Address by President-Comandante Daniel at the XI Extraordinary Summit
of Heads of State and Government of ALBA-TCP
August 26th 2024
Good morning, Brother and Sister Bolivarians, Brother and Sister Venezuelans. Many of us have been talking recently about the fact that Fascism is resurgent, getting stronger, but it seems to me that Fascism did not start, Fascism did not originate in Germany, nor in Italy, nor in Spain, it did stand out there, because those were the places, one might say, where Fascism was unmasked.
Fascism was born at the moment, as Darwin said in “the Origin of Species”, that the strongest were the ones that were going to survive. The Human Species is also part the origin of Species, and the tendency of the Human Species has been to impose itself by force. From the origins of humanity, Fascism was already being incubated. And let's not even talk about the development of Empires, as part of civilization, like the much cited examples of Greece, of Rome, which amounted to a demonstration as they were taking place, even more brutal than those that took place later, under Hitler, Mussolini, and in Spain.
What is slavery after all? I would say that slavery is what those who installed slavery, those who promoted slavery, those who trafficked slaves from Africa, who were then transferred by Europe, and in Europe there were the big companies, English, French, arguing over that merchandise so as to transfer it to these Regions.
Were they not the ones who practiced and installed Fascism through slavery? Thereby it was already establishing itself as something normal, something that was seen as an element for enriching the European Imperialist Powers, which at the same time fought among themselves over territories around the World, for dominion in the World. Fascism was already there.
And then later what was called the development of Freedom, of Democracy, when the great French Revolution took place, when changes took place in Europe, but Fascism was institutionalized there, because the European Powers became, while always in conflict with each other, in effect the masters of the Planet, the owners of the African, Asian, American continents.
That is, everything we now call Fascism, which was a period when in Europe, a European democratic party, via European democratic practices, brought Hitler to government, with the support of US companies. And then Mussolini, and then the Spanish Franco, who destroyed the Spanish people. And Franco linked with whom? With another powerful Empire, what had come to be known as a powerful Empire: The Vatican.
The Vatican was an accomplice of the Nazis, it was an accomplice of the Nazis in Italy, in Germany, in Spain. In Spain, there was even the armed confrontation of Catholics, Christians manipulated in defense of democracy, and there a war took place, like the war that occurred for a time too in Mexico. The Priests at war against those who were advocating progress in Mexico. Priests firing bullets!
We cannot close our eyes to this reality. The Vatican is one more instrument in all these battles we are waging, one more instrument that is part of the conglomerate of Fascism that now wants to dominate the world in new ways. And how indeed they have dominated, they invaded America 500 years ago. But since Independence was won, thanks to the Heroism, Patriotism and Courage of Bolivar, and not only Bolivar, who was already pointing to the United States as the ones who were going to stain all our Peoples with blood, and Bolivar was therefore appealing to the Unity of our Peoples.
And further north in Our America came other invaders... Invaders! They did not ask permission to come to the United States, the British; nor did the Spanish ask permission to come to America. The Europeans who continued emigrating to the United States, what they did was murder the Original Peoples, destroying their culture, destroying their way of life, their development, just as in Our America too.
These are fascist practices that of course encouraged the imperialist Powers even more, the Powers that were emerging more strongly, were encouraged even more to seek total domination of the World, of the Planet, all in the name of Democracy.
And then I would say, carrying out the greatest act of terrorism that has been committed in the world, which was the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nonchalantly launched by the United States Government and applauded by the European Governments that are called “democratic”.
These were two acts of terrorism that produced many more deaths and much more damages, in the long term, than the acts of terrorism in the Towers of New York. Because in the case of those first bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 250,000 people died, and later, with the radiation left in the environment, another 200,000 citizens died from radiation sickness.
It was not an attack on a military base. It was a bombing of two peaceful cities where there were no war fronts. They did not drop the bombs on a war front, but launched them in a cowardly way, against people, to force the surrender of Japan.
