HAVANA — On February 3, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation awarded Venezuela's socialist president Hugo Chavez the Jose Marti International Award, for his contribution to Latin American and Caribbean unity and the preservation of the region's culture and traditions. The award, named after the great Cuban independence fighter, was presented a day after US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld likened Chavez to Adolf Hitler. Some 200,000 people packed into the Plaza of the Revolution for the award ceremony and to denounce the verbal attack.
From Green Left Weekly, February 15, 2006.
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