By Geraldina Colotti, on March 5, 2025.
In 2005, on the bicentenary of the oath of Monte Sacro, Hugo Chávez climbed the historic Roman hill, where the plebeians of Ancient Rome took refuge in rebellion against the patricians. “Long live the Venezuelan people and long live the peoples of the world who struggle for life, against war, against imperialism, for freedom, for equality!” said the commander, renewing his commitment to the revolutionary and anti-imperialist cause to which he dedicated himself to until his last breath.
The history books say that, before climbing Monte Sacro, Bolívar and his teacher stopped at a nearby inn, which still exists, and is today called Quieto. There, before climbing the Monte Sacro for an official act, among the ancient images that speak of Rome in Bolívar’s time, a political-cultural meeting was held to remember the great Bolivarian, Hugo Chávez, on the day of his physical disappearance, March 5, 2013.
“It is not a death, but a sowing”, the Venezuelan ambassador, María Elena Uzzo, explained to the Italians present, recalling the words of the commander, who embodied the people so that the struggle for liberation could continue even in his absence.
The diplomatic representatives of the ALBA countries recalled Chávez’s great role in achieving a second Latin American independence and in the defense of oppressed peoples, such as the Palestinians. A commitment continued by Maduro and also renewed by him on Monte Sacro, where the president of Venezuela went, together with the First Combatant, Cilia Flores, in the year of the commander’s physical disappearance, preparing to face difficult years of attacks and aggressions.
Making revolution – said Maduro at the event – is “walking on mined land”, because “we are dismantling the mines of misery, backwardness, poverty, inequality, installed in the human brain; selfishness installed as a form of behavior, contempt, social racism installed as a form of behavior”.
The Venezuelan president then recalled the figure of the commander, the socialist leader who resurrected and made real the oath of the Sacred Hill of the Liberator. “We will be loyal and remain committed to the greatest ideals of humanity, of socialism, of Bolívar and of Chávez,” said Maduro, who has kept his promise in this decade of government in which the people have reconfirmed him at the helm of the country.
March 15, 2013, SF. photo: Bill Hackwell
“My opinion, as full as the full moon, is that you elect Nicolás Maduro as President. I ask you from my heart,” said Chávez on his last return from Cuba, on December 8, 2012, when his illness was already consuming him. But he wanted to say goodbye to the people, who then ran through the streets in tears to embrace each other in all the places where the commander had made history.
The first group gathered in Puente Llaguno, about 200 meters from Miraflores, under the statue in honor of the victims of the 2002 coup. Red eyes, hugs, red flags. Some arrived by motorbike, others by car and on foot.
The following day, while the Chavista crowd filled the Plaza Bolívar, the Assembly met in a special session to approve, by majority, the president’s trip to Cuba. Diosdado Cabello, president of the Assembly, chaired the session. The opposition attacked with their heads down, the president’s illness had been their constant hobbyhorse: to create alarm (“he is dying”) or discredit (“he is faking it”).
In this case, however, both the bench of María Corina Machado (of Súmate, a blatantly pro-Atlantic Alliance group) and the group of Julio Borges (Primero Justicia, the Capriles party) used euphemism and kid gloves.
Perhaps out of faith or superstition that playing with death or dying here brings bad luck, especially at Christmas, the opposition formally expressed its solidarity “with the president’s family and those of all the sick”, adding, however, “that Venezuela has the right to know that the President has not been open about his illness and that he now wants to govern the country from abroad”.
“Cuba is not abroad, it is the Patria Grande” (the Greater Homeland), the Chavistas replied, recalling the project of Simón Bolívar; and also recalling that Chávez’s trip was ‘quite different from those made to Washington by the presidents of the Fourth Republic’.
And united around the figure of the ailing leader, they reiterated the points of the new government program, the new impetus for social measures, “With the revolutions of the last century, we shouted: ‘Workers of the world unite’, now we have to unite on the points of this new revolution,” said deputy María León, a Marxist and feminist.
Chávez would have governed until 2019. But after October 7, when he defeated the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, with more than 55% of the vote, his public appearances had become increasingly rare. As the country prepared for the Chavista landslide victory in the regional elections, news of his health conditions heated up the political arena. In November he left again for Cuba, to undergo a new treatment for cancer. The country waited for him, debating and praying.
On December 8, the President returned to Venezuela to announce the seriousness of his health condition and the need for a fourth operation. He gave a speech under the banner of “unity”, repeatedly invoked to defend the “Bolivarian revolution”, his conquests of national sovereignty and social justice. He insistently asked for “the support of the people and of all tendencies”. First of all he spoke to the government and the party, asking them to achieve “unity before any decision we will have to make in the coming days”.
