Hugo Chavez, “those who die for life, cannot be called dead” – Lionel Bopage

Sunday, 17 March 2013 

A short speech delivered by Mr. Lionel Bopage at the Memorial Gathering: Hugo Chavez, “those who die for life, cannot be called dead”, held at the Maritime Union Hall in Melbourne. see full speech below.

Dear Comrades and Friends

When I talk about the death of Hugo Chavez, my memories automatically go back to the days of the 1970s and 1980s; those days where the Cuban revolution led by Fidel and Che against Batista’s despotic regime inspired us to fight against the socio-economic injustices of capitalism. At the same time, it was dark days of military dictators, juntas and despots who reigned in many countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Tyqf.a urKh olajdu This was a demoralising factor affecting the left movement the world over. Much before Thatcher’s experimentations in the UK, the neo-liberal economy was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1977 and continues to be implemented to this day At the time, I was a leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (the JVP) and we expressed solidarity with all those people and movements who campaigned and struggled against the dictatorial regimes of the day, against neo-liberalism, militarisation and crimes against humanity that were committed at the time. In Asia, for example, in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, left forces were gaining in strength building working peoples’ movements, despite the enormous massacres carried out in countries such as Indonesia by the pro-US regimes.

Next came another demoralising aspect, the collapse of the socialist system, with its many deficiencies and shortcomings that we were critical of. There were also many positive aspects which some of us try to gloss over.

Then came the end of 1990s with Hugo Chavez coming to power in Venezuela, democratically elected by the people, and many times afterwards until his death, despite the military and other interventions by the US regimes to depose him. The people of Venezuela fought back and brought him back to presidency, as their leader.

He and the Bolivarian movement initiated the march towards building a 21st century model of socialism, leaving out the deficiencies and failures of the past models of socialism. He was inspiring because he did not become subservient to the old models but continued to test new models based on mass participation instead of bureaucracy, practically and objectively fighting against the currents and tendencies of neo-liberalism, advocating fair trade against so-called free trade.

In no time, he became the most significant and influential world leader that represented a new model of socialism where peoples’ control played the central part in the governance of a country.

The major experience that we have to learn from comrade Chavez’s life is not to be sectarian, understand the balance of social forces and realign those social forces in a broad anti-neo-liberal, anti-capitalist framework to fight against socio-economic injustices, which will ultimately lead to toppling despotic regimes working for the neo-liberal economic agenda.

Let people in Venezuela, people in Latin America and the people the world over continue to remain inspired by the legacy of Chavez, in their struggle against socio-economic injustice , in their struggle towards a better world, a not for profit and an alternative socialist model.