Menu

03/05/13 - GlobalPost - Castro and Chavez, a father-son bond until death

In the end, the aging mentor outlived his socialist protege.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died Tuesday at the age of 58, had
found a father figure when he struck a lasting friendship with Cuba's
86-year-old retired leader Fidel Castro.

The grey-bearded guerrilla veteran guided the aspiring socialist
revolutionary throughout his tumultuous 14-year presidency, and it was in a
Cuban hospital that Chavez chose to receive most of his cancer treatment.

As his loyal political son, Chavez repaid Castro with a continuing supply
of cheap oil that has kept Cuba's anemic economy afloat.

"Fidel to me is a father, a comrade, a master of perfect strategy," Chavez
said in 2005 in an interview with the Cuban Communist Party newspaper
Granma.

For two decades, the men were the closest of friends, allies and
confidants, supporting each other unconditionally, to the point where
Chavez once proposed uniting the two countries in a federation, an idea
Venezuelan voters squashed in a 2007 referendum.

The friendship angered the Venezuelan opposition, which accused Chavez of
giving away money to Cuba while Venezuela's economy sputtered.

The leader of the Cuban revolution first took note of lieutenant colonel
Chavez, 28 years his junior, when the army paratrooper led a failed
military coup in 1992 against the country's old and worn-out political
parties.

The young mutineer spent two years in prison, and when he came out Castro
personally invited him to Havana, where he received him at the foot of the
plane as if Chavez were a head of state.

Since the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Castro has paid special
attention to Venezuela, because of its oil wealth and because social
democratic president Romulo Betancourt had turned it into a showcase for
the Alliance for Progress, the US initiative to counter the contagion of
the Cuban revolution.

Cuba responded by giving military support to Venezuela's communist
guerrillas.

For Cuba, "Venezuela has always been attractive in geopolitical terms
because it has what the island doesn't: oil and energy," said Angel
Lombardi, a historian and writer.

"Fidel had always bet on exploiting political situations in other countries
to influence the region. And a coup leader fit perfectly in that scheme of
things," he said.

The ideological convergence between the two men did not happen overnight,
but Castro took advantage of the fact that Chavez "had no training and was
a politician who accommodated himself to circumstances," Lombardi said.

With Chavez's arrival in power in 1999, the leaders began to see each other
frequently, forging an alliance that was closely watched in the region and
in Washington.

Venezuela's conservative opposition began to worry as rumors grew of
Castro's influence over Chavez. And the two men seemed in perfect sync,
playing baseball together or touring this oil-producing country.

"Chavez has to be multiplied by 5,000, by 10,000, by 20,000," gushed
Castro, who was soon to hand his young protege the banners of
anti-imperialism and hail him as the new leader of the revolutionary left.

Castro's bet on Chavez rapidly paid off. In 2000, they signed an agreement
that remains in force today under which Venezuela supplies Cuba with
130,000 barrels of oil a day on preferential terms.

In a communist Cuba that had suffered the loss of huge subsidies after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the aid was a life-saving windfall that
quickly made Venezuela Cuba's top trade partner.

Castro was a close advisor after Chavez survived a coup in 2002 and faced a
referendum to oust him from office in 2003.

The Cuban leader advised Chavez to launch high-impact social programs for
the poor, which lifted the Venezuelan's popularity and enabled him to
surmount the recall challenge when it finally came to a vote in 2004.

Chavez used his country's oil bonanza to fund housing, health and
subsidized food programs, while Cuba contributed by sending tens of
thousands of doctors and volunteers to Venezuela.

Although Castro stepped down from the presidency following surgery in 2006,
Cuba's alliance with Chavez has held firm.

That same year, Chavez was re-elected president and coined the slogan "21st
century socialism" for his new government, while taking care not to
associate it too closely with Cuban-style communism.

The two countries have continued developing trade relations and undertaking
joint business ventures. Caracas approved new loans and Havana sent more
labor amid accusations by the Venezuelan opposition that Cuban agents also
were penetrating the government and military.

The secrecy with which the two governments have managed the relationship is
reflected in the absence of official figures on bilateral trade or the size
of Cuba's debt to Venezuela.

In 2011, it was Castro who personally told Chavez that he had cancer and
that Cuban doctors would take charge of his medical care.

app/jm-lth/jk/rcw


http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130305/castro-and-chavez-father-son-bond-until-death


Original Source / Fuente Original:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130305/castro-and-chavez-father-son-bond-until-death