Hugo Chávez: Speech at the Opening of the Twelfth G-15 Summit
(2004)Document Text
Welcome to this land washed by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, crossed by the magnificent Orinoco River. A land crowned by the perpetual snow of the Andean mountains!
A land overwhelmed by the never-ending magic of the Amazon forest and its millenary chants!
Welcome to Venezuela, the land where a patriotic people has taken over again the banners of Simon Bolívar, its Libertador, whose name is well known beyond these frontiers!
As Pablo Neruda said in his “Chant to Bolívar”:
- Our Father thou art in Heaven,
- in water, in air
- in all our silent and broad latitude
- everything bears your name, Father in our dwelling:
- your name raises sweetness in sugar cane
- Bolivar tin has a Bolivar gleam
- the Bolívar bird flies over the Bolivar volcano
- the potato, the saltpeter, the special shadows,
- the brooks, the phosphorous stone veins
- everything comes from your extinguished life
- your legacy was rivers, plains, bell towers
- your legacy is our daily bread, oh...
“Speech by President Hugo Chávez, at the opening of XII G-15 Summit.” Venezuelaanalysis.com Web site. http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/381.
