Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro's Lost Heir

Cuba: Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro's Lost Heir
March 5, 2013
By Isaac Risco*

HAVANA TIMES — With the death of Hugo Chavez, Cuba also lost the longed
for great political leader after the slow public demise of Fidel Castro.

An admirer and close friend of the Cuban revolutionary, the Venezuelan
president was the person who best embodied the ideas of Castro in recent
decades throughout Latin America.

Chavez took on the responsibility not only helping the economically
troubled Cuba with oil, but to also breathe fresh air into Fidel's
political ideas.

If Castro was for Chavez the great role model to follow, Chavez was for
Castro his ideal heir at the forums throughout Latin America and the
Caribbean.


"For my brother Chavez, that Olympic champion of new socialist ideas,"
wrote the former Cuban president to the Venezuelan in the dedication of
a book given to him in 2006 in Havana. "Fidel has always been a Quixote
(…), but a victorious and invincible Quixote," said Chavez in turn
concerning his "friend" and "mentor."

They met over 18 years ago, in 1994, after Chavez left prison for his
failed coup two years earlier. He traveled directly to Havana to seek
advice for his political future. What he also had planned was to request
an interview to get to know his idol. However Castro, witnesses recall,
showed up by surprise at the airport to receive the then unknown
Venezuelan soldier.

With his fine nose for politics, the Cuban revolutionary had recognized
the future leader of the masses early on. "I waited for Chavez at the
airport. I drove him to the place where he would stay and I talked with
him for hours, exchanging ideas," recalled Castro himself a few days ago
in a letter about the Venezuelan president.

Not only did the ideas of the left unite the two, but also their
particular style of political engagement. Castro as well as Chavez each
constructed a governmental apparatus modeled around their persona, and
both were accomplished mass idols who enthralled their audiences from
the podium.

Bright, sharp and charismatic, Fidel Castro. Forceful and direct and
brash Hugo Chavez. From his mentor, the Venezuelan inherited terms like
"the empire" to beat back the US, and he also frequently referred to
Castro as he flew the flag of Latin American emancipation.

If Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar was the historical figure who
represented Chavez's quintessential socialist mission, Fidel Castro was
possibly the living political leader who he most praised in his speeches.

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in Havana shortly after Chavez first cancer
operation in June 2011. Photo: Estudios Revolucion

"Chavez's name is known and respected throughout the world," wrote
Castro in his last letter to Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro.
These words could also serve well in describing the role that former
Cuban president himself liked to see himself in for decades as a leader
of Third World emancipation movements.

Chavez was the figure that succeeded Fidel Castro as Latin America's
icon image of the left when the image of Castro began to fray. "I hold
him in the highest esteem," said Argentinean soccer star Diego Maradona,
a declared Castro admirer, when discussing the Venezuelan leader with
the dpa news agency earlier this year.

The visits of celebrities captivated by the Latin American revolutions,
reserved in the '60s for Fidel Castro, also began arriving in Caracas in
the early 21st century. Filmmaker Oliver Stone, actor Sean Penn and
philosopher Noam Chomsky were some of the best known admirers of Chavez,
just as at one time it was Jean-Paul Sartre and Julio Cortazar who
looked up to the Cuban leader.
Chavez's solidarity with Cuba wasn't limited to public statements. For
years Caracas supported Havana with about 100,000 barrels of oil per
day, sold at very favorable terms in exchange for medical and
educational services the island provided in the poorest neighborhoods of
Caracas and other Venezuelan cities.

Cuba and Venezuela "are one nation," said Chavez, the architect behind
the concept of "VeneCuba" as the heart of the Latin American bloc.

Therefore the evolution of Chavez's health was always followed with
particular interest on the island. "Chavez is in bad shape," could be
heard in the streets of Havana during his last days of life, when the
medical reports pointed to the worst.

Accustomed to the details about Fidel Castro's health being kept as a
state secret, Cubans commented avidly about what little was known about
the disease at the end of Chavez's life.

The Raul Castro government guaranteed Chavez maximum discretion
concerning his medical treatment. Chavez had surgery four times on the
island and visited the country dozens of times for chemotherapy and
radiotherapy.

During one of his first convalescence periods in Havana, the Venezuelan
leader still used to count the visits Castro made to see him in the
hospital. "I'm here watching the game with Fidel!" Chavez wrote on his
Twitter page during the Americas Cup in 2011.

Castro was also the one responsible for telling Chavez that he had
cancer, in June 2011. "Life comes first for a revolutionary," Chavez
later recalled Fidel's words. That was the day he cried in front of a
mirror upon learning about his diagnosis.

Now that the cancer has finally won that battle, despite the care given
by Fidel's Cuba, it also remains to be seen how it will affect the
veteran Cuban revolutionary, now 86.

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