Amid Rival Tours of Latin America and the Caribbean…
Chávez Debates Bush on Simón Bolívar and the Kind of
Revolution America
Needs
[Editors’ Note from Labor Standard: Before
leaving on his tour of five Latin American countries U.S. President George W. Bush, in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic
Chamber of Commerce, equated George
Washington and Simón Bolívar. In reply Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez pointed out some key differences between the two
“liberators”—specifically, that while Washington
ended up a wealthy and successful owner of a slave plantation after winning
independence from Britain,
Bolívar freed his slaves and gave away his land in the struggle for
independence from Spain,
and died a pauper.
[Chávez spoke on this
subject at a rally of some 40,000 people in Argentina
on March 9, across the La Plata River from where Bush was visiting Uruguay. A
translation of key passages from Chávez’s March 9
speech was posted March 12 on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” web site (www.democracynow.org). We reproduce
that translation for the information of our readers, preceded by Amy Goodman’s
introductory remarks.]
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush has
arrived in Guatemala for the
second-to-last stop of his five-nation tour of Latin America.
[Bush had visited Brazil
first, then Uruguay,
then Colombia.—L.S.] He is meeting with Guatemalan President Oscar
Berger for talks that are expected to be dominated by immigration and free
trade.
Bush’s visit to the region has been
marked by mass protests and marches. In Brazil Thursday, 30,000 people took
to the streets. The next day in Uruguay,
some 6,000 marched in the capital of Montevideo.
In Bogota,
police made 120 arrests when 5,000 protesters marched just one mile from where
Bush held talks with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Bush will travel to Mexico later
today for the last leg of his tour.
While many analysts agree that the
president’s trip is part of an effort to gain back influence in the region, the
White House has sought to portray the tour as part of a humanitarian effort to
address issues of poverty. Last week in Washington,
President Bush spoke before the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: You know,
not far from the White House, there’s a statue of the great liberator Simon
Bolivar. He’s often compared to George
Washington—Jorge W. Like Washington,
he was a general who fought for the right of his people to govern themselves.
Like Washington,
he succeeded in defeating a much stronger colonial power. And like Washington, he belongs
to all of us who love liberty. One Latin American diplomat had put it this way:
“Neither Washington nor Bolivar was destined to have children of their own, so
that we Americans might call ourselves their children.”
We are the sons and daughters of
this struggle, and it is our mission to complete the revolution they began on
our two continents. The millions across our hemisphere who every day suffer the degradations of poverty and hunger have a right
to be impatient. And I’m going to make them this pledge: The goal of this great
country, the goal of a country full of generous people, is an Americas where
the dignity of every person is respected, where all find room at the table, and
where opportunity reaches into every village and every home. By extending the
blessings of liberty to the least among us, we will fulfill the destiny of this
new world and set a shining example for others. Que Dios les
bendiga. [May God’s blessings be with you.]
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush,
speaking in Washington
last week. In addition to the mass protests against his presence in the region,
Bush has been dogged by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez,
who’s on a counter-tour of Latin America at
the same time. In fact, Chávez has practically
shadowed Bush since the beginning of his trip. When Bush was in Uruguay on Friday, Chávez
held a mass rally in neighboring Argentina. When Bush flew to Colombia, Chávez
addressed thousands in Bolivia.
When Bush was in Guatemala, Chávez was again close by in neighboring Nicaragua. [And
while Bush went on to Mexico,
Chávez went to Jamaica and Haiti.—L.S.]
Today, we’re going to play an
excerpt of one of Chávez’s speeches, this at the mass
really in Argentina
on Friday. The Venezuelan president launched a stinging attack on Bush, who was
in Uruguay, just thirty
miles away across the La Plata
River.
PRESIDENT HUGO CHÁVEZ: [translated]
On the other side of the river, that is where that
little gentleman of the North must be. Let’s give him a big boo! Gringo, go
home!
I am convinced that our friends in Brasilia and in Montevideo
are not going to feel offended, because we would not want to hurt any of our
brethren from Uruguay or Brazil. We
recognize their sovereignty. We recognize that those governments have the
sovereign right to invite the little gentleman of the North, if they so choose.
But [Argentinian President Nestor]
Kirchner and I don’t need to plan anything to sabotage this visit, because we
are witnessing [a visit by] a true political cadaver. The president of the United States
is a political cadaver. He doesn’t even smell of sulfur anymore. He doesn’t
even smell of sulfur or brimstone, if you will. No longer.
