It was inauguration day today in Ecuador for a very popular re-elected leader. And guess who was the guest of honor?
Yup, Nicolás Maduro was there, wearing his mourning armband for Chavecito…without whom there might not have BEEN a President Correa, seeing as Chavecito got the Bolivarian ball rolling in the first place. And obviously, Chavecito was very much on the big guy’s mind as he delivered his thoughts on his amigo’s re-election:
And he was not the only one thinking of Chavecito:
The president of the National Assembly of Ecuador, Gabriela Rivadeneira, praised the legacy of the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez, and of the former president of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, during her speech at the inauguration of President Rafael Correa for his next term, 2013-2017.
During a vibrant speech which lasted nearly an hour, Rivadeneira recalled the dream of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, of the “liberation of this Indian America”, to build “a great united nation, diverse but sisterly.”
“Now this utopia of Bolívar is also the utopia of Salvador Allende, of Augusto Sandino, of Manuel Ugarte, the utopia of Fidel Castro, of Hugo Chávez, and of Néstor Kirchner,” said Rivadeneira, to sustained applause from all present in the congress.
Rivadeneira recalled that with the help of presidents like Chávez and Kirchner, as well as Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa himself, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) were built.
Rivadeneira called these institutions “the backbone of a new decolonized Latin America, different from the old institutions which only served to destroy our hopes.”
She added that the new organisms of integration “are the nodes of the new Bolivarian America which we are building”.
“It is up to the current revolutionary generations to not only continue this process, but to finish forging it, so that our continent never again goes back to being the colony of any empire.”
Translation mine.
Well, if the imperialists thought that Chavecito’s death would solve their problems, they’ve got another think coming. As I’ve said here on repeated occasions: The man is not dead, he’s immortal. And he’s beyond their reach now. He’s on the loose in every corner of the continent. Good luck trying to shove that genie back into the bottle.
