By: Franz J. T. Lee

In 1985, in San Cristobal, Tachira, in the "Círculo Militar," the University of The Andes, founded a special center of investigation to study a possible Latin American Integration and the current border conflicts.

Instead of going to the infamous Yankee "School of the Americas," for military students a Master's Degree was offered directly at the "Centro de Estudios de Fronteras e Integracion Jose Manuel Briceno Monzillo" (CEFI).

Together with other colleagues, I had the honor to teach the group around President Hugo Chavez Frias and Francisco Arias Cardenas about the historic background of the Essequibo problem, a territory in reclamation, currently forming an integral part of Guyana. (See: Franz J. T. Lee, La Evolución e Involución del "Socialismo Cooperativista" en Guyana, Escuela de Ciencias Políticas, Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, 1987.)

This was my earliest indirect revolutionary contact and relation with the future President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez Frias.

In fact, to my greatest surprise, many of these military students had an excellent knowledge about history, political economy and socialism, and, very soon, I was giving them a scientific and philosophic introduction to revolutionary Marxism ... which was most daring in those puntofijista days.

This was very easy, because the majority of them came from a humble background, had experience about the oppression and misery of the absolute majority of the Venezuelan population, who were sighing under the yoke of neo-liberal exploitative and oppressive mechanisms.

I realized that this was a completely new generation of members of the Venezuelan military ... even different from other armed forces in Latin America. They related their experiences to us, and it became very clear to me that something revolutionary was cooking somewhere.

* Of course, although I never met him personally, we spoke about "Hugo" ... who unfortunately could not participate in that group of postgraduate students.

Certainly, President Chavez knows about my revolutionary existence ... and about our socialist "work" in Merida where with a Cuban comrade, I am assessing and guiding a group of 200 students of the "Frente Francisco de Miranda" (decisive as reserves for the defense of the country) ... on their way to Cuba, for socialist cooperative training ... informing them about revolutionary praxis and theory, and about the trans-historic international context of the Bolivarian Revolution.

As Che Guevara said, the duty of a revolutionary is to make the revolution. In this case, the best way to say: Happy Birthday, Chavez! ... is to make, think and surpass the Bolivarian Revolution, of, by and for ourselves.

* Since more than 25 years, sometimes as a lone ranger, I was making and teaching the socialist revolution in Venezuela and elsewhere.

I have already dedicated my latest work: "Venezuela: De la Revolucion Bolivariana a la Emancipacion Humana (IMMECA, Merida, Dec. 2005)" as birthday present, a priori, to our comandante. In fact, publicly, Chavez has himself thanked me for it already.

The next scientific and philosophic contribution to the Bolivarian Revolution is already on its way, planned to appear in September this year: Franz J. T. Lee & Jutta Schmitt, Venezuela: sobrepasando el Rubicón, IMMECA, Merida.)

Three years ago, we launched our "Mision Marx y Engels"; many comrades have been reaping theoretical fruits from this project, the abovementioned works are the creative results of this campaign of revolutionary politicization, launched by our Bolivarian Circle of Studies, El Momoy, Chiguara.

Once more, the only real, true way to say Happy Birthday to a People's President, to a President of the People: Is to be a shining star, a vanguard of the working masses, an emancipatory paradigm against political corruption and treachery, against global fascism. No matter how humanist, how humane, how human, how religious we may be, it is a verified historical truth that the corporate vampires will not step down from their imperialist golden oil thrones freely, peacefully.

In the liberatory spirit of Frantz Fanon, we will have to topple them, throne and all, "chavistas without Chavez" and all.

President Chavez: Please sound our "Diana" immediately again!

Hence, let us wish our President Hugo Chavez Frias many happy returns, and we should not forget the reality of the brutal world in which we toil, where the life of our other Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz was already threatened by the CIA, 600 times within 45 years, and they wish him dead at every possible opportunity.

It seems that Bush has never heard anything about Phoenix, even if the USA itself has a city called by that name.

Hence, in conclusion, long live the spirit of CEFI, where a group of conscientious students, and excellent professors twenty years ago were yearning for class consciousness, for "con ciencia," and are now making world history!

--- Franz John Tennyson Lee, Ph. D (University of Frankfurt), Author, Professor Titular & Chairholder of Philosophy and Political Science, University of The Andes, Merida (Venezuela) -- adm...@franzlee.org,
http://www.franzjutta.com ;
http://www.franz-lee.org ; http://www.geocities.com/juttafranz/publications00001.html