Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association Toronto

(Oda al Segundo Liberator)

i.

Today the sky is the colour of hope

Blue penetrating to the depths of the universe

Did you see it, Hugo?

Did you see it?

ii.

You under the sky in your bright red shirt

Life blood meeting hope

Blending to the green of Pachamama

Madre Tierra who is also your mother

iii.

You of the mixed bloods of so many peoples

A world of peoples in your being

Indigenous, African, Gallego

Your very self a symbol of unity

Did you know this, Hugo?

Did you know this?

iv.

You the singing head of state

The praying head of state

The hero of the poor

You saw the previously faceless

You heard their silenced voices

The Constitution in one hand

And the Bible in the other

You, uniting heaven and earth

In your vision

In your dream that was born

A mere 58 years ago.

v.

So quickly you have gone

From life not to death

But from life to legend

A legend that inspires

In the footprints of Bolívar

But with your own unique steps.

vi.

You were reborn

While still living

You, the President on foot

Your seeds you scattered well

Multiplying ideas among the people

Many hands creating your works

Millions and millions of chavistas

vii.

At your mother’s knees you learned

The beauty of teaching elders to read

You also wanted to be a painter

To catch the world in the colours of the rainbow

The colours of your banner

Blue your independence from Spain

To match the colour of the sky

Red your courage to dream

Larger than life - and to turn those dreams

Into schools and clinics and homes

Yellow the riches of the land

The riches that are the people

Did you always know this, Hugo?

Did you always know this?

viii.

We weep while the red wave embraces you

A tsunami of love for the love you gave

We weep while we turn our pain into words

Words that can guide our actions 

“You are more alive than ever”

Says Evo the wise man

From his ancient knowledge

“Those who die for life cannot be called dead”

Says Nicolas, speaking of your death

“You gave your life to give life to your people”

Says Adolfo, the sculptor of human rights.

ix.

You built more than schools and clinics

Taught more than just to read

You also built hope

For Venezuela and the continent

x.

Of Maduro you spoke like a poet

When you said “If I’m unable to,

With his firm hand,

With his gaze,

With his heart of a man of the people,

With his gift for people,

With his intelligence

God knows what he does, 

If I’m unable to continue

Maduro will know the way.”

Did you know even then, Hugo?

Did you know even then?

xi.

We will miss your ready smile

Your all-embracing laughter

The way you crossed your chest

To show your love

We will miss your fiery passion

Your eternal optimism

Your complete surrender

To the Bolivarian dream.

xii.

You could recite at will

The words of Bolívar

Of San Martín, of Martí

History was your guide

While you made your own way

And helped create a new history

For your beloved Venezuela.

xiii.

And just as Violeta Parra sang

“Gracias a la vida”

We want to sing to you, Hugo

To sing the song of you, Hugo

“Gracias a tú vida”

Susana Hurlich
Havana
5 March 2013

by Arnold August

Havana, Cuba, March 13, 2013 (UPEC) On March 5, 2013, I was accompanying the President of the Unión de Periodistas de Cuba – UPEC (Cuban Association of Journalists), Tubal Páez. The occasion was a ceremony to honour an outstanding Cuban journalist. It took place in the small town of Juan Gualberto Gómez in Matanzas province. The town eponymously honours the son of mulatto slaves born there in 1854 on a sugar plantation. After the First War of Independence (1868–78), Juan Gualberto Gómez founded La Fraternidad, a newspaper dedicated to racial harmony, liberty and social progress for people of colour. In March 1880, he was arrested for supporting the Cuban independence fighters and deported to Spain. However, he continued contributing articles and letters to La Fraternidad and to El Abolicionista (“The Abolitionist,” in favour of the abolition of slavery). He returned to Cuba in 1890. During the Third War of Independence (1895–98), he was a close collaborator of José Martí. After the war, when Cuba’s victory against Spain was recuperated by the U.S., who imposed its domination, he continued his work as a journalist. Juan Gualberto Gómez did this in various forms, opposing U.S. neo-colonial control. He combined journalism with political activism. He is famous for his outspoken opposition to the U.S.-sponsored Platt Amendment, which, he declared, had reduced the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban Republic to a myth. He thus was strongly opposed to the annexation of Cuba to the U.S. He died 80 years ago, in 1933, after which the sugar plantation town adopted his name.

During the solemn ceremony conducted by villagers in Juan Gualberto Gómez, which was taking place in front of his portrait bust, I heard a cellphone ring at 5 p.m. Tubal turned toward me and said softly, “Murió Chávez” (“Chávez has died”). It was a shock. Even though the daily Communist Party Granma’s headline that day had clearly indicated the extremely precarious medical situation brought about by the aggravated health condition of the Venezuelan leader, it was impossible to believe. Is it true? How can it be that this dynamic, relatively young and smiling Chávez is no longer physically alive? After coming to grips with the reality, I told Tubal there are some moments in life that one never forgets. These two softly spoken words, “Murió Chávez,” uttered with a combination of sadness and firmness on March 5, just minutes after the Bolivarian Revolution’s leader passed away, was one of these instances.

