Maduro reaffirms ties with Havana

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (left) and Cuba’s President Raul Castro wave in front of a picture of Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez during an agreement signing ceremony in Havana.AFP/HavanaVenezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has renewed a strategic alliance with Cuba, signing $1bn in co-operation agreements two weeks after his election to replace the late Hugo Chavez.The 51 agreements signed during Maduro’s visit to Cuba encompass health, education, transportation, sports, energy and special “social missions.” An estimated 40,000 Cuban doctors, technicians and advisers work in Venezuela, which supplies Cuba with 130,000 barrels of oil a day as part of a 12-year-old relationship that has closely bound together their leftist, anti-US governments.“Cuba and Venezuela are going to continue working together,” Maduro said, calling it “a strategic alliance that transcends the times, which, more than an alliance, is a brotherhood.” Cuba is only the second country Maduro has visited since his election April 14. In Cuba, Maduro held talks with President Raul Castro, who reaffirmed Cuba’s “unyielding will to continue co-operation in solidarity with Venezuela, determined to share our fate with the heroic Venezuelan people.” Maduro said he met separately for five hours with Fidel Castro, 86, the retired leader of the Cuban revolution, remembering Chavez and the alliance they forged in October 2002. “It is a relationship of brothers,” Maduro told reporters. The relationship has been crucial to Cuba, shoring up a Soviet-style economy that has floundered since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. The deal is Cuba’s biggest source of cash, well ahead of money sent home by expatriate Cubans, tourism or exports of nickel, tobacco and drugs.The two countries also have engaged in a variety of joint projects, like a refinery in Cienfuegos, Cuba. But the Cuban connection remains a point of heated contention in Venezuela, which split 50.8-49 in the elections to succeed Chavez, which saw some 700,000 people switch to the opposition. During the election campaign, Capriles repeatedly attacked the “gifts” sent from Venezuela to Cuba, calling Maduro “Cuba’s candidate” and demanding that Caracas cut off oil supplies to Havana.