Castro, Chavez call for solidarity as they meet.

In this picture released by Miraflores Press Office Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, and Cuba's President Fidel Castro,right, salute supporters waving Venezuelan and Cuban flags as they arrive to Sandino province in Cuba, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005. Chavez's visit marks his fourth to Cuba in the last nine months. He arrived to the island Saturday to attend the first graduation of the Latin American School of Medicine, a regional initiative launched in 1998 after two hurricanes devastated Caribbean and Central American nations. (AP Photo/HO Miraflores Press)











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"It is solidarity that makes us truly independent," the Cuban leader declared at the ceremony that took place at the Karl Marx Theater in downtown Havana.

"Solidarity makes us free," he continued. "It eliminates the need to beg the powerful empire that will not be satisfied until it takes it all."

Castro brushed off US charges that Cuba and Venezuela exercised a destabilizing influence in Latin America, pointing to the example of Cuban doctors who work in many countries of the region.

"You are the super destabilizing force in this hemisphere," he joked addressing the graduates. "You destabilize it by ridding it of pain and suffering.".......