Comandante Hugo I speak to you as an elder sister

 

Cmdte Hugo I speak to you as an elder sister.

So for whom does my heart weep for at this time?  -  For the people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. They have truly loved you and  today, your circumstances bring to recall  the words of another  great man in history  who is purported to have said “weep not for me but for your children”.

I don’t have to have a medical degree to divine that you are in great pain and suffering. Your case is eerily similar to one of my relatives. She was  a medical doctor and командарм – a rank higher than Colonel - in the soviet army.  In the last years of her life she  suffered from a cancer in the pelvis – in her case bone cancer -  with a symptomatic very similar to yours:  she underwent three surgeries -  the last two surgeries (cleaning and reconstruction -  on account of  metastasis, where each procedure became more complicated given the loss of immunological response from the disease itself and then from the  oncology  chemotherapy drugs, each one more physically and mentally debilitating than the previous intervention. Also,  as long as she had pulmonary complications none of these drugs could be administered which further allowed re-growth of new cancer cells. Brave woman that she was, she refused the last surgery and refused to be administered morphine, wishing to be lucid till the last moment and she understood she would die in terrible pain.

 Yet there is hope because this type of cancer in not always fatal -  there have been others who have recovered from the same cancer, but of necessity  they took the time to let their body heal, away from the maddening crowd.  The only duty you have right now is to seek the path to healing. Sure power is an aphrodisiac but this is not the libation for you at this time.

Step back and see how you are  being objectified.  I am pained that  your followers act as if they demand your immediate return to office, they do not even consider the possibility that you are  in terrible pain;  as for your enemies and opposition  these miscreants do not even dissemble their glee and as cannibals readily  pounce  on a wounded human being.

At this moment my heart only trusts your daughter and her pleas for all to give you distance. I also understand that everybody else is acting for political expediency and their own political survival, whether friend or foe.

This is the miracle I am praying for:  that your condition be a source for the collective acceptance of political responsibilities to continue building a socialist future -  the time has come for the Bolivarian Revolution to come of age. What did we learn from your guidance?  With your leadership Bolivarian Venezuelan’s reclaimed their sovereignty and learned to refrain from their tendencies towards fragmentation, divisionism, cloak and dagger slander, many out grew practices of corruptive pragmatism and were able to put their political opportunism aside for a greater good. You were brave to rid yourself, even  of some friends,  who had become corrupted by the deep treasure troves of your oil-based economy. You showed that there are honest men and women who have given their lives to the Bolivarian revolution,  and it is on the shoulders of these brave individuals that  a transition is set to take place, whether for you return (once you have healed) or through a new leader who can make a  Bolivarian socialist dream a reality as you well did.

And last but not least – thank you for aiding and supporting the Peace talks of Colombia.