Your Excellency, dear brothers, presidents, prime ministers, ministers, foreign ministers, ambassadors, dear brother Raúl - Fidel, out there where you’re watching us – all the people of Cuba, particularly the town of Cienfuegos and all the peoples of the Caribbean, of the great Caribbean, of our great Caribbean. A special greeting to everyone, we’re very happy, thank you very much Raúl, for this initiative, you know, for this call to get together again, now in this beautiful city, this beautiful region of Cuba, in Cienfuegos (literally, “One Hundred Fires”), although I’ve decided to call it instead Milfuegos (“One Thousand Fires”), a thousand fires, all of the fires! Cienfuegos, the Fourth Petrocaribe Summit.

The Caribbean has been a strategic area for centuries, geopolitically speaking, let us not forget that it was through these waters that the Caribs extended their power, it was in these islands that European colonialism first took root and the first African slaves were brought to our America. The Caribbean was not only the place where the conquistadors first faced the native peoples of America; it was and continues to be a region with a vast history of fighting against imperialism and of equality among men. Two of the most important revolutions in history happened on the islands of the Caribbean: the Haitian Revolution, 1791 – 1804 and the Cuban Revolution, from 1959 and forever. This means that all that tradition of rebellion found two of its most significant points of impact in those political events. There is therefore a tradition of rebellion that stretches from Toussaint Louverture to Fidel Castro, one with which we fully and eternally identify ourselves.

Comrade presidents, prime ministers, all this vast history of rebellion, all this convergence of ceaseless struggles of the people of the Caribbean against the most diverse range of dominations, has produced one of today’s most powerful insurgent symbols for expressing the identity of our America – we refer to Caliban – that character from Shakespeare’s last play, a rebel slave, we know, recreated, following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, by Roberto Fernández Retamar. Using Shakespeare’s The Tempest as his basis, as we all know, Fernández Retamar, the most important living Cuban essayist, proposes that the characters of this play can function as metaphors to explain the brutal dynamics of colonialism and imperialism in the Caribbean, and, by extension, the rest of our America.

Long before Retamar, at the end of the 19th Century, Rubén Darío had used the triumph of Caliban to question the growing power of United States imperialism. After Darío, the Uruguayan Rodó took all this symbolism to create his own Ariel. Starting with these antecedents and later distancing himself from them, Retamar suggests that our Caribbean-influenced identity expresses itself very well in the character Caliban. We must not forget that in Shakespeare’s play the three players that are key to Retamar’s argument interact between themselves on an island colonized by Europeans: Prospero and his two slaves, Ariel and Caliban. But while Ariel is absolutely submissive before Prospero, in the hope that he will grant her her freedom, Caliban – described in a grotesque way by Shakespeare – is the rebellious slave who resists and never bows his head in spite of the most violent punishment meted out to him. Retamar suggests that Shakespeare extracted the name Caliban from the word “cannibal”, a meaning that in turn arises from a Carib noun.

Your excellencies, my dear comrades, brothers, sisters, the Caribbean is therefore the perfect place for Caliban; we are Calibans; let us be more Caliban as every day goes by, our women, our comrades; a symbol of rebellion which, in this region of Calibans, sailed over and traveled across for centuries-upon-centuries by conquistadors, pirates, fishermen, sailors and fugitives, it is in this, our Caribbean, this Mare Nostrum where finally today a new geopolitics of oil is being founded, at the service of the people and not of the interests of imperialism and capitalism. The oil is black; it is also Caliban.

It is only in this history of rebellion against the all-powerful, only in this tradition that is so appropriately represented by Retamar’s Caliban, that we can understand the transcendence of Petrocaribe, this energy cooperation agreement proposed by the Bolivarian Revolution and with the support of all of you, which we are so grateful for; that is born precisely from the analysis we have conducted of the enormous inequalities existing in the region, those asymmetries that are so often referred to, which are both the cursed inheritance of old-style colonialism and the slavery resulting from a global capitalist order that is more and more inhuman, more unfair by the day.