Fascism and Nazism, given the history of the great lie that they installed in the World, that Democracy is what should rule around the World, those crimes were already being committed in the name of Democracy, all those crimes that Nicolás listed to us have occurred in the name of Democracy around the World: Invasions, with thousands and millions of dead; the occupation of nations like Algeria, with more than 2 million dead. Democratic France! France, so democratic!
There is no democracy, there is no Democracy as so much trumpeted by European Countries, nor in the United States of America. In all these countries what dominates are the economic, military, ruling interests, of those who promote fascist practices in order to make their domination a reality. And between them, between those Powers of course there are their rivalries, but in the end they all reach agreement.
What horrendous crimes, we are seeing every day in the media, that the Jewish government is committing. Because Jewish People deserve our respect, Jewish People were also victims of Nazism and Fascism, with more than 6 million citizens exterminated in the concentration camps of European countries, which at that time were “democratic”, presented themselves as “democratic”, where the Führer ruled in Germany... So many concentration camps! In Poland, in so many Cities, Concentration Camps!
And despite so many crimes, so much brutality, slavery, as it was practiced in those times, well, that slavery has already disappeared, but new ways have been established to chain people down. And here in Our America the practice is blackmail, extortion with economic aggression, with what they call "sanctions” that are nothing but aggression.
Through those that have been applied to Cuba and continue to be applied to Cuba, and those that have been applied to Venezuela and continue to be applied to Venezuela, and those that have been applied to Nicaragua and continue to be applied to Nicaragua. Along with the ones that are applied, as we know very well and we understand it, to the Brother and Sister Peoples of the Caribbean, who are Peoples with very fragile economies, with difficulties for trade. And there the extortion is such that, even within ALBA, sometimes they are forced to take positions that are not the ones we share in ALBA. But we understand it, why? Because they have a gun to their head.
And throughout Our America, where a new stage of Liberation began after Independence from Spain, after the Heroic Battles of the greatest warrior of Our America, Simon Bolívar, the battles have continued and our Peoples have been gaining more awareness, the Peoples have been gaining ever more courage, identifying with the deeds of those who gave everything in order to liberate their Peoples.
And that explains why even after the wave of military coups throughout Latin America, promoted and organized, by the Yankee Imperialists accompanied by the European Imperialists, and applauded and accompanied also by sell out traitors in Latin American quisling governments, how despite the fact that they had oppressed Our America, the Cuban Revolution still took place, 70 years ago, a Light in the Darkness, which gave more strength and more inspiration to our Peoples.
Then, the Sandinista Revolution, a battle that cost more than 100,000 dead in its two stages: First, the battle against Somoza, who was sustained by the Yankees, who had Yankee troops there in Nicaragua, and that battle lasted, from the assassination of Sandino when the struggles began, struggles lasting from 1933 to 1979.
There were thousands of dead, thousands of murdered, why? Because Sandino's murder did not intimidate the Nicaraguan people, instead the People began to wage struggle, guerrilla forces, battles, from different sides. 70-year-old Sandinista generals organized units and raided again and died fighting in Nicaragua. That is, it was a very long battle against the crimes of Somoza.
And then the great lesson we learned there: There is no way to negotiate with imperialism, because when imperialism seeks to negotiate, it seeks to ensure everything will be in its favor; and if not, then it is already seeking how to destroy governments, seeking how to kill leaders.
I was telling Ralph, at the Event for the 44th Anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, when Ralph was suggesting that I talk to the United States, to reach an understanding. So I was telling Ralph, that in Nicaragua the Yankees have invaded here since 1854, and there was no negotiation, there what took place was Central American Unity, because they realized that the Yankees were coming for all of Central America, and the Yankees were already appointing a US President in Nicaragua, William Walker, recognized by the State Department. So, there was Central American Unity against that, and a lot of courage, a lot of bravery, and the People managed to defeat that first invasion of the Yankee expansionists.
