Address by the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez
Lima, June 10, 2000
  
(Unofficial Version, transcript of his oral presentation)

I would first like to speak on behalf of all of us to express our sincere appreciation to President Fujimori and his team, to the General Secretariat of the Andean Community, to all of its officials and advisors, to the advisory committees and the technical committees – in short, to everyone who was directly involved in preparing and carrying out this Twelfth Summit meeting of the Andean Presidential Council.

We have discussed a series of topics; we have made various contributions, all under a highly precise management. I feel that advances have been made in our discussion and we have heard very clearly expressed, as well as very harsh, statements from the representatives of our nations and of the Andean Integration System.

We have made a diagnosis and we have received documents prepared with a fairly in-depth perspective. I think that is very important at this moment and at this stage of transition through which we are all passing. And, above all, I want to thank the people of Peru for the warmth of their reception, for the many courtesies they have shown us, for the lovely show they put on last evening, demonstrating what one writer has said, that Peru is a synthesis of the world. Last night we were treated to a colorful spectacle and heard a wide variety of musical compositions, of our music –Andean music— and our Andean customs and traditions. With this organization, President Fujimori has shown us that he goes beyond words when he speaks of Andean nationalism and the need to rescue our traditions, our essence, our pride in being of this land, of being heirs to so many battles, so many dreams in this new world. For that reason, I would like to reexpress the appreciation of all of us for the great effort that has been made and the marvelous way this unforgettable Twelfth Summit has been managed.

It is now Venezuela’s turn, the turn of our people, of our institutions, to continue the task. As you all know, our institutions are being reborn from their ashes and I find it very appropriate that these new institutions and a nation almost in the throes of a collective and deeply moving resurrection of sorts, is now, only a few short months after the birth of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, reassuming this enormous task, under the flag of Bolívar and the banner of integration, of cooperating in, boosting, making the necessary adjustments in, and coordinating the onward progress of the Andean Community. This major effort, this gigantic effort that lies ahead of us, is precisely on the threshold of a new century, at the beginning of a new stage in world history and, very particularly, in that of Latin America and the Caribbean.

I am going to take advantage of this opportunity to share a few thoughts about how we see this moment in time and the effort that we are making.

In the first place, I think we can all agree that any practical effort needs a theory, it needs a philosophy, and it needs a doctrine. We can ask ourselves, men and women of the Andean countries, what that doctrine should be, what the ideology should be, what the most appropriate philosophy is for boosting our practical efforts.

I am also certain that none of us has a doubt that true, profound, deep-felt Bolivarianism should be that doctrine, that philosophy, that ideological system, which we must breathe new life into, after having been left behind, been buried for years. We should ask ourselves, brothers and sisters, what this region would be like today if that grand Colombian proposal, that union of all of us, that political, economic, military, scientific, and cultural union that lived and breathed along this backbone of the Andes for a large part of the nineteenth century and was able to produce major accomplishments, had continued to move ahead over time and space.

We feel that this is one of the major causes of our historical tragedy. The nineteenth century was the century of union, of unitary battles, of our great grandfathers’ heroic deeds, which seemed incredible or herculean at times, and were only possible thanks to our union, to a grand idea: to expel an empire from America and keep others from taking its place in our South American lands. If these men and women had not achieved that independence and brought about the formation of these Republics of ours, who knows whether we would have remained colonies or would still be, politically speaking, in the position some other countries in our geopolitical sphere were in until 1960 or are still in. I think that the task accomplished by our liberators, male and female, was truly herculean. Allow me, then, friends, representatives of these nations of ours, to insist upon the need to revive and give a boost to the Bolivarian ideology. To revive it and to seek to apply it –adjusted to the modern times in which we live, of course— to the moment, to our drama of these years.