Between a song and a declaration of courage, Chávez went over the stages of his illness. In response to the accusations of the opposition, he declared that he had clearly informed them of his illness at all times, and assured them that “all the results were favorable. If there had been any negative results in those tests, you can be sure that I would not have registered and assumed the presidential candidacy.”
He recalled that “it was like a miracle to get to February 4th. And it was like a miracle to get here to this house of the people. It was like a miracle on April 11th, April 12th, April 13th; that was like a miracle, it was a miracle”. And he emphasized “be that as it may and with this I conclude, today we have Patria, let no one be mistaken”.
A concept that Chavist militants will have the opportunity to repeat many times, like a flag, in the face of the attacks they will have to face after the physical disappearance of the commander, when imperialism financed a stateless opposition to hand over the country to it.
Chávez was a man of his word, which is why people renewed their trust in him time and time again. This is what allowed him to go from Yare prison, where he was locked up after the 1992 civic-military rebellion, for which he declared himself solely responsible, to the Miraflores Palace, elected by the people, and to go on winning one presidential election after another.
The last one, on October 7, 2012. That celebration was his last swim with the crowd. It was an explosion of celebration, shouts of joy and fireworks. Marching to Miraflores, a human tide pressed from all sides.
Hugo Chávez, re-elected for the fourth time, appeared at the window and waved with a clenched fist to the tide of red shirts entering the square.
“I am back on the balcony of the people. Long live the socialist revolution.” The crowd responded by shouting: ‘Uh, ah, Chávez is not leaving.’ An endless echo resonated through the streets of Caracas in a celebration full of smiles and little fingers stained with ink after having voted.
A flood of young people with pearls, tattoos and a bottle of beer, despite the bans on the sale and consumption of alcohol during the electoral ban. A river of children, of old people, of intellectuals, of cripples who in Europe would be begging on street corners. At the sides, a noisy procession of boys on motorbikes, young people from the outermost areas, with megaphones and flags, determined to respond “an eye for an eye” to the Capriles ultras. But most of the Bolivarian “patrols” dissuaded them, thus ensuring the “happy and peaceful” development of election day.
From the balcony, Chávez reported on the congratulatory messages received from international leaders and spoke about Latin American integration. He listed the areas won by many or by few votes, and the main achievements of his government.
“Nothing, compared to what we still have to do,” he said later during a press conference in the 23 de Enero parish. ‘Now,’ he added, ”we must build a process of national reconciliation, reach out to those who want dialogue and isolate those who do not.”
And it will often be up to Maduro to reach out to an opposition that showed its intentions to stage a coup from the outset. But Maduro was also a man of his word, and that is why the people reconfirmed and supported him in his heroic resistance to the attacks of imperialism. Regardless of what those who feel “more Chavista than Chávez” say, the Bolivarian revolution continues on the path opened up by the commander, despite the change in conditions.
This 2024, Maduro presented new lines of work (the 7 Transformations), which aim at the transformation and total recovery of Venezuela. A new plan that derives from the five consensuses that contain the five great objectives of the Plan de la Patria, promoted by Commander Hugo Chávez, and which represent the evolution of the 3R.Nets. “Seven goals for the next seven years on the road to 2030: the year in which Bolívar is reborn forever in a Venezuela Potencia, as the father of the nation dreamed of, as we, his sons, daughters, grandchildren and all the descendants of this beautiful, infinite Patria, deserve,” said the president.
The fourth transformation will focus on the social sector, so the total renewal of the humanist protection model will be key. “We need to accelerate the recovery of our welfare state, its missions and great missions, strengthening the values of Venezuelan socialism,” said Maduro.
In this context, on March 5th the Great Mission for Equality and Social Justice “Hugo Chávez Frías” was born, to protect and attend to the needs of the most needy in the country. “And so we are articulating a social offensive alongside the recovery of the real economy, food production and industrial recovery. Together we are recovering a new economy on the one hand, and on the other hand the social rights that only the Bolivarian Revolution has given to the people of Venezuela,” the president stressed.
And in this spirit, the PSUV is preparing for this new electoral challenge on the road to the presidential elections, where Chávez’s voice will continue to point the way, as he did on December 8, 2012: “My opinion, as full as the full moon, is that you elect Nicolás Maduro as President. I ask you from my heart.”