Then, in 1877 came a Liberal Government which did not pay attention to the Yankees, the sin of that Liberal Government was to have relations with Europeans and promote measures such as Secular Education.
At that time in Nicaragua the obligation of Catholic education was imposed, imposed since no other Religion could be practiced, other religions were prohibited. And if someone died and was not baptized, there was no cemetery for them.
So Zelaya arrived and made a Revolution, not only in the field of Education, but also bringing Welfare, Progress, to the People, and some development to the Country, but also contacting other Nations, trying to build the Canal through Nicaragua. Ah... but the Monroe Doctrine was in place, and the Monroe Doctrine did not allow our countries to make agreements with other countries even if those other countries were also Imperialist, like the Europeans, because they were encroaching on their territory. They felt they owned these territories.
And when they sent bombs with some Gringos there, to some boats in Nicaragua, Zelaya ordered them to be searched for and captured, and they were captured, Cannon and Groce were the surnames of the two Gringos, and the Gringo government demanding that they be released and to take care not to shoot them. The Laws were the Laws of that time, and for a crime like the punishment was to be shot. And so Zelaya sent them to be shot.
Immediately came that Note from the US Secretary of State, the Note where he told Zelaya, on behalf of the President of the United States, that he had a deadline to leave the Government and that they were already preparing the ships with the US troops to go to Nicaragua and occupy Nicaragua if he did not leave the Presidency.
Zelaya was not a man who would take on the challenge of a war like that, and he preferred to retire. But the Liberal Generals, led by Benjamín Zeledón, Doctor Benjamín Zeledón, organized the defense of Nicaragua and confronted the Yankee troops.
There is a monument on a hill called El Coyotepe, which is where Zeledón barricaded himself with his troops and where the Gringos sent senior officers of their encircling troops, to tell Zeledon to surrender and they offered him "heaven and earth" to do so.
Zeledón responded with a letter that he sent to his wife, in which he told her that, out of honor to them, to his Family, to the Nation and to its People, he was not going to surrender, and for her to understand that his duty was to die rather than surrender. And on October 4th, his birthday, Zeledón was killed, and the Yankees paraded his body through the streets of local towns, so that people would be terrified and not continue fighting against the Yankees.
And in one of those streets there was a 14, 16-year-old boy, just a boy, not a politician, but he had Courage, he had Love for his Country, Sandino. And Sandino, when he saw that, he told later how it seared him, how it hurt him, the humiliation to which they were subjecting Nicaragua, and there he pledged himself to fight against the Yankees.
So then the battle of Sandino began, but as the US could not defeat Sandino, but then by agreement, they agreed with the President, for the troops to withdraw and then they came to sign other agreements to see how Sandino could be integrated, with his people, into the country's social, economic, productive life. Sandino's proposal was to organize cooperatives in the countryside, and he had ear-marked the zones.
Then the Yankees left, but not of course the Yankee Mission in Managua, the Yankee Ambassador in Managua, the Yankee Military Attachés in Managua, the Yankee Army Advisers who had organized here with Somoza, and in those circumstances, the President told Sandino that they could start talks. Sandino was still up in the mountains, he hadn't come down from them.
But Sandino's Generals told him: Don't go, don't go, General, they will kill you. And Sandino responded: Our objective before the People was to defeat the Yankees, to expel them from Nicaragua; they are no longer here, we have achieved that. Now our struggle is more complicated, because we have to fight against an enemy that the People cannot see; therefore, we have to take on the challenge of reaching agreements that allow us to make progress in the fight against this enemy that the people cannot see. Why? Because the Yankees were no longer there with their troops fighting the Nicaraguan people.
Still the Generals insisted that he should not go, but he traveled to Managua, signed the first agreements; then he returned to where his Commanders for the next steps towards signing a final agreement. And he went to Managua again, and on that occasion, after signing the agreements, the President invited Sandino to dinner at the Presidency; Sandino was there accompanied by his Generals. And the President also invited his own daughter to the dinner.