Petrocaribe is therefore one of our answers to this order we are determined to defeat, it is a proposal whose purpose is to resolve the asymmetries. I want to emphasize this expression, I have already said as much to our brother Raúl, Petrocaribe transcends a simple question of trade, hydrocarbons, it is a mechanism, an integrating mechanism and beyond that it is a unifier and still beyond that, a liberator. Why? To resolve asymmetries; through access to energy resources; by taking the route of a new and beneficial barter; equal and just and, I say again, allow me this word “fair”, because much is said, and the developed countries of the North still pretend to “sell us” - as they put it -  the formula of free trade. Free trade does not exist.

What does exist and I heard our comrade Daniel Ortega at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile, make a profound reflection, very profound Daniel, for us who heard you, but we know how deep your thoughts are Daniel, but at that Summit in that context, Daniel fingers the empire, the dictatorship of world capitalism. There is no free trade; free trade does not exist; and if anyone knows about that it’s us in the Caribbean; if anyone knows that, it is us in Latin America; if anyone knows that, it is us of the Third World.

That is why I want to underline these words, beneficial barter, equal and fair, between the countries of the Caribbean region. We have conceived Petrocaribe as a multilateral body that articulates the energy policies of the region, including everything that has to do with petroleum and its derivatives, gas, electricity, technological cooperation, training and the development of an energy infrastructure; as well as taking advantage of alternative sources such as wind and solar power, Raúl already mentioned this, and the different mechanisms of the revolutionary saving of energy, where Cuba has provided and still provides an extraordinary example, not only for the Caribbean, but for the whole world. The Energy Revolution, energy economy, because there is awful wastage, a product, among other things, of the lack of concern about the energy drama, the energy problem and the future of humanity, the future of our people.

Dear brothers, as you know, very soon, within a year, we will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary, we will celebrate and we must celebrate it, all of us, especially in the Caribbean, and further afield in Latin America, the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba has given us so much, so much. I’m not one of the most gray-haired here among us, but those of you with more gray hair, the older ones among you can respond to this question much better than I can, tomorrow we are going to Santiago de Cuba and I have been invited to visit the Moncada Barracks, tomorrow I will have the honor, God willing, of knowing the Moncada Barracks.

When you attacked the Moncada Barracks, I hadn’t been born. One day Fidel said to me, when he asked how old I was, ten years ago: “How old are you?” he asked me. I said so many, I think I was 40, 41, yes, I was about 40, 41. He said: “When you were born I was already in prison.” The Cuban Revolution. All that Cuba has given to us countries of the south, of the world, of the whole world, not just Latin America, over all these years, half a century. The first military defeat of United States imperialism at Girón Beach; the unbelievable example of dignity of a whole country during the missile crisis of 1962; the epic story of Che Guevara in the Congo, in Bolivia. The missions of the international doctors; the almost superhuman feats of her athletes; the unconditional support for Viet Nam during its war to free itself of United States imperialism; the solidarity and the offer of its troops in the fight against the racist régime of South Africa.

All of this and much more has been offered to us by this lighthouse of dignity; by all of you. That is the Cuba of Fidel Castro. I want to pay homage and I ask that we pay homage.

For me he is much more than a brother, I’ve said it before, paraphrasing Neruda and his paean to Bolívar, I’m going to borrow Nuruda’s words to say: “Our Father who art on earth, in the water, in the air and all along this silent latitude - Neruda said – Fidel.” On evoking all this, we must not forget the intellectual author of the Cuban Revolution, as Fidel calls him, José Martí, our beloved apostle of freedom and equality, a bridge of light that communicates directly with the generation of the liberators, with Bolívar at the head, with the generation of the revolutionaries of the 60s and with El Che at their head, with Raúl, with you.

“It is time to light the ovens and only light shall be seen,” wrote Martí at one of the key moments during his fight to liberate Cuba, and he himself was made of the very purest light of this, our Caribbean, a prisoner of Spanish colonialism, almost a child, later exiled and on a long journey that took him to Caracas, to New York, where he would write, incidentally, amidst all the heartrending results of exile: “Our America”.

