13th Anniversary of Death of Hugo Chávez
March 5, 2013

Honour to the Memory of Hugo Chávez,
Organizer of the Venezuelan People
in Defence of Their Dignity and Sovereignty

March 5 is the anniversary of the untimely death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a great Venezuelan patriot and revolutionary. He mobilized his people to empower themselves and take up a human-centred nation-building project, to defend their rights, dignity and sovereignty against the exploitation of Venezuela’s human and natural resources by the wealthy elite and the U.S. imperialists and to build relations of friendship and mutual benefit with all the fraternal peoples of the Americas and the world.

From the founding of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200 in 1982, to the El Caracazo uprising in 1989, the civic-military rebellion in February 1992 and the two years in prison that followed, through to his election as President in December 1998 and successive re-elections, the last on October 7, 2012, and his untimely death on March 5, 2013, the actions of President Commander Hugo Chávez are indelibly marked by the defence of the well-being of the Venezuelan people. Chávez led the fight for national sovereignty, the struggle for the independence of Venezuela and all of Latin America and the Caribbean from imperialist tutelage and plunder and for peace in the region and on the world scale. It has been a relentless struggle against U.S. imperialism and its allies – a struggle which has to be waged over and over and over again.

As leader of the Bolivarian Revolution and the anti-imperialist movement for peace, the contribution of Hugo Chávez to the affirmation of the right to self-determination of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean resulted in significant advances in all fields of life – political sovereignty, economic sovereignty, energy sovereignty and against imperialist domination and the imperialist interference and designs for war in the region. Within Venezuela, the eradication of illiteracy, homelessness, abject poverty and joblessness by empowering the people and creating the People’s Power and Bolivarian Republic, which Chávez called Socialism for the 21st century, are deeds which bring great honour, dignity and hope to the people of Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (left), with Cuban President Fidel Castro and Bolivian President Evo Morales

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the South American Defence Council and Petrocaribe are among the many nation-building projects which have benefitted the peoples of all of the Americas and Caribbean. All are achievements which only a personality in tune with the needs of history can accomplish. They testify to Chávez’ greatest desire to give the people of the region the tools to defend independence and peace, to end imperialist domination and the stranglehold of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the neo-liberal “Washington Consensus.”

The untimely death of President Hugo Chávez was a tremendous loss for the Venezuelan people and the peoples of every country whose anti-imperialist movement for peace is the crucial ingredient to open a path to progress. We are certain that the Venezuelan people will continue to follow the path opened by President Hugo Chávez as they follow his counsel to fight, fight, fight against all their detractors and those who would plot to overturn the gains of their revolution.

Today the people of Venezuela commemorate the death of Chávez under conditions of U.S. takeover of their energy resources and decision-making on crucial strategic matters following the brutal aggression and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores and their incarceration in New York, falsely accused of fabricated charges. And before that, the ongoing extrajudicial killings of people in boats off the coast of Venezuela the U.S. has declared are smuggling drugs.

On this occasion, CPC(M-L) reiterates its categorical opposition to what the U.S. is doing and to Canada’s acquiescence to what it is doing under the guise that it favours democracy. The Party salutes the life and work of Hugo Chávez that lives on in the Venezuelan people and inspires them to uphold the kind of leadership he represented. The Party calls on everyone to stand with the Venezuelan people in their rejection of the brutal U.S. takeover of Venezuela and the affirmation of their sovereignty.

Millions of Venezuelans take to the streets to pay tribute to President Hugo Chávez, March 6, 2013,
following his death.

(Photos: R. Chile, Prensa Latina, Barrio tv)