Really the President was not a man who was committed to the Gringos, but he also did not have the strength to enforce what he wanted; he thought that Somoza and the Gringos were going to comply with the agreements they were signing.
After they signed, when Sandino left the Presidency, they are waiting for him, in collusion with the Yankee Ambassador and Somoza. But a few days before, since they doubted that Sandino would return to Managua, a few days earlier, when Sandino arrived, the first thing Somoza did was to look for him, and embrace him, and call him Brother, that they were Brothers, as he said, Brother Masons.
That picture is there for history. It was a Judas embrace, to reassure Sandino that nothing was going to happen to him. And every day they were for murdering Sandino.
That's why I told Brother Ralph Gonsalves on that occasion, that one can talk, but you can be sure, that in any conversation with the Yankees, the Yankees are always going to look for how to achieve their goal, which is to liquidate the Revolution.
After that period that Nicolás was telling us about, of coups d'état in Latin America, with dictatorships, tyrannies everywhere, with the Yankees dominating, since they felt they were the owners, well, first Cuba; then the Sandinista Revolution, and then the Bolivarian Revolution, when the Bolivarian Revolution was the bomb that really made the Empire tremble.
Because after all, the Cuban Revolution was Heroic, Brave, but naturally a small country, with a small economy and already suffering from the blockade. The Bolivarian Revolution, with Commander Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías at the head, triumphed with great strength, with great power... An explosion!
I was telling Nicolás one day, that when we were in the guerrilla campaign, we were fighting, we had not achieved Victory, we were in the guerrillas, there were also guerrillas there in Venezuela, and guerrillas with a great force, and then we said, because then there were guerrillas in Guatemala, in Mexico, in Brazil, there was Che's guerrilla force in Bolivia, that is to say, throughout our America there were guerrillas, but none had the power of the guerrillas that were established in Venezuela.
And we used to say, the next Victory here is going to be in Venezuela, thinking of a guerrilla Victory, it's going to be in Venezuela, and that yes it will be a fortress so that the Victories in Latin America can be reproduced.
Venezuela, with the Ingenuity, with the Intelligence, with the Vision, of Comandante Chávez, after the first armed attempt, because he made the armed attempt to defeat the Yankees here in Venezuela; well, he said that famous phrase, and what he said came true, when they decided to take the electoral route.
And as I have said in Venezuela several times, and as I said while Comandante Chávez, Comandante Eterno, was alive I said to him: You have managed to break the Law of Gravity here, because you have done something unprecedented in Latin America; because the Revolution triumphed in Chile, but there they just demolished it.
And, furthermore, in Venezuela the Revolution triumphed with great force. In Chile, the election was tighter and the Right had a lot of strength in parliament, never mind in the economic field. But in Venezuela the Victory was overwhelming, which not only produced an explosion of joy in the Venezuelan people, but also produced explosions of joy among all the Peoples of Our America.
And who could have imagined at that moment of great Victory, that the Yankees were going to organize a coup d'état against President Chávez? That is, they were so irritated, they were so hurt by the blow they had received in a country like Venezuela, a Moral Power, a Political Power, an Economic Power, above all they did not want to lose it. So then the Coup came and you say: Every 12 has its 13th, yes, every 12 has its 13th, and it had its 13th, and Chávez returned to the Presidency.
Then, Chavez and Fidel, indeed, were there sharing, discussing, and of course thinking about the Unity of our Peoples, how to advance in that battle, in that struggle.
That is why, today, the brutal, cowardly reaction of the governments of Latin American countries can be explained, because I am sure, I am convinced, that the vast majority of the Latin American Peoples, the Peasants, the Workers, the Youth, are with Nicolás Maduro, are with the Bolivarian Revolution.