It was in that country up north where his anti-imperialist conscience matured and where he was to become a prolific writer, a poet, an essayist, a journalist who wrote of the social struggles within the United States, a privileged witness of a time when that country was experiencing tremendous social upheaval, product of all that violent exploitation suffered by its workers.

As we said before, it was in the guts of the monster, in the United States, where his anti-imperialist position was refined. We should bear in mind that it was in “Our America” that Martí called US imperialism the “giant with the seven-league boots.”

This is, then, the rebellious genealogy which we Venezuelan, Caribbean and Cuban revolutionaries feel ourselves part of, a genealogy that was born with the Carib indians, Negro Miguel, with Tupac Amaru and Tupac Katari; a bloodline that continued with Toussaint Louverture and our father and liberator Bolívar. It continues in the thoughts and in the actions of José Martí; is reborn in the noble times of El Che and Fidel and is still alive today in thousands of rebels in every last corner of this great homeland.

It is decisive at this stage of the fight for our second independence, at this second occasion for lighting the ovens. This rebellious genealogy is, my comrades, dear friends, brothers, what has made possible both the Cuban Revolution and the Bolivarian Revolution. And with them, our proposal for a Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas), ALBA, a proposal that you well know is open on the table for all those who want to see; to see, as the Bible says: “May those with eyes, see ... and may those with ears, hear,” the truth, reality.

ALBA and proposals like Petrocaribe, both interwoven with the same conscience, with the same strategic intention, with the same spirit of brotherhood, commitment, solidarity. It is only within the horizon of the revolution, a horizon that relentlessly looks to equality among men and among nations; only within this shining horizon are proposals feasible, like this one that has called us to Cienfuegos.

ALBA and Petrocaribe are proof of the revolutionary concept of constructing a union between our different peoples; a concept handed down by Simón Bolívar and the rest of our liberators; a concept practiced by the liberators of Haiti, thanks to whose cooperation it was possible for us to begin, continue and victoriously seal the revolution for the independence of Venezuela and of South America.

Whatever would have become of the project of our forefather Miranda, without Haiti’s assistance? Where would Bolívar had ended up, when he was in the midst of the terrible difficulties of the revolutionary war, without the unquestioning and disinterested support of the Haitian military?

To a large extent it was thanks to the Haitian cooperation with our liberators that we Venezuelans are free, the people of South American are free. We have to thank them for the Caribbean conscience of the Venezuelan people; our certainty that without uniting as brothers with the people of the Caribbean, we will always be at risk; our loyalty to the teachings of Bolívar, of Miranda. Our fathers, the liberators, have brought us together here as the promoters of Petrocaribe; as the driving force, together with all of you, of Petrocaribe; to enjoy this mutually beneficial relationship, without the thirst for excessive profit nor for taking advantage of the economic fragility of the smallest countries and of the neediest nations.

In truth, Petrocaribe is a proposal born of the most profound Bolivarian consciousness; of the most profound Martian consciousness.

We have been checking the programs, we have been reviewing the progress of Petrocaribe, we have been reviewing the pending affairs of Petrocaribe and we are very optimistic, very optimistic about the progress made; about the progress made in such a short time. Remember that Petrocaribe was born, thanks to your understanding and to hard work, confidence; to the coordinated work of the energy ministers, the presidents, the prime ministers, it was born in June; that was our first Summit in the year 2005, in Puerto La Cruz, in June 2005, Petrocaribe was born, as our founding declaration states – I want to remind you of it now – as “an organ to facilitate energy policies and plans”. That was how it was born; with its doctrine, its political principles; on an institutional platform that created at the same time the ALBA-Caribbean Social and Economic Development Fund.

