During the commemorative event for the 34 years of the military rebellion of February 4, 1992, the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, offered a speech full of historical symbolism, ensuring that that event should not be interpreted solely from a military perspective.
“More than seeing the 4F insurrection as an armed event (…) is to see it as an act of love, an act of solidarity, an act of historical consequence,” stated the general in chief from the La Montaña Barracks, emphasizing that the action led by Commander Hugo Chávez was a necessary response to the social crisis of the time.
A leader forged in the military ranks
Padrino López highlighted the figure of Commander Hugo Chávez as an exceptional historical phenomenon. “That leader for whom we, the military family, feel proud, because he is a man from the ranks of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (Fanb),” he expressed emphatically.
For the minister, the emergence of a strategist of such magnitude is not common, describing him as “a not every day leader, who as we know appear every 100 years.”
An armed people rebelled against neoliberalism and poverty
When analyzing the causes of February 4, the minister recalled the events of the Caracazo, which occurred on February 28, 1989 and explained that it was a reaction to the deterioration of the political system of the Fourth Republic.
“Yesterday was against false democracy, against hypocrisy, against the moral degradation of a system that claimed to be democracy and that had ceased to be so because of the elite,” he said.
According to the high command, the insurrection represented the moment when “a people rebelled against neoliberalism and against poverty.”
For now: from Chávez to the present
During his speech, Padrino López compared the historic phrase from 1992 with the current situation. “If our commander Hugo Chávez said ‘for now’, it was not a defeat, it was a great victory in political history,” he recalled, and then linked it to the country’s political present.
“Today we also say, after that military aggression carried out by the United States: they have taken President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Dr. Cilia Flores (…) we say ‘for now’. “We are optimistic about this new stage,” stated the minister, using the emblematic phrase as a promise of continuity and return.
The common thread and the indelible mark
Finally, he reaffirmed that the current fight is the same one that began more than three decades ago. “It is still the same fight, the consequences of the same fights of the flags that Hugo Chávez raised on February 4.”
He concluded by assuring that the leader’s influence is permanent: «The historical thread that Hugo Chávez has left here (…) will hardly be able to fade away. Chávez’s legacy is deeply humanist, of social justice, for that legacy we will fight. Honor and glory for the legacy of February 4!
