Guess who the Marxists want to do the honours for their upcoming 19th party congress? Bush-basher Hugo Chavez.
NEW DELHI: Guess who the Marxists want to do the honours for their upcoming 19th party congress? Bush-basher Hugo Chavez. The CPI(M) has approached the Venezuelan embassy to find out whether Chavez can make it to Coimbatore to attend the party congress between March 29 and April 2.
The Marxist mandarins are too keen to get Chavez, who is several steps ahead of our own Prakash Karat in his anti-US, anti-Bush rhetoric. The party has been trying since long to get the President to pay visit to India. Last year, the CPI(M) invited him to be the chief guest at the 50th anniversary (April 5) of the first elected communist government in Kerala and in the world,which also happens to be the birthday of Karl Marx.
Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan had requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for ministry of external affairs’s clearance for Chavez’s visit. But due to certain domestic compulsions he could not make the trip to Kerala. Party sources said they are yet to get a confirmation from Chavez’s office about his visit for the party Congress.
If Chavez comes for the CPI(M) Congress, he would certainly add colour to the meet which is expected to be also an occasion to tick off George Bush and the American imperialism. When it comes to Bush bashing nobody can beat Chavez. The comrades recollect with relish his calling Bush a “devil” and saying “the devil, the devil himself is right in the house. Yesterday devil came here and it smells of sulfur (sulphur) still today…”
Apart from his anti-US tirade, the CPI(M) is also impressed with his record of turning the economy right when it was nearly “ruined by neo-liberal adjustments” by his predecessors.
Chavez, according to the CPI(M), “is an ardent, and a self-confessed Fidelista, struggled hard along with a dedicated team of communist, socialist, and other Left and democratic leadership to accomplish what has been called a Venezuelan turn around”.
The CPI(M) has also invited leaders of communist parties from some 30-odd countries including Cuba, Vietnam, Bolivia, Russia, France, Portugal, Spain, China, US, North Korea, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The general secretary of Russian Communist Party Gennedy Zyuganov, who is a presidential candidate against Putin’s nominee in the March election, has also been invited. But since he is pre-occupied with the election he may not be able to make it.
Chavez had visited India in 2005 and last year he donated Rs11.91 lakh to a school in West Bengal. The Bagu Primary School at Rajarhat in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district which he had visited needed funds badly for renovation and augmenting mid-day meal scheme. The money was to be spent for the construction of a new building that will now be named after Latin American revolutionary Simon Bolivar as desired by Chavez.
k_benedict@dnaindia.net
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