Folks join me to send our deepest condolences for Chavez Family and
Venezuelans for their loss..May his soul rest in peace.
Niamorkono
Hugo Chavez, fiery Venezuelan leader, dies at 58By IAN JAMES and FRANK
BAJAK| Associated
Press – 9 mins ago
- [image: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez smiles in between his
daughters, Rosa Virginia (R) and Maria while recovering from cancer surgery
in Havana in this photograph released by the Ministry of Information on
February 15, 2013. Venezuela's government published the first pictures of
cancer-stricken Chavez since his operation in Cuba more than two months
ago, showing him smiling while lying in bed reading a newspaper, flanked by
his two daughters. The 58-year-old socialist leader had not been seen in
public since the Dec. 11 surgery, his fourth operation in less than 18
months. The government said the photos were taken in Havana on February 14,
2013. REUTERS/Ministry of Information/Handout (VENEZUELA - Tags: POLITICS
PROFILE TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY HEALTH) ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS
PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR
MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS
RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS]View
Gallery<http://news.yahoo.com/photos/hugo-chavez-slideshow/>
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez dies
- Article: Key dates in Hugo Chavez's political
life<http://news.yahoo.com/key-dates-hugo-chavezs-political-life-220807302.html>
*1 hr 3 mins ago*
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez was a fighter. The former
paratroop commander and fiery populist waged continual battle for his
socialist ideals and outsmarted his rivals time and again, defeating a coup
attempt, winning re-election three times and using his country's vast oil
wealth to his political advantage.
A self-described "subversive," Chavez fashioned himself after the 19th
Century independence leader Simon Bolivar and renamed his country the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
He called himself a "humble soldier" in a battle for socialism and against
U.S. hegemony. He thrived on confrontation with Washington and his
political opponents at home, and used those conflicts to rally his
followers.
Almost the only adversary it seemed he couldn't beat was cancer. He died
Tuesday in Caracas at 4:25 local time after his prolonged illness. He was
58.
During more than 14 years in office, his leftist politics and grandiose
style polarized Venezuelans. The barrel-chested leader electrified crowds
with his booming voice, and won admiration among the poor with government
social programs and a folksy, nationalistic style.
His opponents seethed at the larger-than-life character who demonized them
on television and ordered the expropriation of farms and businesses. Many
in the middle class cringed at his bombast and complained about rising
crime, soaring inflation and government economic controls.
Chavez used his country's vast oil wealth to launch social programs that
included state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics
and education programs. Poverty declined during Chavez's presidency amid a
historic boom in oil earnings, but critics said he failed to use the
windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the country's
economy.
Inflation soared and the homicide rate rose to among the highest in the
world
Before his struggle with cancer, he appeared on television almost daily,
frequently speaking for hours and breaking into song or philosophical
discourse. He often wore the bright red of his United Socialist Party of
Venezuela, or the fatigues and red beret of his army days. He had donned
the same uniform in 1992 while leading an ill-fated coup attempt that first
landed him in jail and then launched his political career.
The rest of the world watched as the country with the world's biggest
proven oil reserves took a turn to the left under its unconventional
leader, who considered himself above all else a revolutionary.
"I'm still a subversive," the president told The Associated Press in a 2007
interview, recalling his days as a rebel soldier. "I think the entire world
has to be subverted."
Chavez was a master communicator and savvy political strategist, and
managed to turn his struggle against cancer into a rallying cry, until the
illness finally defeated him.
From the start, he billed himself as the heir of Bolivar, who led much of
South America to independence. He often spoke beneath a portrait of Bolivar
and presented replicas of the liberator's sword to allies. He built a
soaring mausoleum in Caracas to house the remains of "El Libertador."
Chavez also was inspired by his mentor Fidel Castro and took on the Cuban
leader's role as Washington's chief antagonist in the Western Hemisphere
after the ailing Castro turned over the presidency to his brother Raul in
2006. Like Castro, Chavez vilified U.S.-style capitalism while forming
alliances throughout Latin America and with distant powers such as Russia,
China and Iran.
