Castro, Chavez call for solidarity as they meet in Cuba

Presidents Hugo Chavez (L) of Venezuela and Fidel
Castro of Cuba.  AFP PHOTO

by Isabel Sanchez

Monday, August 22, 2005

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): The presidents of Cuba and Venezuela have called for solidarity in the face of the United States as they met here to strengthen their special relationship that has the US government increasingly suspicious.

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez took part late Saturday in a graduation ceremony at a local medical college, whose class of 2005 included more than 1,600 young doctors from 28 countries. 
 

Also present was Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, whose country reestablished diplomatic ties with Cuba earlier Saturday, putting to rest a year-long dispute stemming from Panama's decision to pardon four Cubans convicted in a plot to assassinate Castro in 2000.

Trading his trademark olive uniform for an elegant civilian suit, Castro urged Latin American countries to unite to facilitate their development and improve the well-being of their citizens. 

"It is solidarity that makes us truly independent," the Cuban leader declared at the ceremony that took place at the Karl Marx Theater in downtown Havana.

"Solidarity makes us free," he continued. "It eliminates the need to beg the powerful empire that will not be satisfied until it takes it all."

Castro brushed off US charges that Cuba and Venezuela exercised a destabilizing influence in Latin America, pointing to the example of Cuban doctors who work in many countries of the region. 

"You are the super destabilizing force in this hemisphere," he joked addressing the graduates. "You destabilize it by ridding it of pain and suffering." 

Chavez said he wanted to created a medical university for Latin America in Venezuela and emulate Cuba's example of dispatching doctors around the world as part of a humanitarian assistance program.

He said the two schools in Cuba and Venezuela would be able to produce about 100,000 doctors over the next 10 years. 

"Unity and integration in the political, economic and social spheres as well as the energy sector are the only path to salvation for our peoples," argued the Venezuelan president. 

He called for the launching of what he called a "Bolivarian alternative" to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a US-backed initiative that seeks to removed trade barriers and promote democracy and accountability in the Western Hemisphere. 

"It is the only way to save our peoples," Chavez assured. 

Chavez, who declared himself a socialist in January, has said socialism was on the rebound, 14 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc -- with the sole exception of Cuba.

Venezuela and Cuba have strengthened military ties, and in April, signed 50 trade agreements touted as an alternative to US free-trade deals with Latin America.

A third Latin socialist, Bolivian presidential candidate Evo Morales, had planned to join Castro and Chavez, but he canceled his trip on Thursday, saying he needed to focus on his campaign.

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