What you smell from him now is the
stench of political death. And not long from now, he will turn to dust and
disappear. So we don’t need to put forth any effort to sabotage the visit of
the president of the United States to some countries, sister countries of Central and South America, of course. We don’t need
to do that. It’s a simple coincidence, the visit of Nestor [Kirchner] to Venezuela and our visit here to Buenos Aires.
Well, we nevertheless need to thank
that little gentleman who’s visiting us, because if he were not here in South America, perhaps this event would not have been so
well attended. We have organized this event to say no to the presence of the
chief of the empire here in the heroic lands of South
America.
The imperial little gentleman who’s
visiting Latin America today said about seventy-two or forty-eight hours ago in
one of his speeches, when he was announcing that he was leaving for Latin America—he compared Simón Bolívar to George Washington. In fact, he even said the
ridiculous thing—and I can’t say it’s hypocrisy,
because it is simply ridiculous, the most ridiculous thing he could say. He
said, today we are all children of Washington and Bolívar. That is, he thinks
that he is a son of Bolívar. What he is, is a son of a—but I can’t say that
word here.
So he has said—and you should
listen to what he said here—he said that now is the time to finish the
revolution that Washington and Bolívar commenced. How’s that for heresy? That
is heresy and ignorance, because we have to remember—and I say this with all
due respect to George Washington,
who is historically one of the founding fathers of that country—but we must
also remember the differences and how different George
Washington and Simón Bolívar were, are, and will always be.
George
Washington won a war to gain the independence of the North American economic
elite from the English empire, and when Washington died, or, rather, after
winning independence and after having been the president of the United States,
after ordering the massacre of the indigenous peoples of North America, after
defending slavery, he ended up being a very rich owner of slaves and of a
plantation. He was a great landowner. That was George
Washington.
Simón Bolívar, although he was born
with a silver spoon in his mouth, and at eight years old his parents died and
he inherited a large fortune, together with his brothers, and he inherited
haciendas and slaves. Simón Bolívar, when history led him—and as Karl Marx
said, men make history, but only as far as history allows us to do so—when
history took Bolívar and made him the leader of the independence process in
Venezuela, he made that process revolutionary. Simón Bolívar turned over all of
his land. He freed all of his slaves, and he turned them into soldiers, and he
brought them here. He brought them to Peru
and [Cochabamba, in Bolivia,
the northern neighbor of Argentina],
and he worked together with the troops of [the Argentinian
independence fighter] San Martín to liberate this
continent.
That was Simón Bolívar.
And Simón Bolívar, having been born
with that silver spoon in his mouth, when he died on the Caribbean coast of
Colombia, when he died on December 17 in 1830, he was wearing someone else’s
shirt, because he had no clothes [of his own]. Simón Bolívar is the leader of
the revolution of this land. He is the leader of the social revolution, the
people’s revolution, a historic revolution. George
Washington has nothing—nothing—to do with this history.
It was in 1823 [while Bolívar was
still alive—L.S.] that [U.S. President] James Monroe said, “America for the
Americans.” And when I say this tonight, I say it because I want to remind you,
my brothers of Argentina, of
Venezuela, and of the Americas, that the presence of the president of
the United States in South America represents all of that. He represents that
Monroe Doctrine of “America
for the [North] Americans.” Well, we will have to tell him: North America for
the North Americans and South America for the
South Americans. This is our America.
The president of the United States,
that political cadaver—and when I say political cadaver, I mean that although
he would like to see me as a real cadaver, I want him to be a political cadaver,
and he already is a political cadaver. The president of the United States has the lowest level of
credibility and acceptance from his own people[,
although] he is the current president of the United States.
It would appear that he doesn’t
even dare mention my name, because he was asked in Brasilia today in a press
conference—I saw it, I watched it at the hotel—and the journalist asked him,
“It is said that you are here to stop Chavez’s movement in South America.” And
it looked like he almost had a heart attack when he heard “Chavez,” because he
actually stuttered a couple of times, and he actually changed the subject. He
didn’t answer the question. He didn’t answer the question at all. So he doesn’t
even dare [mention my name].
But I definitely dare to say his
name. The president of the United States of North America, George W. Bush, the little gentleman of the North,
the political cadaver that is visiting South America, that little gentleman is
the president of the United States, and in all the history of the United
States, he has the lowest level of approval in his own country. And if we add
to that the level of [dis]approval that he has in the world, I would think he’s
really in the red now, with negative numbers [below zero]…