Supporters eagerly raised Chavez to the pantheon of revolutionary legends
ranging from Castro to Argentine-born rebel Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Chavez
nurtured that cult of personality, and even as he stayed out of sight for
long stretches fighting cancer, his out-sized image appeared on buildings
and billboard throughout Venezuela. The airwaves boomed with his baritone
mantra: "I am a nation." Supporters carried posters and wore masks of his
eyes, chanting, "I am Chavez."
In the battles Chavez waged at home and abroad, he captivated his base by
championing his country's poor.
"This is the path: the hard, long path, filled with doubts, filled with
errors, filled with bitterness, but this is the path," Chavez told his
backers in 2011. "The path is this: socialism."
On television, he would lambast his opponents as "oligarchs," scold his
aides, tell jokes, reminisce about his childhood, lecture Venezuelans on
socialism and make sudden announcements, such as expelling the U.S.
ambassador or ordering tanks to Venezuela's border with Colombia.
Chavez carried his in-your-face style to the world stage as well. In a 2006
speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he called President George W. Bush the
devil, saying the podium reeked of sulfur after the U.S. president's
address.
At a summit in 2007, he repeatedly called Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria
Aznar a fascist, prompting Spain's King Juan Carlos to snap, "Why don't you
shut up?"
Critics saw Chavez as a typical Latin American caudillo, a strongman who
ruled through force of personality and showed disdain for democratic rules.
Chavez concentrated power in his hands with allies who dominated the
congress and justices who controlled the Supreme Court.
"El Comandante," as he was known, insisted Venezuela remained a vibrant
democracy and denied charges that he sought to restrict free speech. But
some opponents faced criminal charges and were driven into exile. His
government forced the opposition-aligned television channel, RCTV, off the
air by refusing to renew its license.
While Chavez trumpeted plans for communes and an egalitarian society, his
rhetoric regularly conflicted with reality. Despite government seizures of
companies and farmland, the balance between Venezuela's public and private
sectors changed little during his presidency.
Nonetheless, Chavez maintained a core of supporters who stayed loyal to
their "comandante" until the end.
"Chavez masterfully exploits the disenchantment of people who feel excluded
... and he feeds on controversy whenever he can," Cristina Marcano and
Alberto Barrera Tyszka wrote in their book "Hugo Chavez: The Definitive
Biography of Venezuela's Controversial President."
Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias was born on July 28, 1954, in the rural town of
Sabaneta in Venezuela's western plains. He was the son of a schoolteacher
father and was the second of six brothers. His mother was also a
schoolteacher who met her husband at age 16.
Hugo and his older brother Adan grew up with their grandmother, Rosa Ines,
in a home with a dirt floor, mud walls and a roof made of palm fronds.
Chavez was a fine baseball player and hoped he might one day pitch in the
U.S. major leagues. When he joined the military at age 17, he aimed to keep
honing his baseball skills in the capital.
But between his army duties and drills, the young soldier immersed himself
in the history of Bolivar and other Venezuelan heroes who had overthrown
Spanish rule, and his political ideas began to take shape.
Chavez burst into public view in 1992 as a paratroop commander leading a
military rebellion that brought tanks to the presidential palace. When the
coup collapsed, Chavez was allowed to make a televised statement in which
he declared that his movement had failed "for now." The speech, and those
two defiant words, launched his career, searing his image into the memory
of Venezuelans.
Two years later, he and other coup prisoners were released from prison, and
President Rafael Caldera dropped the charges against them.
After organizing a new party, Chavez ran for president in 1998, pledging to
clean up Venezuela's entrenched corruption and shatter its traditional
two-party system. At age 44, he became the country's youngest president in
four decades of democracy with 56 percent of the vote.
After he took office on Feb. 2, 1999, Chavez called for a new constitution,
and an assembly filled with his allies drafted the document. Among various
changes, it lengthened presidential terms from five years to six and
changed the country's name to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
By 2000, his increasingly confrontational style and close ties to Cuba
disenchanted many of the middle-class supporters who voted for him, and the
next several years saw bold attempts by opponents to dislodge him from
power.