After that, our second Summit was in Montego Bay, there in our much-loved Jamaica, in the month of September 2005. It was the anniversary of the Letter from Jamaica. The bylaws of the Executive Secretariat were approved and a commitment taken to go ahead with two studies. The first was to characterize the energy profiles of the member countries, and the other evaluated the renewable energy potential of the Caribbean region; and the first bilateral energy cooperation accords were signed between Venezuela and the rest of the member countries.

Then we held the Third Summit in Caracas in August 2007. The results of the agreements made at the previous Summit were presented; accounts were rendered of the work done by PDV-Caribe; the Energy Supply treaty was signed by each of the member countries - a very advanced concept as you will remember - signed by the nine member countries: Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname. Petrocaribe originally included 14 countries:  Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Suriname and Venezuela, who had signed the Petrocaribe Energy Cooperation Accord there in Puerto La Cruz at the First Summit back in June 2005.

Now, with the joining, or the joining rather, of Haiti and Nicaragua, concluded on August 11, 2007, within the framework of the Third Petrocaribe Summit, this cooperation initiative is now made up of 16 countries and we are sure it will continue to grow.

Then at this Fourth Summit, we now know that the ministers had done a magnificent job; they reviewed the performance report, the results of the Executive Secretariat, Secretary and Minister Rafael Rodríguez, then they took a series of decisions that we will be looking at later in the work sessions. And today, always looking at Petrocaribe as an ongoing initiative, we are reflecting on how to achieve, how to create the strategies for moving beyond the simple, the simple goal of barter, of energy supply, because we have brought a series of goals to debate today and continue advancing on these enriching dynamics.

The first of these; these goals that were already discussed by the ministers yesterday, which is to build a refinery in Cienfuegos here in Cuba – here in Cienfuegos we will inaugurate it this afternoon – as another processing center. This is a very important step which we have revolutionary Cuba to thank for, as well as the joint efforts we have made, because to date the processing centers have been only in Venezuela. As of today – this is a giant step forward – Cienfuegos joins in as a processing and collection hub, where fuel will be produced for distribution among the member countries of Petrocaribe.

I would like here to give special recognition to the Cuban and Venezuelan workers who, in record time, have, well, achieved the marvelous feat of relaunching the great Cienfuegos refinery.

President Chávez: A monumental task that we will be seeing later on today. This is very important from the viewpoint of the long-term strategies, long-term, of Petrocaribe, and beyond secure energy supply and the integrated development of the Caribbean, our Great Caribbean. This is the first goal that we are practically meeting or beginning to meet, this is a refinery that is being reactivated; we have already brought nearly 500,000 barrels of crude from Venezuela. It  has arrived, this crude has arrived and the refinery is already starting to function and it will soon be refining this first shipment, it will be refining 55,000, excuse me, 65,000 barrels per day, and we already have the plan ready that will raise this to 100,000 or 150,000 barrels per day, at the Cienfuegos Refinery.

The second goal that I want to briefly submit to your consideration is that of highlighting, based on the studies carried out, the study is finished, has been distributed or is about to be distributed, has been distributed already to the presidents, prime ministers, and based on that study conducted by the Petrocaribe Secretariat, about the countries’ potential, our Caribbean countries, in sources of solar, geothermic and wind power, and also announce how one of the strategies will be the conceptual engineering of projects selected for developing these alternative energies in the region, as well as the creation of a fund for financing these projects through loans to the mixed companies incorporated within Petrocaribe’s framework.

This is also a really important advance: the development of alternative energies; but not for them to be left on the drawing board, no, we should soon be developing the first projects; some countries are already well advanced; Cuba has been developing wind power, Fidel was even talking to me about something he’d invented himself, I don’t know, windmills that bend over as soon as they get a whiff of a hurricane, automatically, Fidel-technology! If they bend over, they must go to bed [laughs]. They go to bed. Technology by Fidel. When the hurricane is coming, I don’t know how far away, the windmill lies down, it says goodbye to the hurricane and then it gets up again, even stronger, feeding on the hurricane. That’s Fidel for you, always inventing modern technologies!

