Hugo Chavez: people's hero

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxRzbkD6ys]Black gold backs Chavez vision vilified by West - YouTube[/ame]

 

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrX70VzsmN8]The ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead - Crash Test Dummies - YouTube[/ame]

 

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“Good riddance to this dictator.”

Hugo Chavez Dies; Anointed Successor Already Polishing Anti-U.S. Credentials
March 5, 2013 – The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Tuesday should pave the way for a new election within a month, providing a second chance for a young state governor who five months ago posed the biggest electoral challenge faced by the U.S.-baiting socialist firebrand in his 14 years in power.

Henrique Capriles Radonski lost the October 2012 election by around 11 percentage points, Chavez’ smallest margin of victory since he first won the presidency in late 1998. Crippled with cancer, Chavez was unable to be formally inaugurated for a third term, and his death Tuesday came two weeks after he returned to Venezuela after the latest of several rounds of treatment in Cuba. Venezuela’s constitution now requires a new election within 30 days, and Capriles will almost certainly face the man Chavez named as heir to his “Bolivarian revolution,” Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro has wasted no time polishing his radical credentials, taking time out despite the gravity of Chavez’ situation this week to expel a U.S. Air Force attache accused of trying to destabilize Venezuela, and to allege a conspiracy by “the historical enemies of the country” to attack Chavez’ health. The regime he has effectively been running also responded harshly to the Obama administration’s expression of “sympathy” for the ailing Chavez. “The Bolivarian Government rejects the Pharisee attitude of those historical enemies of Hugo Chavez,” it said in a communique released on Monday. “They have always lavished hatred to him, insults and despise and they try now to use his health situation as an excuse to destabilize the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” The communique ended, “Long live Chavez!”

Hours before news of his death, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told a briefing, “We have expressed sympathy for President Chavez’s illness. Should he become permanently unavailable to serve, our understanding is that the Venezuelan constitution requires an election to select a new president, so the elections need to be free and fair, if they were to go forward and we are in that situation.” There was no immediate reaction to news of Chavez’ death from the White House or State Department, but House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) in a statement eschewed sympathy, describing Chavez as “a tyrant who forced the people of Venezuela to live in fear.” “His death dents the alliance of anti-U.S. leftist leaders in South America,” Royce said. “Good riddance to this dictator.” He voiced the hope that, “while not guaranteed, closer U.S. relations with his key country in our hemisphere are now possible.”

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UN Human Rights Council Pays Tribute to Hugo Chavez, Silent on His Rights Record
March 6, 2013 – The U.N. Human Rights Council was criticized Wednesday for holding a minute of silence to honor Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a decision that again illustrated the tension between the body’s actions and its professed commitment to upholding human rights around the world.

Chavez, who died Tuesday, was frequently criticized for human rights violations at home, while in the international arena he consistently supported some of the world’s most controversial regimes, including Iran, Syria and Libya under the late Muammar Gaddafi. Nonetheless when the U.N. General Assembly in New York voted by secret ballot last fall for new members of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC), Venezuela won a seat, receiving more votes than the United States or two other nations in the Western group, Germany and Ireland.

In Geneva on Wednesday that support was again evident as a delegate from Cuba – a HRC stalwart although not currently a member due to term limits – led tributes for “Commandante Chavez.” “He worked tirelessly not only for his people, but for the betterment of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Cuba’s Anayansi Rodriguez. “Under his leadership, Venezuela reached the peak of its history. “He eradicated illiteracy, democratized education, increased minimum wage,” she continued. “Chavez has not died, he didn't enter history yesterday, he entered history a decade ago when he began the Bolivarian Revolution and the struggle for real Latin American integration. He will always remain present among us.”

Bolivian delegate Angelica Navarro said Chavez had become a symbol of the struggle for justice. Cuba and Bolivia are both members of ALBA, a leftist bloc set up by Chavez in 2004 as a vehicle for his “21st century socialism” vision. But Swiss envoy Alexandre Fasel, who was chairing the session, also expressed condolences “on behalf of the council.” One day before its minute of silence for Chavez, the HRC’s program included discussion on the case of Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a Venezuelan judge who has been detained since 2009 and was allegedly raped while incarcerated. Critics of the Chavez regime accuse him of direct responsibility for Afiuni’s plight.

The judge was accused of corruption after she ordered the release of a Venezuelan businessman, Eligio Cedeno, who had spent almost three years detained without trial, accused of circumventing currency rules. (Cedeno, who fled to the U.S., says the case was political; he funded the political opposition.) Immediately after Afiuni ordered his release – at the recommendation of U.N. right experts – she was herself arrested. Chavez on television called her a “bandit” and demanded that she face the maximum penalty, 30 years’ imprisonment.

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The Venezuelan version of Nikolai Lenin...

Chavez body to be put on permanent display
Mar 7,`13 -- Hugo Chavez's body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment given Communist revolutionary leaders such as Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state for "at least" seven more days before the museum becomes his permanent home. It was not clear when exactly he would be moved from the military academy where his body has been since Wednesday. Later Thursday, the National Assembly speaker announced that Maduro would be sworn in Friday night as acting president following a state funeral and would call elections within 30 days. That enables him, as the designated governing party candidate, to run for president as Chavez desired. Legal scholars say that under the constitution, the legislature's speaker should instead be sworn in and organize the vote.

More than 30 heads of government, including Cuban President Raul Castro and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are to attend the funeral. U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, will represent the United States, which Chavez often portrayed as a great global evil even as he sent the country billions of dollars in oil each year. Maduro said the ceremony would begin at 11 a.m., but did not say where. "We have decided to prepare the body of our `Comandante President,' to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," Maduro said.

He said the body would be held in a "crystal urn" at the Museum of the Revolution, a mile from Miraflores presidential palace. The announcement followed two emotional days in which Chavez's supporters compared him to Jesus Christ, and accused his national and international critics of seeking to undermine his "revolution." A sea of sobbing, heartbroken humanity jammed Venezuela's main military academy Thursday to see Chavez's body, some waiting 10 hours under the twinkling stars and the searing Caribbean sun to file past his coffin. On Thursday night, Castro, Presidents Jose Mujica of Uruguay and and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil viewed the open casket along with former Brazilian president Inacio Lula da Silva.

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