Cuba and Venezuela: An Insight Into Two Revolutions

by Germán Sánchez

"Venezuela now presents a similar problem as Cuba for US interests in the hemisphere."--Noam Chomsky

With Latin America becoming more volatile than it has been for decades, this book addresses the question everyone (friend and foe of President Ch vez) is asking: Is Venezuela taking the Cuban road?

In the face of Ch vez's outspoken resistance to the neoliberal project in Latin America, accelerating social reforms in Venezuela, and rising hysteria in Washington about the relationship between Ch vez and Fidel Castro, this is a uniquely objective and authoritative analysis by Cuba's ambassador to Venezuela.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 192088839X
• ISBN13: 9781920888398
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Ocean Press
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Useful study of the relations between Cuba and Venezuela

German Sanchez has been Cuba's Ambassador to Venezuela since 1994. In this fascinating book, he describes the similarities and the differences between the revolutionary processes in Cuba and Venezuela. He shows that Venezuela, while learning from Cuba's experiences, is not taking the same road. In 1958 Cuban life expectancy was 61, infant mortality was 60/1,000 and unemployment was 30 per cent; by 2005, the figures were 77, 5.8/1,000 and three per cent. Cuba ended illiteracy in 1961. Education, health care and sports programmes are free. Cuba has the world's highest per head ratios of doctors, teachers and coaches. 85 per cent of Cubans own their own homes. Between 1995 and 2000, Cuba's economy grew 4.6 per cent a year, as against Latin America's average of 3.2 per cent. Cuba sought to learn from the Soviet Union's achievements in planning and in providing free health service and education. It also sought to learn from Soviet errors - the misuse of resources, economic inefficiencies, excessive material incentives and privileges, and some arbitrary acts. Cuba has good relations with its Latin American and Caribbean neighbours. With Venezuela, it created the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) in December 2004, as a way for Latin America's nations to cooperate on the basis of national equality and sovereignty. It is an alternative to the USA's Free Trade Area of the Americas, the neoliberal, capitalist model imposed by Washington. There are more Cuban doctors working in Haiti than there are Haitian doctors working in the state health care system. 10,000 Cuban doctors are working in Venezuela and 4,000 are working in other countries. Venezuela has now also ended illiteracy, with the aid of the Cuban programme `Yes I can'. In April 2002 the people of Venezuela defeated the attempted coup against President Chavez. Sanchez gives a vivid account of the fascist attack on the Cuban Embassy and of the Cubans' struggle to defend it. He reminds us that diplomats accredited in a country have the right to defend their country's interests and the right to defend their citizens living in that country: that is not interfering in the country's internal affairs. As Sanchez writes, "Our first priority is to contribute to preserving the principles of international law, in which holes larger than the black holes of the universe have been opened, especially with regard to self-determination and sovereignty, to the solution of conflicts between countries by peaceful means, to respect for equality among states. In the final analysis, the precepts of the United Nations inscribed in its charter are being ignored and trampled over by the United States and the other great powers that control the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund and other major international bodies."