930 days after the start of the contingency in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a result of the global pandemic of Covid 19, at the end of week 133 of this contingency, and being Saturday, October 1, 2022, today I want to pay tribute to one of those that Bertoldt Brecht called “the essentials”, I mean a man who was for me a guide, a mentor, a friend, a father as Commander William Izarra was, is and will continue to be.
I first met William Izarra through his writings. One of his great teachings and first articles was when he referred to the categories of “Reform” and “Revolution”, because when considering the seizure of power, the objectives of that seizure of power had to be clear: “To promote changes so that basically nothing changes and take advantage of power, which is the Reform”, or “the seizure of power to transform society and transfer this power to the people”, which is really making the Revolution.
A year ago, as an ambush of life and an unpleasant surprise, as a result of this Covid 19, I found out about and cried the departure of Commander William Izarra. But today I want to pay tribute and homage to his person.
In this sense, I want to refer to him, first in the part of his geopolitical and revolutionary analysis, of what I referred to in the tribute we paid him in the meeting room on the 22nd floor of the headquarters of the Ministry of Popular Power for Science. and Technology in a 10-minute lecture. But, in the second part, I want to refer to Major William in the profoundly human and revolutionary spirituality that he brought us together.
In the geopolitical and international analysis, the revolutionary and profoundly anti-imperialist vision that Commander William Izarra always had is evident. Since his time in the Revolutionary Association of Active Military (ARMA) that he was responsible for leading during his time as an active military in our air force. From the clandestine struggle and with deep links with militants of the left of the 60s and 70s, he had the opportunity to establish first contacts, and later and clandestinely as I already indicated, Commander William Izarra went to countries such as Libya, Iraq and Cuba , to gradually form politically and ideologically from the left.
Despite the denunciation that Comandante Izarra suffered, the accusations about his ties and contacts with those countries and left-wing sectors, or his participation in the uprisings of February 4, 1992 and November 27, 2010, were never verified. same year (in this second rebellion he had an outstanding participation without a doubt). But the important thing that of those trips that William Izarra made to the aforementioned countries, one of the ones that made the most contributions was the trip to Libya, since he took his conceptual triad from Gadaffi’s green book theses, which I allow myself to reproduce entirely, because for the times we live in today, this idea is totally valid.
The conceptual triad proposed by Commander William Izarra as his idea of direct democracy, inspired by Gadaffi’s green book, was as follows:
1.- The transfer of decisions to the organized community (People’s Power).
2.- The transformation of the government as an instrument of the people.
3.- The formation of conscience to create and maintain the original constituent power.
But among the important responsibilities that Izarra had within the international arena, was that from January 14, 2005, until November 15 of the same year, he served as Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for Asia, the Middle East and Oceania. During those 10 months, William Izarra established links with countries in those places that we did not even remotely know. He deepened relations with the people of Vietnam and Libya (he accompanied Commander-President Hugo Chávez on those tours).
Also on some occasions he was called attention because he took some ambassadors to the neighborhoods of Caracas. But what could be asked of a revolutionary like William Izarra not to do in those matters, and even more so when ambassadors from countries related to ours asked him, despite the risks they could have, to know first-hand the Venezuelan reality? ?
William Izarra personally entrusted me, together with a group of comrades such as Víctor Teokhisto, Miguel Ángel Nuñez and fellow lawyer Félix Roque, to prepare a presentation referring to the analysis of the situation for the year 2015-2017 within the framework of promoting an idea that he had on the formation of the Research Institute for Bolivarian Socialism. This instance was going to try to spread the idea of Bolivarian Socialism; The training of revolutionary cadres for the exercise of power and research on revolutionary theory. In addition to having the support of another creation of Izarra himself, such as the Ideological Training Center (CFI), more than a thousand events were held nationally and internationally.
Well, in this task that Commander William Izarra entrusted to me, I analyzed the issue of the Essequibo and the ship Liza Destiny that was heading to Venezuelan territorial waters, within the framework of the dispute that we have with the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. I think that Izarra entrusted me with this task, because I grew up in Bolívar and I had the opportunity to get to know part of the Essequibo very closely, due to multiple trips I made in the Sifontes municipality, up to the point of reaching the limit line, in the Anacoco Island. I think I accomplished that task.
Another task that Commander William Izarra entrusted to me at the time was to be one of his instructors for his Bolivarian Socialism Courses. In my case, as an instructor, I had to prepare a presentation on socialism with Cuban characteristics, since within the curriculum that he gave and together with my other three fellow instructors, it was up to my comrade Freddy García to present the “juche” philosophy or the socialism with Korean (Northern) characteristics; to Sonia Campos the Market Socialism of Vietnam, and Asdrúbal Márquez with Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
As I pointed out to Commander William Izarra about the close ties that I established with the Cuban diplomatic officials from the embassy of that brother country in Venezuela, and that for the task entrusted by Commander Izarra they fully supported me, he allowed me to choose and to explain socialism with the characteristics and the experience lived in the country of Martí and Fidel.