When we speak about democracy, for example, why don’t we focus that democracy, the political systems, the political theory? Why don’t we look around a little and delve through Bolivarian ideology, which cannot be attributed to Bolivar alone. An ideology is never the product of a single man. That name and that leadership were stamped on this ideology, but it was the product of a period. There are no providential men. Only Christ, to us Christians. Bolivar was a product of his times, of ideas taken up and carried into battle and enshrined in law.

Democracy. We have just reaffirmed our willingness to continue boosting and intensifying democracy, but that word "democracy" has so many meanings that we must take an x-ray of it, that we must search within our own reality. Which democracy are we talking about? Does the democracy of Latin America and of the Andean countries have to be identical to the democratic model of this or that country, this or that political system, this or that region? There is no democracy that can be applied in exactly the same way in one region as it is in another. Simón Rodríguez, that other great Bolivarian, used to say around here, in the streets of Lima, somewhere in Peru or Bolivia, in his final years of life, that we should not continue to copy models, that that was one of our tragedies. He called upon us to invent new models and launched a new slogan for history in "Sociedades Americanas," one of his most profound philosophical writings: "invent or fail."

In Venezuela, for example, we have been reviewing the concept and the practice of democracy. Most of you for years were probably told a monstrous lie that many believed for a long time was the truth: Venezuela, it was said, was one of Latin America’s model democracies. So was a 40-year model that came crashing down presented. That’s not the kind of democracy we want: a democracy that leads most of the people into a state of misery; a democracy in whose sacred name some bodies are allowed to get rich and top leaders to act with impunity and at the same time a system that in the name of democracy expropriates from the masses, that takes away their most essential right, not only their right to life, but their right to life-giving health, to education, to housing, to the land, to a job, to dignity itself. That cannot be democracy, those are tyrannies disguised as democracies and tyrants dressed up to look like democrats. It is a little like what Galeano says in one of his books, "La escuela del mundo al revés" (the school of the upside-down world): come and see the river spew fire, says Galeano, come and see the democracy that condemns the masses to death, come and see the democracy that takes away the very right to be itself, the demos. I think that it is highly advisable to review all of this, to rethink the direction we are heading in. The courses of democracy need redirecting, but with firmness.

We in Venezuela have had the idea –maybe a daring one—of referring to a Bolivarian democracy; we have taken up Bolivarian thinking to try to direct our people and to try to sow that awareness and to build that new model. Bolívar, for example, on February 15, 1819 at the Congress of Angostura (there the idea of Colombia was born) stated in his speech that the most perfect system of government is that which gives the people the greatest amount of social security, the greatest amount of political stability, and the greatest amount of happiness possible. We consider that an essential concept of democracy: happiness for the people, social security for the people, political stability for the people.

Or when he pointed out, in the same address in Angostura (one of the most profound documents, to my way of thinking), that all men are born unequal, in size, in physical build, in intellectual potential, and so forth, but that institutions and laws should create a de facto equality, a social equality, a legal equality, a political equality.

I think that that is another essential concept of freedom: equality. Bolivar recommended seeking a happy balance between extreme freedom, which leads to anarchy, and authoritarianism or autocracy, which denies all freedoms.

Offhand, I think that these are some of the elements that come to mind at this important meeting and that I would like to propose to all of you. How much the theory, the guiding philosophy of our integration effort, our Bolivarian effort, needs redefining!

And that’s not saying anything about the world balance, which is precisely where the Colombia effort came from; thank heavens you still conserve the name and the essence of Colombia, and have done so very well throughout the years --Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama and beyond--, of what Bolivar had and was demonstrating in many letters: the plan to free Cuba, to free what is today the Dominican Republic, and to integrate. Bolivar said that Colombia should be round and if one looks carefully at the map and places a compass point, then idea was to trace a huge round republic at whose epicenter we stand; the Andes are the backbone, the axis of that sphere to which Bolivar’s geopolitical mission referred.

