Chávez: heartfelt thanks for solidarity

AMID applause and exclamations of ¡Pa'lante Comandante!, Venezuelan Vice President Elías Jaua read to the country’s National Assembly the communiqué from the Presidency of the Republic concerning the surgical procedure undergone by President Hugo Chávez.

The Vice President also presented an annual report on the government’s undertakings in 2011 to this legislative body.

As is public knowledge, during the most recent medical check on President Hugo Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a lesion was detected which required corrective surgery.

In this context, after the corresponding evaluations, the medical team decided to operate as soon as possible. This was carried out as planned, with satisfactory results, and is to be followed by a recuperation program in the next few days.

President Chávez is in a good physical condition, in the company of family members and in direct and constant contact with the Vice President and the Bolivarian government. He is always attentive to keeping the Venezuelan people and international community accurately and transparently informed of the details and the treatment which he is undergoing.

The President has ordered the results of his recent surgery to be made public. These were detailed by the medical team as soon as the operation was over, in the following terms:

The diagnosed pelvic lesion was totally removed, as was body tissue around the lesion. There were no complications related to local organs. The post-operative period has been stable, without systemic complications. He is recovering adequately and cooperating with post-surgical rehabilitation. Histological studies will be available in the next few hours, and will determine optimum treatment of the lesion.

President Chávez has expressed his heartfelt thanks for the warm support he has received from the Venezuelan people, as well as countless expressions of solidarity from men and women all over the world.

He also wishes to express his gratitude for the many messages and telephone calls from heads of state and government, international leaders and representatives of important world social organizations.

In particular, and in the name of the Venezuelan people, he wishes to thank Fidel, Raúl, the Cuban people and the team of health specialists who conducted the operation and are maintaining, with scientific wisdom and human warmth, the treatment required for the full reestablishment of the health of Comandante Chávez.

For its part, the Bolivarian government expresses its aspiration that the Venezuelan people’s sentiment of solidarity and support for their President will be respected by those political sectors and the national and international right wing in the service of imperial interests, and that they will desist from their perverse campaign against Venezuela.

Finally, President Hugo Chávez reaffirms his call to all men and women in our homeland to continue in the daily tasks and struggle to consolidate independence and to build socialism, which is none other than the supreme dream of our Liberator Simón Bolívar.

Our people know that they can always count on the loyalty and commitment of Comandante Chávez in the leadership of the homeland, as he is confident that he can count on the love and loyalty of an entire people.

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Raúl receives Chávez

AFTER intense days of emotion and visible demonstrations of support from the Venezuelan people, President Hugo Chávez arrived smiling at Havana’s José Martí International Airport on Friday, February 24. He was received by President Raúl Castro Ruz, whose welcoming embrace also came from the Cuban people.

"I will be in the same homeland," the Bolivarian leader had commented to Venezuelans who filled to overflowing the Teresa Carreño National Theater to convey their messages of love and infinite protection. "I am going but I will be back, and I will be back with more life," Chávez assured, minutes before leaving from Venezuela’s Maiquetía Airport. He also asked the people to leave no space for sadness.

President Chávez arrived accompanied by Health Minister Eugenia Sader; Minister of the Presidency Erike Farías; and his brother Adán Chávez, governor of the state of Barinas.

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Raúl receives U.S. Senators

PRESIDENT Raúl Castro Ruz received yesterday evening, February 23, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat, Vermont, president of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby , Republican, Alabama, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Leahy and Shelby are members of a delegation of U.S. Congress senators and representatives currently visiting Cuba.

The meeting addressed issues of interest to Cuba and the United States.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla was also present.
(Photo: Geovani Fernández)

President Chávez to undergo surgery in Havana

CARACAS.—President Hugo Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, announced February 21 that he is about to undergo surgery in Havana, "without any rush and in due time," as he stated in a telephone contact with the "Contragolpe" program broadcast by Venezolana de Televisión.

Chávez underwent a medical check in the Cuban capital on February 18, during which a lesion of close to two centimeters in diameter was detected in the same area from which a tumor was removed in June of last year.

He explained that he would be treated by the same medical team who performed the earlier operation. "Here (in Venezuela), things would have to be activated and implemented. Over there (Cuba), there is more security for this kind of operation. I will have the same doctors, the same equipment and that is going to be better for everyone."

The President stated that he is to continue working with members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), as well as his ministerial team and the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB).

Chávez confirmed that no metastasis had been found in any organ of his body, as has been rumored, and that he feels physically and spiritually prepared for this new operation.

