Chavez, Castro meet

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP): Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro met Monday on La Orchila island in the Caribbean to discuss issues of "common interest" in an unofficial visit, state television reported.

The Cuban leader's latest visit to Venezuela was veiled in secrecy with no hints until later as to where the meeting would be held.

In Havana, a letter from Castro published in the official newspaper Granma, datelined Venezuela, congratulated Cuban teachers. "The Revolution has no greater wealth than education and intelligence cultivated as its best fruit," said the letter, to mark Teachers' Day.

"The importance of education is increasingly significant," Castro said later, speaking on Cuban state television from the island. Noting that in 1959 around 420,000 citizens had only elementary school education, he took a veiled swipe at US policies in the interview.

"How is someone who only has elementary education going to understand problems ... globalization, neoliberalism, sophisticated ways of plundering that exist against our nations," Castro quipped.

Chavez made no comment, having noted Sunday Castro's visit during his weekly radio program. 

He said the two leaders would analyze a joint medical aid project with 10,000 Cuban doctors attending patients in some of Venezuela's poorest neighborhoods.

Venezuela is also introducing an aggressive literacy program, also with Cuban input.

The Venezuelan opposition is critical of Chavez's social programs saying they seek to introduce communist ideology, confirming Castro's influence on Venezuela's "revolutionary" government.

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