Chávez and Fidel open book fair and sign agreement
Taken from Granma International
By Gabriel
Molina
February 4, 2006
THE presidents of Venezuela and Cuba , Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, signed this Friday in Havana a new cultural agreement, while opening the 15th Book Fair, this year dedicated to Venezuela .
After the signing, Chávez, who arrived in Cuba in the early hours of the morning for a lightning visit, listened with Fidel to four speakers and a group made up of Venezuelan and Cuban musicians.
The opening took place in the Morro Cabaña Fortress on the eastern side of the Bay of Havana , in an improvised open-air site protected from the sun by a huge awning and hundreds of seats occupied by invitees from both countries.
The agreement signed by the two leaders establishes a Cultural Fund attached to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the option defended by both of them in the face of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) being promoted in the region by the United States .
In addition to promoting the ALBA, both governments are involved in Operation Miracle, to restore the sight of thousands of Latin Americans by performing eye operations free of charge, a service that has also been offered to poor patients in the United States .
The opening, which began around 2:00 p.m. and concluded three hours later with a tour of the Venezuelan pavilion, saw the launch of Los niños del Infortunio (The Children of Misfortune) by Venezuelan poet Tarek William Saab, governor of the state of Anzoátegui, on the Cuban medical mission in Pakistan, with whose members he spent a number of days. Abel Prieto described the book as "a poetized account. a spark of light," along with the recently created Cultural Arts Fund, and an advance of what could be a world of globalized solidarity.
The writer shared the platform with Francisco Cesto and Abel Prieto, Venezuelan and Cuban culture ministers, respectively; Argentine journalist and deputy, Miguel Bonasso; and Eusebio Leal, Havana city historian.
The two presidents sat in the first row with poets Nancy Morejón and Angel Augier flanking them. Also present were members of the Political Bureau Ricardo Alarcón, Esteban Lazo and Pedro Saenz, as well as Iroel Sánchez Espinosa, president of the Cuban Book Institute.
Minister Cesto announced that 62 Venezuelan publishing houses with 1,200 titles and more than one million books are present at the Fair. Eusebio Leal spoke of the popular vocation of the Venezuelan process of change, in which books play an important role.
On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld launched an insult at the Venezuelan president and expressed his "concern" at the relations between Chávez and Fidel and of both with the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, which certain individuals are calling a political axis. In his speech Miguel Bonasso, in an evident reference to this and other statements, affirmed: "What has been created is the axis of the new Latin American thinking. Let them put up those electronic messages, but the ideas are from this side."
More than 200,000 people are expected at another open-air ceremony scheduled for tonight (Friday) at 8:00 p.m. in the Plaza de la Revolución, where Chávez is to receive the José Martí International Award instigated by UNESCO and granted to the Venezuelan president by a jury of eminent intellectuals.