But, servile, traitorous, groveling governments, governments that have presented themselves as very Progressive, as very Revolutionary, now say that the elections must be repeated... Ah! Brazil says it.
I met Lula in Brazil, when after our Triumph we went to visit him as a labor leader, with a lot of affection. And I would say that Lula wants to do what Ralph proposes, that he believes this can be solved by dialogue. But anyone who argues for you to dialogue is going to dialogue for the Gringos, and the Gringos are never going to accept the government that the Bolivarian People have elected and decided on.
Then, on the First Anniversary of the Triumph of our Revolution, we invited Lula, and there we introduced him to Fidel, and there of course given that he was a personality with a lot of strength as a labor leader, and was already organizing the Party, we all compared notes.
And I understand the difficulties that Lula has, of course. There was an article there reporting that the Foreign Ministry and other places are full of neoliberal right-wingers who have sett him up to fight with us.
One day Lula went to visit the Pope and then Lula called us, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry called
and they were saying that he wanted to talk to me, because he had a message from the Pope. But, firstly, if the Pope, the Vatican, a State that clearly favors the Empire, wants to communicate with us, he can do so, we continuously communicate with them, with Minister Parolin, we have already had several talks with him, and we have spoken to very clearly. And Parolin listens.
So, we don't need intermediaries, nor did we ask Lula to be an intermediary. So we didn't reply to Lula, and he got upset.
Later, in an interview, he was asked why the Dictator, after he had been a Revolutionary, had become another Somoza. That's what the journalist asked him. So he replied that, "Indeed, he is no longer what he was before, he is now another Dictator”.
So, Lula what can I tell you, since you have stated this publicly? And how many periods have you been in government now? You have been two periods in government. That is to say, it seems that you like being President, and from the Presidency of that great Country that is Brazil, you now want to become the Yankees' representative in Latin America. That's why we broke off relations with Brazil.
They may be a great power, and we are a small country, we do not have the power of Brazil, of the economy of Brazil, or anything like that, but we have something that is worth more than all that, Dignity, in defense of our Sovereignty. And the way you have behaved, Lula, after the victory of the legitimate President of Venezuela, is shameful, repeating the Yankee talking points, those of the Europeans, of the crawling, groveling governments of Latin America.
Now you're crawling too, Lula! You are crawling, Lula! And don't tell me that your presidential efforts were extraordinary. Yes, they were extraordinary in some areas when you were president for the first time, but you also remember, the riots, the scandals, the Car Wash episode, you remember all that very well. In other words, apparently they were not very transparent, clean governments.
Remember Lula! And I could mention a dozen more things to you. If you want me to respect you, respect me, Lula. If you want the Bolivarian people to respect you, respect the Victory of President Nicolás Maduro, and don't go crawling.
As for Petro, what can I say about Petro? Poor Petro! Poor Petro! I see Petro competing with Lula to see who will be the leader to represent the Yankees in Latin America. That is how I see Petro. Because naturally poor Petro doesn't have the strength that Brazil has. Brazil is the giant of Latin America, a giant, but with that government it has, with Lula, it is not a good giant, it's a Goliath wanting to wipe out David in Latin America. But you won't be able to do it, Lula, you're not going to be able to do it.
What I do want to alert you to Nicolás and I'm sure that you have already thought about it, analyzed it and are prepared. Since this maneuver has failed them now, there is no turning back, there is not one step back. Nicolás is the legitimate President, inheritor of the battle of Chávez, and Chávez was the inheritor of the battle of Bolívar, therefore, Nicolás goes onward with the Sword of Bolívar in this Battle.
Don't rule out, Nicolás, that if Nicaragua, a country that is a small bit of land, with a very small, very fragile economy, bordering countries where there are Yankee military bases, Honduras has Yankee military bases, Nicolás, and in Costa Rica they set up Yankee military bases too, since they could not stop the Triumph of the Revolution in '79, after so many years, more than 40 years of imperialist, domination via Somoza , and with thousands of deaths all that time, so what did they do? They organized a mercenary army.
