuela, and especially between Fidel and Chavez, is tangible in economic and political terms," political analyst Tulio Hernandez told AFP.
"There is no question that Fidel has seduced Chavez and is his ideal model for governing," said Hernandez. "Chavez wants to be Fidel's successor and his personal dream is to be the world's new anti-American leader."
Like Castro, Chavez has had a long-running war of words with the US, which he accuses of plotting to oust or kill him.
Last year, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Chavez a "challenge to democracy" and warned that Venezuela's close ties with Cuba were "a particular danger in the region."
But Chavez has not locked up power in Venezuela like Castro did in Cuba.
The former paratrooper wants to reform the constitution to remove presidential term limits, but he is trying to convince the opposition and even some allies concerned about Castro-style communism that he is not seeking to repeat the Cuban experience.
Some in the government and the military are uncomfortable with the proposal, Hernandez said. "They ask for democratic socialism."
Chavez's former defense minister, Raul Isaias Baduel, surprised many observers during his farewell speech by warning against renewing the authoritarianism of the Soviet era.
"A socialist regime is not incompatible with a deeply democratic political system, with checks and balances and separation of powers," said Baduel, who had opposed a brief coup against Chavez in April 2002.
"We must distance ourselves from Marxist orthodoxy that considers that democracy with division of powers is an instrument of bourgeois domination," he said.
AFP 29 0710 GMT 07 07
Copyright© 2007 Petroleumworld. All Rights Reserved.
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