If we project Bolivar’s thinking world ward, we will find concrete elements of that dialectic view in theory and in practice. The convening from here in Lima, in 1824, just a few days after the Battle of Ayacucho in December 1824, of the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama, encompasses the time and space. Panama was to be the isthmus, like Corinth is for the Greeks, for us Americans today; it should be, he stated, the point of union and of the Confederation of Republics he was proposing in order to negotiate matters of war and peace, of economics, and of all spheres of life, under conditions of equality with the other centers of world power.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this proposal is completely valid today. For that reason, in short, Bolivarian theory seems to us to be absolutely appropriate inside our nations, our republic, our States, in the rebuilding of our societies, of our political models, of our republican models and, at the same time, for looking outward in this effort to build a much more balanced world, a much more democratic world where national sovereignty and self-determination are respected; where the age of empires and invasions, of certifications and removals of certifications, of blockades and threats, is left behind. All of that must remain behind, forever, with history and Bolivar gives us elements to do this with: union as the driving force of the Bolivarian strategy --the inward union of our countries and the outward union.

In this geographic view, if we do not merge the nature of the nation into a single unit, if we fail to combine all of the institutions into a harmonious whole, if we do not merge the national spirit into a comprehensive unit, we will be consumed by anarchy. "Unity, unity, unity, that should be our motto," declared Bolivar on his deathbed in Santa Marta on December 10, 1830 when, defeated by life, with a bleeding soul, betrayed, he saw his dream of integration come crashing down; yet he was still able to say "if my death helps to do away with the parties and to consolidate the union of the nations of America, then I will go to my grave with a light heart." May the peoples of America be united.

I feel that it is necessary to revive this feeling, this passion --this sacred fire, some would call it--, and with it to raise our torches high to light these difficult, these tortuous courses we are traveling, for there is nothing to show that they will stop being tortuous, they are going to continue being tortuous.

Now, in addition to the ideology, in addition to the ideological philosophy boost, we Andean countries must arm ourselves in this case with a strategic project. As it has been defined –and it seems fine to me--, this is an important element of the strategic project: looking ahead and setting ourselves goals and striving for the viability of the projects and adjusting ourselves to them, as we have done here today and in these past few days and as we will continue to do, but I think we must set our sights on a somewhat more distant horizon.

A Common Market by the year 2005. Yes, that is a short-term target, but where are we headed? Why don’t we set ourselves a 20-year goal, such as, for example, long-term objectives to which, of course, we would contribute in the short and medium terms. I continue on Venezuela’s behalf to broach the need to return to the idea of political union, which, of course, we would have to discuss, to go into in depth: political union, a common currency. We’ve talked about that here, about a strengthening. We are perfectly able to constitute in this part of the world a center of economic, social, political, scientific, and technological forces, of forces of all kinds, so that by the twenty-first century our grandchildren will live in a world that is no longer so unequal.

Two or three days ago in Caracas, we were reading the latest report put out by the United Nations Development Program and the figures were horrifying: the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population consumes over 80% of the Gross Domestic Product. We, the Andean countries, import over half of what we consume in order to survive, while at the same time we have many millions of hectares, quantities of water, large numbers of young people, and a huge potential, but we don’t know how to put them to use.

That’s why we also propose looking further ahead. General Omar Torrijos used to say that one should drive with full headlights and with dipped headlights, with dipped headlights, but every now and then with full headlights. We’re making this proposal again, as we have already discussed it in some of these meetings. This strategic program or project must be fueled by an ideology that to our way of thinking should be the authentic Bolivarian philosophy; it is necessary to place political will above technical and economic reasoning.

Clemenceau, the Tiger, once said –I’m sure that General Banzer, as a military man, knows this--, but we’ve all read it: "war is too serious to leave in the hands of the generals."

With all due respect to the economists and experts, who are sorely needed, who are essential, the integration and the lives of our peoples are too serious a matter to leave in the hands of technical commissions or of economists alone. This is too serious a matter to approach it only from the economic viewpoint, from that of trade, so we must place the horses before the cart: the political approach, the political will is unwaivable, it comes first. It is the general cause, the root; this is the root. We must not confuse the root with the branches, the general causes with the particular causes.

