HUGO CHAVEZ REMEMBERED

On this day in 2013, Hugo Chávez, one of the Global South's anti-imperialist warriors, died aged 58 after a long battle with cancer. He had served as Venezuela's president from 1999 to 2013, and was mourned beyond the shores of his homeland, including across Africa, where he had won many hearts for deepening ties between our continent and Latin America.

Under his leadership, two Africa-South America Summits were held to enhance South-to-South relations. Chávez was also the first Latin-American president to openly declared himself of African descent. His powerful words, "We carry Africa inside us, Africa is part of us, Latin-Caribbean America cannot be understood without Africa," continue to inspire.

His defiant stance in the face of US bullying also resonated with many Africans, who, in one way or another, have had to live with the effects of US imperialist aggression for decades. Chávez had been in Washington’s crosshairs since coming to power in the late 1990s and launching a campaign to end the parasitic control of his country's oil industry by US multinational firms.

Imperialist forces made several attempts to overthrow his government, but they were all defeated by the Venezuelan masses. Chávez was undeterred from his revolutionary mandate of ensuring that Venezuela's resources benefitted its people, not US tycoons and their local cronies. It is a mandate that he acted on until the end.

To mark the anniversary of Chávez's death, here is a 2006 video clip of him dishing out some choice words for then-US president George W. Bush, branding him the Devil. It is a speech that still resonates today.

Video credit: UNTV