Esteban Lazo receives President of the Ghanaian Council of State

COUNCIL of State Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernández received in Havana Professor Kofi Awoonor, President of the Council of State of the Republic of Ghana, who is visiting Cuba.

During the meeting the two dignitaries reviewed the current state of excellent bilateral relations and expressed a shared will to strengthen and extend links between Ghana and Cuba. They also discussed issues of international interest.

The distinguished visitor was accompanied by David Sarpong Boateng, Ghanaian ambassador to Cuba, and other members of his diplomatic mission. Present at the meeting on the Cuban side were Alberto Velazco San José, director of Sub-Saharan Africa and other Foreign Ministry officials.

Cuba and China strengthen economic relations

BEIJING.— Council of Ministers Vice President Marino Murillo Jorge, head of the implementation commission responsible for the guidelines approved at the 6th Communist Party Congress, met in Beijing with Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu to discuss the progress of bilateral economic relations and other shared interests.

Murillo’s 7-day working visit included meetings with Li Changchun,  member of the permanent commission of the Politcal Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party, and Agriculture Minister Han Changfu, the Chinese Information Center reports.

Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, recalled that "Cuba was the first Latin American country to establish relations with the People’s Republic of China, which developed without major obstacles and with exchanges at the highest level, which increased mutual confidence. We wish to promote this cooperation even more," Telesur reported.

Murillo emphasized Cuba’s disposition to develop new projects and exchanges with China in the area of science and technology, agro-industrial investment and trade, following on from an agreement made in the 19th Intergovernmental Commission to promote and expand agricultural cooperation and speed up respective food imports and exports. (SE)

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Cuban diplomat condemns Spanish government interference

CUBAN Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodríguez has recommended Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo to attend to his own country’s affairs and refrain from meddling in Cuban issues.

Rejecting assertions made by García-Margallo in an interview given to Sunday’s El Mundo newspaper, Rodríguez said that the head of Spanish diplomacy made disrespectful and interventionist statements about human rights and the state of law in Cuba.

"Franco’s admirers are not in Cuba. He would do better to look around him," Rodríguez commented in a statement made accessible to Prensa Latina.

"We express our most energetic rejection of these statements, which constitute renewed interference in Cuba’s internal affairs," Rodríguez added, noting that Havana is no longer colonial territory.

"The Spanish minister should recall that for more than 50 years we have been a sovereign and independent country which does not accept being questioned by anybody, and far less by those trying to give it lessons, when in reality they are living in a glass house.

"His government should be attending to serious societal problems such as the economic crisis and continually increasing unemployment affecting more than five million people, above all, Spanish youth."

In his statement, Rodríguez also referred to Spanish police repression of peaceful demonstrators and the deplorable situation in the country’s prisons, among other human rights violations.

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Cuba would attend the Summit of the Americas, from its traditional position of adherence to the truth
• 8th meeting of ALBA Political Council in Havana

Aida Calviac Mora

IN response to a respectful consultation on the part of the Colombian government, Cuba has stated that if it were invited to the so-called Summit of the Americas, it would attend on the basis of adherence to the truth and with its traditional foreign policy of principles. This was confirmed by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, during an extraordinary session of the 8th meeting of the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) Political Council on February 15 in Havana.

The Foreign Minister recalled that this summit was instigated by former U.S. President Clinton in 1994 as a political platform for the economic annexation of Latin America. "It cannot be a summit of the Americas given that it unjustly and groundlessly excludes Cuba," he noted.

However, he reiterated, "Cuba will not return to the OAS (Organization of American States), nor is it interested in having any relationship with this organization, which has served proposals of domination, occupation and aggression on the part of the United States in order to plunder Latin America and the Caribbean."

The meeting was attended by foreign ministers and high-ranking representatives of the eight countries of the regional bloc: Venezuela, Bolivia. Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominica, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Cuba, as well as St. Lucia and Suriname as special invitees.

The meeting appointed Venezuelan Rodolfo Sanz as ALBA executive coordinator, as part of decisions made in Caracas February 4-5th to give the bloc greater political capacity for undertaking its plans and tasks.

During the Bolivarian Revolution Sanz, a lawyer, diplomat and politician, has held the following posts: constituent member for the state of Miranda in 1999, Deputy Foreign Minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, Minister of Basic Industry and Mining, and Venezuelan ambassador to Ecuador.

The heads of delegation present emphasized the maturity attained by ALBA in its aspiration to build a sovereign space and defined actions for the next few months.