In 2002, he survived a short-lived coup, which began after large
anti-Chavez street protests ended in shootings and bloodshed. Dissident
military officers detained the president and announced he had resigned. But
within two days, he returned to power with the help of military loyalists
amid massive protests by his supporters.
Chavez emerged a stronger president.
He defeated an opposition-led strike that paralyzed the country's oil
industry and fired thousands of state oil company employees.
The coup also turned Chavez more decidedly against the U.S. government,
which had swiftly recognized the provisional leader who briefly replaced
him. He created political and trade alliances that excluded the U.S., and
he cozied up to Iran and Syria in large part, it seemed, due to their
shared antagonism toward the U.S. government. Despite the souring
relationship, Chavez kept selling the bulk of Venezuela's oil to the United
States.
By 2005, Chavez was espousing a new, vaguely defined "21st-century
socialism." Yet the agenda didn't involve a sudden overhaul to the
country's economic order, and some businesspeople continued to prosper.
Those with lucrative ties to the government came to be known as the
"Bolivarian bourgeoisie."
After easily winning re-election in 2006, Chavez began calling for a
"multi-polar world" free of U.S. domination, part of an expanded
international agenda. He boosted oil shipments to China, set up joint
factories with Iran to produce tractors and cars, and sealed arms deals
with Russia for assault rifles, helicopters and fighter jets. He focused on
building alliances throughout Latin America and injected new energy into
the region's left. Allies were elected in Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and
other countries.
Chavez also cemented relationships with island countries in the Caribbean
by selling them oil on preferential terms while severing ties with Israel,
supporting the Palestinian cause and backing Iran's right to a nuclear
energy program.
All the while, Chavez emphasized that it was necessary to prepare for any
potential conflict with the "empire," his term for the United States.
He told the AP in 2007 that he loved the movie "Gladiator."
"It's confronting the empire, and confronting evil. ... And you end up
relating to that gladiator," Chavez said as he drove across Venezuela's
southern plains.
He said he felt a deep connection to those plains where he grew up, and
that when died he hoped to be buried in the savanna.
"A man from the plains, from these great open spaces ... tends to be a
nomad, tends not to see barriers. What you see is the horizon," Chavez said.
Running a revolution ultimately left little time for a personal life. His
second marriage, to journalist Marisabel Rodriguez, deteriorated in the
early years of his presidency, and they divorced in 2004. In addition to
their one daughter, Rosines, Chavez had three children from his first
marriage, which ended before he ran for office. His daughters Maria and
Rosa often appeared at his side at official events and during his trips. He
had one son, Hugo Rafael Chavez.
After he was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011, he acknowledged that he
had recklessly neglected his health. He had taken to staying up late and
drinking as many as 40 cups of coffee a day. He regularly summoned his
Cabinet ministers to the presidential palace late at night.
Even as he appeared with head shaved while undergoing chemotherapy, he
never revealed the exact location of tumors that were removed from his
pelvic region, or the exact type of cancer.
Chavez exerted himself for one final election campaign in 2012 after saying
tests showed he was cancer-free, and defeated younger challenger Henrique
Capriles. With another six-year term in hand, he promised to keep pressing
for revolutionary changes.
But two months later, he went to Cuba for a fourth cancer-related surgery,
blowing a kiss to his country as he boarded the plane.
After a 10-week absence, the government announced that Chavez had returned
to Venezuela and was being treated at a military hospital in Caracas. He
was never seen again in public.
In his final years, Chavez frequently said Venezuela was well on its way
toward socialism, and at least in his mind, there was no turning back.
His political movement, however, was mostly a one-man phenomenon. Only
three days before his final surgery, Chavez named Vice President Nicolas
Maduro as his chosen successor.
Now, it will be up to Venezuelans to determine whether the Chavismo
movement can survive, and how it will evolve, without the leader who
inspired it.
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