There are several moments since the 1960s when transcendental news of this type has been ingrained in the memory of individuals and peoples. Which “headlines” hold importance for a person or a people really depends on where one stands on history. During every anniversary of the assassination of J.F. Kennedy and, of course, the U.S. September 11, 2001 terrorist tragedy, we are called upon by the mainstream media to think back to the specific moment where we were when these events took place and how we reacted to them. In the case of September 11, 2001, this abominable act has no words to describe it. However, my gut reaction to September 11 every year is to also remember the U.S.-orchestrated coup d’état in Chile on September 11, 1973 that resulted in the assassination of Chile’s elected leader, Salvador Allende, and a fascist dictatorship. I remember exactly where I was on that day and my revulsion the moment I heard the news. Before that, on October 9, 1967, I remember the exact spot on McGill University’s campus in Montreal where I heard from a fellow student that Ernesto Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia. These are precise, vivid moments that I, and many others around the world, remember.

Now there is another one for me: March 5, 2013 in Juan Gualberto Gómez, Matanzas, Cuba. This island and its people and leaders opened the path in 1959 to the new Latin America that is now developing, spurred on by Hugo Chávez. In the days following his passing away, we were able to experience in Cuba and through the Cuban television broadcast from Venezuela that, in life and as in death, Comandante Chávez was an architect of a new Latin America and Caribbean that is no longer the backyard of the U.S., as they conceive it. This accomplishment was demonstrated so clearly by the presence of heads of state and high-level representatives from the entire region south of the Río Grande at the official funeral ceremony for Hugo Chávez; in addition, representatives from all continents were present to recognize and pay homage to this great achievement and others. This regional integration is still in motion, a dream in the making. It contributes to establishing a new world where no super power dominates and where each country and its people are free to develop the democracy and socio-economic system that it chooses to follow and build on its own.

UPEC

March 10, 2013

Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Dear Mr. Harper:

I am writing on behalf of the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association Toronto to strongly protest your unkind, insensitive comments on the death of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez.  I call them “comments” because they were not condolences – which are supposed to be an expression of sympathy to those who are feeling pain arising from death or misfortune.

Hugo Chavez had just been re-elected president of his country and had returned home after being treated in Cuba for cancer.  Hugo Chavez was deeply loved by the majority of the Venezuelan people and his record of accomplishments for the poor, the sick and uneducated is truly remarkable.  His accomplishments are celebrated around the world by peoples struggling for democracy, peace and justice.

We were shocked and embarrassed by your comments which are an interference in the sovereignty of another country.  It is especially hypocritical for you to comment on the democracy and respect for human rights considering what your government has been doing against the rights of the Canadian people and in particular the aboriginal peoples.

We believe an apology is due.

Elizabeth Hill, President
Canadian Cuban Friendship Association Toronto

By: Petr Liakhov

What is Cuba? Ask the average American, and it is very likely that you will hear some variation on JFK’s “imprisoned island” hokum, where that small island is described as a testament to the bearded tyranny that is seemingly endemic to the developing world. Ask the average Canadian and you will probably hear a description of softly lapping waves, cheap but delicious rum, and how they bought a t-shirt with some fellow named Che on it for only $10. But if you were to leave the privileged confines of the West, if you were to go to the villages of Angola, to the streets of South Africa, or to the Barrios of Venezuela, you would hear about the shining example that Cuba presents in the face of Empire. You would hear about the sacrifices that the  Cuban people have made and still make, sacrifices in the name of solidarity with the people who Franz Fanon called “the wretched of the Earth”.  All of this in mind, a question emerges: what is Cuba?  And which description is right?

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By Manuel E. Yepe

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

How can you explain Cuba’s support for the people-to-people contacts promoted by the US government against Cuba? I was asked this by a US student, one of the many who have travelled to the island within the policy framework thus named by the William Clinton administration, later revoked by George W. Bush in 2003, and recently resumed by President Obama.  

Another student, also American, did not wait for my answer and added to the first question, “How come here in Havana we are received with so much friendship and respect despite the many outrages of our different governments against Cubans?

I explained that Cuba accepts the challenge of Washington’s people-to-people interaction policy because in spite of the fact that its declared purpose is that visitors promote “democracy” among Cubans (democracy being the term Washington uses to name the capitalist system), in fact it offers Cubans the opportunity to show visitors the falsehoods of the more than half -century old US media campaign against Cuba.