Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that the former colonial masters of Africa and South America should apologize for 'the greatest genocide in history'. He said told his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria that “Africa has suffered the greatest genocide in history ' in a reference to colonization and slavery by European powers. 'In this we are brothers because we have known such genocide in South America,' he said, citing native Maya, Aztec and Inca civilizations which disappeared under Spain’s conquistadors. 'The countries that led that genocide have not asked for forgiveness yet and some of them are even upset because we remember this.' 'But we have the obligation to remember this. It is our duty to explain this, to tell current and future generations what happened,' added the former army paratrooper who since coming to power in 1998 has provoked the United States and Britain over his outspoken attacks.
It must be a surprise to the South African majority that a man born in barrio in Venezuela like Hugo Chavez Frias now is the head of his country.
If the story of Abraham Lincoln the American president who came from a Log Cabin to lead his country, then the story of Hugo Chavez Frias is all the more exciting as a man who came from a run down barrio, where poverty was endemic, then one must think of what he achieved and the hardships the dogged his life on the way to his present position. Yes, like it or not Chavez's life has been one in which nothing was gotten the easy way, and he is an example for all those in South Africa and around the world of what can be achieved if one has the backbone to stand up and be counted.
The difference between Chavez and all those leaders in the West, is that Chavez rose from extreme poverty to the highest office in Venezuela, while they were all born into opulence and have no idea of the poverty that exists in their countries, because they are so far removed from it.
Look at what Chavez has done for the poor and downtrodden in Venezuela and well beyond the borders of his own country. Today, even South Africa is going to be the receiver of the progress that the Bolivarian Revolution has brought to Latin America.
It must be a surprise to the South African majority that a man born in barrio in Venezuela like Hugo Chavez Frias now is the head of his country.
ReplyDeleteIf the story of Abraham Lincoln the American president who came from a Log Cabin to lead his country, then the story of Hugo Chavez Frias is all the more exciting as a man who came from a run down barrio, where poverty was endemic, then one must think of what he achieved and the hardships the dogged his life on the way to his present position. Yes, like it or not Chavez's life has been one in which nothing was gotten the easy way, and he is an example for all those in South Africa and around the world of what can be achieved if one has the backbone to stand up and be counted.
The difference between Chavez and all those leaders in the West, is that Chavez rose from extreme poverty to the highest office in Venezuela, while they were all born into opulence and have no idea of the poverty that exists in their countries, because they are so far removed from it.
Look at what Chavez has done for the poor and downtrodden in Venezuela and well beyond the borders of his own country. Today, even South Africa is going to be the receiver of the progress that the Bolivarian Revolution has brought to Latin America.
Sincerely,
Kenneth T. Tellis