There is somehow reflected the geopolitical and international conception of Commander William Izarra.
His last state responsibility, which although he was appointed, he was never able to assume, and not because of a lack of willingness and commitment, but because of a measure by the government of the Democratic and People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) that had all its borders closed as containment measure for Covid 19. For this reason, since the end of May 2021, Commander William Ernesto Izarra Caldera was appointed by our Foreign Ministry and ratified by the AN as extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to that country. Until his death a year ago, as a result of that terrible disease such as Covid 19.
It is important to point out that in these times in which the international system, at least the one conceived by the US government, is a total anarchy, and that in these times we must learn to handle and manage uncertainties, ideas of sovereignty, independence, complementarity, solidarity and anti-imperialists of Comandante Izarra are fully valid and relevant.
Because, for example, imperialism, not satisfied with the provocation that they have launched and uttered in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. They intend to open a front with Taiwan and China. They carry out military exercises in the seas of China and Japan with North Korea and Japan, and then, when from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea they respond with ballistic missiles because they are brave and as a response to threats to their sovereignty, then the hegemonic media they intend to brand the North Koreans as warmongers.
Commander William Izarra would not have hesitated for a moment to denounce the provocation of Yankee imperialism, and to express all his solidarity with the people of North Korea, as one of the bastions of socialism in Asia.
This without denying that before the approach of winter, and all the chaotic situation that Europe finds itself in, the US seems to intend to open several conflict fronts. Asia would be one and in the case of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela it could be another. That is why we must not neglect ourselves and stay alert and prevented. It is what a man of William Izarra’s prognosis would have done.
That, in a tight and summarized way the profile of William Izarra within the international. Now I’m going human.
As I stated at the beginning of this writing, I first met William Izarra through his articles, through his books that came to me, through attending his conferences, and through belonging, in addition to the MVR, PSUV, to the Commission for Ideological Formation of the then Comando Maisanta in Bolívar state in 2004, within the framework of the celebration of the recall referendum against Commander Hugo Chávez. At that stage, I received so many good materials from Commander William Izarra that I still have many of them.
But, not to make the story so long, it was between the years 2016, 2017 when I finally and personally meet William Izarra. We first contacted each other by cell phone, since this man, despite his military status, was profoundly human and humble, and through his twitter account, he conferred on me an honor that I still consider I have a long way to go to deserve it. He publicly expressed that he was a wise person and an expression of the new revolutionary intelligentsia. In addition to recommending the modest contributions he has made.
However, something has been written about the military William, the professor William, the revolutionary William, the anti-imperialist William. But little has been written about the human William Izarra. I will try to approach the essence of it.
Commander William Izarra was a disciplined, investigative man, but humble and simple. His human qualities surpassed him. Above all, I was honored to keep a good part of the stories that I could say expressed in some way their memories, which have remained as legacies to posterity and as an expression of the deeply loving and human revolutionary spirituality that those of us who, for a long or short time, could perceive. we got to know him up close. It is a true honor to be custodian of many of these extraordinary documents.
Documents, that more than a treatise on politics or Analysis of the Situation or International Geopolitics, dealt with what Aquiles Nazoa called “The simplest things”. Those stories, which allowed me to discover a little-known side of William Izarra, of his experiences, of anecdotes, personally I saw myself reflected in many of them, and that, due to their guidance, even helped me to overcome difficulties and very difficult moments personally. for me.
Listening to William Izarra, at least in his last stage of his transit through this land before his surprise departure, as his son Vladimir, whom I had the opportunity to meet yesterday, told me about quantum physics, could be unthinkable for a William Izarra of 2002. However, William Izarra, like Chávez, was ahead of his time, because in 2010, he prefaced a book by comrade Miguel Ángel Nuñez referring to Ecosocialism.
I want to close these lines, recalling morphogenesis or morphogenetic energy, which William Izarra defined, within the framework of quantum physics, as the energy process of the revolutionary that leads him or her not to give up in the face of adversity and to remain constant until leading to the Revolution. to triumph.
This is reminiscent of a phrase that Commander Chávez himself wrote on July 5, 1999 in the framework of the order speech for the date of the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela, that the order speaker, Jorge Olavarría, tried to offend the President of the Republic. And using one of the pages of Lucas Estrella’s book “El oraculo del guerrerro”, he wrote: “No matter what happens, you will always be victorious”.
Bolívar and Chávez live and their struggles and the Homeland they bequeathed to us continue!
Independence and socialist homeland!
We will live and win!
One year after the change of landscape of Commander William Izarra