This was the second goal, the third; the third has enormous strategic importance and may give birth to something we were talking about with Fidel, then with Raúl; with the ministers. It arose last night as an idea, as an idea for that third goal for today, which is to broaden the barter concept, based on the financed portion of the energy bill, that invoice which derives from the fuel supply accords under Petrocaribe. Based on, based on that energy invoice, the financed portion, which is around 40%, 40%; based on that, that some countries have already reached the end of their grace period, right? And so that invoice will start to move around, the payment of the financed portion; but we are proposing that based on that, based on that, we begin to include a basket of local products and production services of the member countries. We intend to propose actions for establishing, for implementing an oil invoice payment compensation mechanism against the supply of goods and services. We suggest beginning with the countries - as I said - that are meeting or that are going to meet their commitments; we are going to sell for them the so-called grace period in 2008. It’s an accumulated debt for those countries, which is already over a billion dollars. There is great potential here for taking a huge leap forward, allow me this phrase, and start to create, Leonel, we’ve been thinking, and with your and your experts’ help and everybody’s experience, I think that instead of being a headache for us – like most debts are – I think this accrued debt is going to be converted into another mechanism in favor of freedom, another mechanism for battling against asymmetries, and well, and for pushing our development models forward; respecting our almost sacred level of sovereignty, because you know that that’s the way it is, there is no imposition here; no grotesque demands that can harm the sovereignty of each of Petrocaribe’s brother countries.

Well, we already have the experience needed to design this new mechanism, which we have accumulated in the handling of Cuba’s invoices for many years now, we have been at the forefront, handling, and now we have an extraordinarily dynamic system. So we have the experience that will help us enormously in generating this mechanism I’m talking about, even in Argentina, a country that is not a member of Petrocaribe, we have a similar mechanism, nevertheless, Argentina, Uruguay, we have been employing mechanisms like these with them for two, three, four years.

But we are proposing it here not in a bilateral way, but rather, rather, in a global way in the Caribbean, as one of the next steps to agree upon or which is already agreed upon, which has to do with the products, volumes, prices, delivery dates and means of transport. Means of transport and here we have one of our greatest vulnerabilities, in this area of transportation, where we have to be able to count on the companies Tras-ALBA and ALBA-Nave, which are companies that we have been creating between Cuba and Venezuela and other countries and which are already in the construction stage, for having our own fleet, a Caribbean fleet, ALBA’s fleet, as providers of the vessels which at present we don’t have for the commercial interchange between our countries. From there; from the formulas we intend to prepare, a new economic space could arise; a space, a new Caribbean market; not a free market; these are not Free Trade Agreements. Free trade doesn’t exist as far as we’re concerned. But rather fair trade treaties for the Caribbean, we could be at the forefront and be an example; a modest example to the world; for the whole world, as well as for the region; a region where new political, geopolitical initiatives for integration begin to arise; to overcome the asymmetries and achieve harmonious and homogenous development in the whole region. So we could be, we could be giving birth; we could be giving birth to a space, an economic space, Caribbean, new, respecting treaties, bilateral and multilateral accords that already exist in Caricom; or the bilateral agreements of the Caribbean countries with other countries from the north or the south. What I think; what I believe; what I see on the map and for real, is that a new space could be coming to life that overlays the spaces that already exist and the ambits of economic interchange, but with a different profile, with other values, with other values that transcend so-called “free trade” or the values or counter-values of capitalism - fair trade! Treaties could be born for fair trade in the Caribbean, multilaterally or bilaterally, between us, using as their seed, as a seed, as starter motors, the bills that begin to accumulate and which, by the way – why not say it? – this invoice ... and I’m going to mention it in order for us to understand - the potential there is here to generate that space and those fair trade accords; that dynamism among us all.

In 2008 ... excuse me, 2007, we are at the end of 2007, the accrued invoices, the debt, the financed portion, is already US$ 1.17 billion, even though the dynamics of Petrocaribe only really came into force one year back. Therefore it ..... you know we have been jointly resolving enormous logistical, legal, judicial and many other difficulties; conspiracies too and transnational pressure, from very powerful countries that don’t want Petrocaribe; they didn’t want it or tried to prevent the birth of Petrocaribe, but here we have a good example of the fact that when there is political will and brotherhood and confidence among us, everything’s possible. Over and above all the difficulties – historical, geographical, cultural, language, pressure from powerful countries, very powerful transnational companies, etc.