And you know very well, Nicolás, this mercenary army, I don't see that Petro is going to feed it, but the fact is that in Colombia there are the mercenaries, there's ex President Uribe, you've listened to all those Presidents, or former Colombian Presidents, Duque, how they are making pronouncements against the Victory of the Bolivarian People.
There are Yankee military bases there, so do not rule it out, because Imperialism today is more wounded than ever by this Victory, do not rule out that they may organize an armed counterrevolution like the one they organized against us in 1979-80 at the Triumph of our Revolution. They financed it, armed it, trained it, supported it at the military bases that the Gringos have in Honduras, and it was a long battle, it was 10 years of war, again, the one we had to fight, 10 more years, with thousands of dead, more than 50,000 casualties again, but we managed to defeat that mercenary army.
But here the battle would be much bigger, because the Colombian army is involved, Colombian mercenaries are involved, Colombian murderers, Colombian drug traffickers, well, and with that huge border that you have with Colombia, we must prepare, Nicolás, we must be prepared to give them battle and defeat them. Because I am sure that if this battle were to take place, they will be defeated.
And rest assured that if that Battle were to take place, you will have Sandinista fighters accompanying you in that Battle. And I am sure that just as thousands of fighters joined the Battle of Nicaragua against Somoza, thousands of Latin American and Caribbean fighters are also going to join the defense of the Bolivarian Revolution.
I'm going to conclude, Nicolás, I think I've been gone a little bit longer than Uncle Ralph, I'm going to conclude now with this, because this is current, it's current, this was the First Havana Summit, on December 14th 2004.
So there, at that Summit, here in the final part of the Declaration it says: “We agree that the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), proposed by President Hugo Chávez Frías on the occasion of the III Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Association of Caribbean States, held on Margarita Island in December 2001, has outlined the Guiding Principles of true Latin American and Caribbean Integration, based on Justice, and we commit ourselves to fighting together to make it a reality.”
Likewise, "That the cardinal Principle that should guide ALBA is the broadest Solidarity among the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, who support the Thinking of Bolívar, Martí, Sucre, O'Higgins, San Martín, Hidalgo, Petion, Morazán, Sandino and so many other Heroes, without selfish nationalism or restrictive nationalist policies that deny the goal of building a Great Nation in Latin America, as the Heroes of our Emancipatory Struggles dreamed of.
In this sense, we fully agree that ALBA cannot be carried out using mercantilist criteria or selfish interests of business profit or national benefit to the detriment of other Peoples. Only a broad Latin American vision that recognizes the impossibility of our countries developing and being truly independent, in isolation, will be able to achieve what Bolivar called for “...to see the formation in America of the Greatest Nation in the World, less by extension and wealth than by its Freedom and Glory”, and which Martí conceived as “Our America,” in contrast to the other expansionist America and its imperialist appetites.
Then it says, concluding now: "Coordination of positions in the multilateral sphere and in negotiation processes of all kinds with Countries and Blocs of other Regions, including the struggle for democratization and transparency in international organizations, particularly in the United Nations and its Organs.
In the year that commemorates the 180th Anniversary of the Glorious Victory of Ayacucho and the Convocation of the Amphictionic Congress of Panamá, which sought to open the way for a true Process of Integration of our Countries, frustrated since then, we express our conviction that now, finally, with the consolidation of the Bolivarian Revolution and the indisputable failure of the neoliberal policies imposed on our countries, the Latin American and Caribbean Peoples are on the path to their second and true Independence. The emergence of the proposal of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas with President Hugo Chávez Frías expresses this at its best.
Signed in Havana, on the 14th day of December 2004.
Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba.
Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”.
And what can I say to you? What can we tell you? Fidel, Hugo, we are not going to fail you. Let's go onward with Nicolas!