Havana, March 6 (RHC)-- The trajectory of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his legacy as a visionary man was remembered the day before at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), on the occasion of the eleventh anniversary of his physical departure.

In a panel on the study of Chávez's life and work, his teachings and all the actions he developed in pursuit of guaranteeing a state of social justice in Venezuela were recalled.

The Venezuelan Ambassador here, Orlando Maneiro, evoked the first meeting between Chávez and the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, and how a decade after that "first embrace" the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty was born in 2004.

He highlighted the transcendence that the integration mechanism has had for both peoples, thanks to "the vision of two greats". Maneiro underlined that one of the greatest expressions of the close ties between the island and the Bolivarian Republic were the more than 39 thousand Cuban and Venezuelan collaborators, the latter trained on the island, who worked in the South American country during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He recalled Chavez's efforts to stimulate Latin American and Caribbean solidarity and that one of its expressions was the regional energy agreement Petrocaribe, still in force, under special conditions, he said.

He detailed that these "conditions" are due to the fact that Venezuela is living "the same attacks and the same unilateral coercive measures applied by the United States to our brothers in Cuba".

He stressed that despite the forecasts, Venezuela is celebrating 25 years of the Bolivarian Revolution, 11 of which were spent without the physical presence of Chávez, but it was possible to move forward thanks to his legacy and hand in hand with the Cuban people.

For his part, ICAP vice-president, Víctor Gaute, reflected that Cuba received a great influence from the Bolivarian Revolution due to the closeness, the bilateral ties and the identity of thought and action between the leaders of both peoples.

Gaute delved into the current importance of the development of ties between the two countries, thanks to which millions of people have benefited in areas such as health and education.

Meanwhile, the director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, René González, explained that although imperialism has accused the Caribbean nation of Cubanizing the Bolivarian Revolution, this argument could not be further from the truth.

He pointed out that the influence of the liberator Simón Bolívar and the Venezuelan cause have been present in all stages of the struggles for the liberation of the largest of the Antilles (Source: Prensa Latina).