President Chávez: Now look, look Raúl, look Daniel. Comandantes, Comandantes. Who’s the older? Raúl, right? Older, right. When they took El Moncada had you already been born? You’d been born, right? You were ... you were the middle-man, right? [laughs], you are the middle-man.

Look, Leonel and everyone, Roosevelt, Spencer, comrades, by the year 2010 – so that we can get an idea – the accrued invoices of the debt, which we do not want to weigh on anyone’s shoulders, quite the opposite, a liberating weight; a liberating force, instead of a weight on your minds, that you can’t find a way to pay; no! Starting right now, we are going to begin to work, I propose now, to achieve this goal. By the year 2010, that bill will have grown to US$ 4.57 billion, a bill, to be paid over a long term, of course, a long term, but I have here the payments projection, the projection of the actual payments to be made year by year.

By 2010, by 2010, we will be nearing US$ 100 million per year; that’s a significant capital to start this formula moving. By the year 2013, the formula will be in place, and that’s counting on prices, almost fixed prices, yes, almost fixed, a price of US$ 70 per barrel, but it could be higher, it could be higher. By 2013, we’ll have a capital, now from payments, for that year, of US$ 222 million, each year, each year, each year, it’s renewed every year. By 2018, already almost US$ 500 million; data so that we can start, with our technicians, our ministers, our governments, our Petrocaribe Secretaries, start to prepare that formula for reaching that space, that new market, fair and new, new and fair.

That will be the third goal of this Summit, to make that proposal, debate it, and go out there with the intention of making it work.

In fourth place, we propose other trust fund mechanisms for handling ... the same as the last theme, practically; and in fifth place, we propose the formation of two committees to process the requests for projects to be executed with funds coming from the use of the financed portion; an advisory committee and a governance committee, with different purposes. This is to facilitate particularly the planning and follow-up.

In sixth place: strengthen Petrocaribe’s Secretariat. I think it’s getting stronger; I think it is more consolidated; but broaden, broaden the planning, operating and follow-up mechanisms of Petrocaribe - so we have a new member.
Welcome, Minister!

President Chávez: We were at a meeting, we took advantage of being together at the inauguration; no, excuse me, the ... the ... yes, the inauguration of the President of Argentina; we were talking to President Zelaya and he made that request of us, and it’s a pleasure to transmit it to the host country, to Cuba, to our revolutionary sister Cuba.

Well, anyway, on a day like yesterday, Panama was invaded, I’d like you to remember that too, a day like yesterday, the Government of the United States sent 26,000 marines to attack our dear sister Panama. The Caribbean, frontier of the empire. Juan Bosch, our maestro, Juan Bosch, with that invincible power of his mind and his example. 500 years, Juan Bosch said, you know, Raúl, from Christopher Columbus to Fidel Castro, 500 years of empires. Caliban, we have to be Calibans, Calibans; not Ariels but Calibans, with rebellion in our minds, courage in our actions, in our strategies. Petrocaribe, as you now know – I’ve said it before – is heading in that direction.

May this bitter example of December 20, 1989, serve to reaffirm our will to be free; to live free; to be real sovereigns in this great Caribbean, in Latin America, and let us pay homage to the martyrs of that day of resistance against imperialism.

Venezuela, you know, is still threatened by imperialism, we are singled out as a threat; the “Venezuelan dictatorship” and who knows how many other things; you know what I mean. We don’t mind paying that price; Venezuela has freed itself of the colonial mechanism that bound it for a century. We were a political, economic, cultural, and above all petroleum colony; there’s the root of the colonial model they imposed on Venezuela, starting in the beginning of the 20th century, for 100 years now. Salvador de la Plaza, illustrious Venezuelan, thinker and intellectual, wrote a book called Oil in the Life of Venezuela, and I’m going to read you from it to conclude my address and not go on longer than is fit; as a reflection, beyond Petrocaribe, ahead, looking at all these years of our struggle; fighting for our dignity, for our independence, some say our second independence. I myself have just said it, in fact, but deep down I believe it’s the same; it’s the same process of independence. They’re stages; they’re phases of our independence.

