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Fidel attends graduation of Venezuelan officers
The Bolivarian Revolution came at the right time
PRESIDENT Fidel Castro
affirmed that the Bolivarian Revolution came just at
the right time to contribute to the second and
definitive independence of Latin America, just as
Simón Bolívar dreamed.
The Cuban leader presided
over the graduation ceremony for the 46th class of
Venezuela’s “Libertador Simón Bolívar” Advanced Army
School, whose members, on a command and general
staff course, elected him as their patron.
The official ceremony took
place at the Cuban Council of State, located at the
Palace of the Revolution in Havana, where Fidel
handed their diplomas to each one of the 74
graduates.
He said that the presence of
the officers from that South American nation is
proof that “in your homeland and ours, in that of
all Latin Americans, the most necessary, profound
and just revolution is occurring.”
He described the decision to
hold that graduation for the Venezuelan Army’s
academic institution as “spontaneous” and “unexpected,”
and something that would have been unimaginable some
years ago, and he accepted it in the name of the
Cuban people.
He noted that those who do
not understand the phenomenon taking place in
Bolívar’s homeland and other Latin American
latitudes are resorting to slander and lies, just as
they have created automatic reflexes among the
peoples to keep them in ignorance and oppression.
Fidel warned that the
enemies would not have to worry, because “we are not
subverting order, as they are accusing President
Chávez and me of doing. It is others who, over the
years have worked to maintain an unsustainable order,”
he affirmed.
He noted that change becomes
inevitable because of the objective conditions
imposed on the peoples, whose consciousness is
growing. “We hope that such change happens in the
most peaceful manner possible, because none of us
wants war,” he emphasized.
The Cuban president
predicted that what is happening today in Venezuela
will not only have repercussions in Latin America,
but also in the United States itself, that same
people that mobilized against the war in Viet Nam
and supported the return of the Cuban child Elián
González to his homeland.
By decision of the Cuban
Council of State, the Venezuelan graduates, led by
Brigadier General Carlos Antonio Centeno Mena,
director of the Army’s Academy, were decorated with
the Combative Fraternity medal.
The Cuban president, in turn,
received both command staffs used by the generals of
that country, as well as a replica of a Venezuelan
Navy submarine.
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