Dear
Sirs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Other Government
Institutions
and President of the Republic Hugo Chávez
I
am finally writing to you today because, after so many years of
manifesting my strongest opposition to the way in which Venezuela has
been governed, I completely agree with you on your communiqué that
the election of Barack Obama can represent a significant change to
improve the relationship betwen the USA and the rest of the world. I
cheerfully welcome your good intentions to reestablish the diplomatic
relations among both peoples, whose friendship has been born as we
all know with the special relationship between personalities such as
Francisco de Miranda and George Washington. I volunteer to offer my
ample bicultural experience in the great similarities in values and
in the populations of both countries, in order to collaborate being a
bridge of understanding among so many misunderstandings.
I
wish to point out to you that great part of my friends, of the people
I like and I appreciate are female and male United States citizens of
my age (Between 33 and 39 years old), with whom I finished high
school and with whom I attended college. Among them are also included
people from many countries, many of them Latin Americans, who instead
of returning back to their homelands they recently obtained the
American citizenship and they are of course quite happy for having
voted for Obama. Yesterday night through the internet, using the
Facebook platform, my circle of friends scattered between the five
continents at the unisone concluded that finally a new and beautiful
era is dawning for the benefit of humanity. Many of these people are
actually Caucasian, of wealthy families from the American
establishment, and all of them are really excited that our generation
was able to pulverize the barriers of race, gender and homophobia
through a tangible way by means of this election. On my side, I
campaigned a lot through the internet in order to help this triumph
happen. This is the first time in my life that I feel there is an
actual collective and simultaneous state of joy and hope
worldwide.
I am asking you, the authorities of the Bolivarian
republic of Venezuela, that you may participate in this worldwide
message of unity. I know that in Venezuela it is difficult due to the
polarization of so many years. It saddens me that many of my personal
relationships here in Venezuela who sympatize with the opposition, as
well as many people oriented toward the revolution, are still stuck
in an exaltation of the differences between all Venezuelans. If there
is anything that we may learn today from the great nation that is the
United States of America is that they are finding ways to unite their
people, to keep the American dream alive, and I reiterate there the
barriers of gender, race and sexual orientation are falling apart.
With all sincerity I am offering my help to the government
represented by you in transmitting my empathy to the American people.
I wish to do this as a service to Venezuela so that we can
reestablish fruitful diplomatic relations with one of our sister
nations in this continent. I am looking forward to the visit of a
great American friend to Venezuela who is coming next year. She has
never come before but she wishes to come now. I hope that by that
time she will find a welcoming climate and that, upon returning to
her country, she might be able to speak well of us as a people.
I
will write a similar letter to President-elect Barack Obama shortly.
I am highly interested in helping both presidents to find ways to fix
our multiple differences. But we all need to compromise to listen and
lower guard a bit. I am asking President Chávez to please stop
insulting innocent Americans calling them names such as "imperialist
yankees". That may have been true for previous generations, but
it is definitely not the case of the United States for the new
generations who have just elected Obama and who sealed great part of
my personality. I am proud to have been able to represent Venezuela
through the eyes of many people there, and of having contributed to
tighten the links of binational friendship. I wish to continue doing
just that. Therefore I am writing this letter, I hope that you
appreciate and provide a concrete form to the ideas I am
suggesting.
Sincerely, Rubén Rivero Capriles on November 5, 2008
Rivero & Cooper, Inc.