Salvador de la Plaza said, I’ll read it: “In Venezuela, no matter that from ancient times we knew of the existence of petroleum, the indigenous people called the oil spills “mene” and used the oil for their lamps and as a medicine for their sicknesses and also for navigation; to caulk their boats, the canoes in which they navigated the Caribbean and the inland rivers, the Orinoco. Our Carib indians navigated as far as the Amazon. It was not until 1917 that oil began to be exploited commercially, until it converted Venezuela into the number one exporter of oil in the world and into the second producer of oil in the world; second producer and number one exporter in the world; ever since those years, beginning in the decade of the 20s through to the 60s.” That is to say that Venezuela was the number one exporter of oil in the whole world for 40 long years. Not many people in the world know that. “Including the period between the two wars and the period of the Second World War, the Cold War, the beginning of the Cold War in Venezuela, oil was exploited all out; ships sailed by, millions, hundreds of thousands of tankers loaded with oil passed by here, through the Caribbean, but all of them sailed northwards, all of them were going north.” They left their wake, that’s all, maybe their smell and usually their contamination.

I’ll read some more: “In 1917, 19,256 cubic meters were extracted from the Venezuelan subsoil – I’ll repeat the figure – 19, 256 cubic meters, in 1917. 47 years later, in 1964, 197.5 million cubic meters were extracted. In other words, production multiplied by 10,252 times in 47 years, in spite of the fact – continues to recount Salvador de la Plaza – which the countries of the Middle East entered the international oil market, only interrupted by the closing of the Suez Canal during the attack by the superpowers against the sovereign and independent State of Egypt. Of its enormous 1964 production, Venezuela only consumed – of those almost 200 million cubic meters – Venezuela only consumed 5,181,000 cubic meters, that’s 2.5% of the production. Different kinds of gasoline, kerosene, diesel, asphalt and others. The rest of the production, 186 thousand 800 ...” Sorry, I correct myself “186 million 887 thousand cubic meters were exported.” That disproportion between production and internal consumption, and the fact that that non-renewable resource is controlled by foreign trusts that withhold abroad more than 40% of the value of the exportation, point to how the country was exploited by foreign capital and how its economic development has been hindered.” That was the situation around 1976, when Salvador de la Plaza wrote these lines.

De la Plaza continues: “When considering that the accumulated production between the years 1917 and 1964, inclusive, amounted to the huge sum of 2 billion 945 million cubic meters, 2 billion 945 million cubic meters, with an export value of 123 trillion bolivars, it would be logical to conclude that the barely eight million Venezuelan inhabitants – 8 million in 1964 – it would be logical to conclude that they have enjoyed and still continue to enjoy the most peaceful life of leisure. However, that is not the way it is; on the contrary, except for the tiniest minority who have benefited, the rest of the population lives – at that time, 1975 – in the most deplorable conditions of misery.” End of quote.

I should add that Venezuela ended the 20th century with more than 50% of the population living in poverty and misery, and still today an important part of our people live in conditions of poverty and misery and this is precisely the focal point of our struggle; the struggle of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Well I just wanted to bring along these quotes so that we realize that those conditions plagued with trusts and royalties and other concessions, offer us a spoken image of a Venezuela that was an oil colony. The production of oil did not have a local face, it was already distorted by the direct and indirect intervention of the international cartels of the time, dominated by the United States. From being an instrument of domination it is today, now, becoming an instrument for liberating our people, thanks to the platform of Petrocaribe.

