Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called on peoples of the world last Wednesday to speak out for peace and against the imperial madness of the countries attacking sovereign nations.
“May the peoples of the United States, of Europe, speak out against war. Let us raise our voices, our chants, against war, for peace and life,” President Chávez said through a phone call to the people who gathered at Riverside Church in New York, the United States, to pray for his full recovery from cancer.
The Venezuelan President is in Havana, Cuba, receiving a fourth round of chemotherapy, after he was diagnosed with a tumor with cancerous cells last June.
Chávez condemned the aggressions against countries like Syria and Iran, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s attack on Libya.
“That is an outrage, a farce. What’s being done to Libya, for instance, threats against Syria, against Iran — all that is a threat to the world. We have to stop that madness. I pray to God and join you spiritually there at Riverside: May God bring us a world of peace.”
Chávez urged people to pray that those who have power in the world and who “seem to wish to drag us down the paths of madness” pause and reflect.
Quoting Venezuelan singer-songwriter Alí Primera, Chávez said, “It is not enough to pray. There are many things needed to achieve peace.”
Also, he mentioned the speech given by the African American leader Martin Luther King, also at Riverside, against the Vietnam war, on the fourth of April 1967.
“We shall live and overcome. All my love to you,” he said after thanking the participants in the ecumenical service.
The original article “Presidente Chávez: Levantemos nuestras voces contra la guerra, por la paz y la vida” was published by Agencia Venezolana de Noticias on 21 September 2011. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).
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