If we fail to bring a huge fool-proof political will into play, the process will continue to become sidetracked or to move ahead, but always leaving large gaps, and the major objectives that we’ve talked about, the great and necessary goals, would be unable to be fulfilled, I believe. I think we must be more precise in designing a 20-year strategic project, one with a greater capacity for monitoring, with a larger capacity for evaluation, a function that the Andean Parliament carries out very competently. We are willing to give that body our growing support so that this monitoring mission can be performed much more efficiently.

In short, friends, colleagues, presidents, Venezuela is assuming the Presidency of the CAN. We intend to move ahead with the work that Peru has done this year and that Colombia did the previous year, and that all of us have done in past years, over the 31-year life of the Andean community. But it is our intention, which I am certain we share with all of you, to take up the aspirations of the collective unit only, to which we must apply that formula which states that energy equals mass velocity squared (scientists, please correct me if I am wrong). I believe we have to square the velocity of the entire mass of ideas, of projects, of proposals, of people, of currents; square the velocity in order to catch up with the pace of history, which is far ahead of us and can leave us permanently behind. We cannot allow this to happen, we cannot be bypassed by history. As you have done, we are going to put our whole heart, all of our passion, all of our will into being good coordinators of this entire undertaking and good boosters of the whole effort. We want all of the bodies that share our responsibility for this effort to participate.

To make a start on this movement to square the velocity, we have already coordinated –and I thank Secretary General Sebastián Alegrett for his always-excellent willingness— a meeting of the Presidency of the Andean Community with the General Secretariat, its teams, and its representatives, which is to be held in Caracas on July 24, the anniversary of Bolívar’s birth. We have invited the different bodies that belong to the Andean Integration System to spend some time –I’m not sure, maybe two or three days-- with us in Caracas in workshops, in working meetings to make a more precise evaluation of the situation and to draw up the action program for this year, in an effort to speed up on all battle fronts, because this is truly a battle.

The proposal, for example, that the distinguished rector of the Simón Bolívar University told us about seems extraordinary; it is also necessary to give a very strong boost to the social agenda and a social fund and to set up the Latin American Monetary Fund. A Common Foreign Policy must also be defined very firmly and very unmistakably and we must discuss the problems that trouble all of us: democracy, the fight against drug trafficking, and so forth. The productive economy must be urged forward so that we are not left with macroeconomic, inflation, and fiscal deficit indicators only; they are necessary, but they are not enough. President Fujimori mentioned tourism, others said that agriculture should be boosted throughout the Andean area because we truly have a great potential, and it is also necessary to expedite other energy models so that they are able to meet the needs of our peoples…We are going to start off by working to define and boost all of these programs and short-term objectives.

We are very pleased at the ratification of the special meeting that was approved in Cartagena in 1999, but that couldn’t take place that year because of domestic Venezuelan reasons. Now we are going to hold it in December 2000, in Venezuela, to contribute to that velocity movement I have referred to. Then, in May or June 2001, God willing, we will host the XIII Summit of the Andean Presidential Council in that Bolivarian Caracas that belongs to all of us. As of this very moment, we will be waiting with affection and love for you to contribute to the rebuilding and relaunching of the idea of the united, strong, and powerful Latin America our forefathers dreamed about.

I want to end up by referring to Bolívar, but also to Choquehuanca, who here in these lands once sang to Bolívar in the following words: "God, wishing to form an empire, created Manco Cápac; his race sinned and he launched Pizarro. After three centuries of expiation, he has sent you; he has pitied America and has sent this man with a providential project. Nothing that has been done can equal what you have accomplished and for anyone to imitate you a world must need freeing. You founded three republics, which in the vast development they are called upon to achieve carry your statue where none other has reached. Your glory will grow over the centuries, as the shadows grow when the sun sets." Let us place ourselves on the same level as Choquehuanca’s dream and as the Bolivarian dream: I embrace all the Andean peoples of America. Thank you very much.