The black gold is becoming more and more transparent. And if oil is becoming the instrument of liberation, the construction of regional energy units is a historical necessity. The process of recovering our full oil sovereignty has made Venezuela assume an historic responsibility that has deep Bolivarian roots, as I have I have said before: share our wealth with our brothers of this Latin-Caribbean America; our loyalty to Bolivarian thoughts impedes us from turning our backs on the energy needs of so many brother countries. Just look at the example of this, our home, the great Caribbean.

Petrocaribe, an initiative that was born of the ALBA liberation project, is part of the changing of the times that we are seeing; one of the signs of this changing of an era is that trade and investment are no longer purposes in themselves. An economic and mercantile vision reigned for much too long; a vision that overlooked the monstrous weight of social debt. Would it make sense to create a platform of Caribbean energy unity, if were not to be used to pay off that social debt? Petrocaribe was born of the awareness of our energy asymmetries. It is an instrument for solving those energy asymmetries, which are also economic and social. Except for Venezuela, and it does not make us at all happy to say this, except for Venezuela, all our countries are threatened by a very grave danger. This very grave danger is none other than the fact that they will run out of oil, of natural gas, of sufficient energy for the years ahead. That is why, in spite of the wretched internal and external, permanent and wretched attacks by our internal opposition; from the psychological warfare centers of the empire they launch wretched attacks on our flanks, from the rear, from all sides. Some time back, Fidel wrote a piece referring to Venezuela and called it “People under fire”; a fire fed permanently, permanently, permanent conspiracies; but we don’t care, we’re meeting our historical commitment, born of our deep consciousness of brotherhood with the people of the Caribbean, with the people of Latin America, in spite of those attacks, in spite of the Yankee lovers, in spite of the Yankees, our oil, our gas, are and always will be at the service, firstly, of Venezuela and at the same time of our Latin American and Caribbean brother countries. You can count on this decision, and its irrevocable, whatever it costs us. It is an historic commitment that comes from the very marrow in our bones, from the depths of our Latin American Caribbean soul and from there – as we have said before – we will explore new forms of integration, of freedom.

To conclude, yes, dear brother Raúl. We do not arrive late for anything, I think that if we work out the average of our punctuality at the start of all those meetings, starting with the ones at the United Nations, right through to the modest meetings among presidents the world over, I think we’ve been extremely punctual. We arrived at the door of the hotel at five past ten and we came into this hall at about ten fifteen, so I congratulate you on Cuban punctuality, which is an example for us in the Caribbean and Latin America. Cuban punctuality. Well, the chivalry, the harmony we feel here in this beautiful house of Cuba, in this happy home which is Cuba.

Today we must bear in mind what Bolívar the Liberator wrote to another Venezuelan general, Mariano Montilla. It was on August 4, 1829; Bolivar’s life was coming to an end; Bolivar’s project was collapsing; the foundations built over 15 long years of revolutionary war were shaking; Bolívar could see it; he felt it; he went as far as to say “I have been ploughing the sea...,” and he said it in writing to Bolívar, to Montilla, the following Bolivarian phrase, that is here and now alive in these waters of the Caribbean, in these lands of the Caribbean, in these lands of South America, of Central America, I quote Bolívar: “If America, our America, does not come, does not come to order and to reason, very little can be expected of the consolidation of its governments, and a new form of colonialism is the patrimony we will bequeath to posterity.” End of quote.

A profound warning, Bolivar’s; one which is amazingly still true today, when we see the recolonization strategy that is afoot, today, just as 200 years ago, I would even go as far as to say, Raúl, comrades, brothers and sisters, that today, more than ever before, we should call ourselves to order, to our new political, economic order; a new order of unity, of integration; and to reason, to our reason; not to false, imposed reasons; our reasons, our motivations, our values. Let us call ourselves, therefore, to a new original and authentic order; to the only true unity between ourselves; so that we do not bequeath a new colonialism as our patrimony for posterity.

I believe that call: to order and to reason; to the new order and our very own reason, fully responds to the call of Petrocaribe, our Petrocaribe. Raúl, my fellow comrade, thank you very much.