This morning's key headlines from
GenerationalDynamics.com:
- Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez dies of cancer at 58
- Venezuela accuses America of conspiracy to kill Hugo Chávez
Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez dies of cancer at 58
Venezuela's people were stunned Tuesday by the news from vice
president Nicolas Maduro that president Hugo Chávez had died. Maduro
cried and had tears running down his face as he announced that Chávez
died at 4:25 pm local time (3:55 pm ET) "after battling hard against
an illness for nearly two years." Chávez has not appeared in public
since his fourth cancer treatment in Cuba in December. When he
returned to Venezuela on February 11, his supporters were overjoyed,
though some wondered if he was returning home to die. It now appears
that was the case, although the reason for his death was not
announced.
According to Venezuela's constitution, there must be a new election
within 30 days. The military has announced that will enforce the
constitution, and not permit chaos to ensue. Chávez has previously
anointed Maduro as his successor. Maduro is a hard-core anti-American
socialist like Chávez, but he's entirely lacking in Chávez's charisma.
The man that Chávez defeated in last year's election, the youthful
Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles, is expected to run against
Maduro.
Chávez has said that he considers Cuba's Fidel Castro to be like a
father to him, and a lot of people expected Chávez to live longer than
Castro, who is still alive but unwell. The two socialists forged a
close relationship, especially when Cuba's rich sponsor, the Soviet
Union, collapsed, ending Russian subsidies to Cuba. But Venezuela
stepped in with its own subsidies. Maduro will undoubtedly wish to
continue the subsidies to Cuba, but without Chávez's charisma, and
with a faltering Venezuelan economy, he may be forced to back down.
AP and BBC
Venezuela accuses America of conspiracy to kill Hugo Chávez
Several hours prior to the death of Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez,
vice president Nicolas Maduro gave a vitriolic press conference
blaming "imperial forces," particularly from the United States, of a
conspiracy to kill Chávez. The accusation stems from remarks made by
Chávez himself in December 2011. Chávez made his remarks the day
after Argentina's president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced
she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Recent years have seen a
series of leftwing Latin America leaders diagnosed with cancer,
including Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, Paraguay's Fernando
Lugo, and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
According to Chávez, in a speech broadcast on live TV:
"Would it be so strange that they've invented the
technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50
years?
I don't know but ... it is very odd than we have seen Lugo affected
by cancer, Dilma when she was [presidential] candidate, me, going
into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina.
It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities,
what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It's at
the very least strange, very strange. Evo take care of
yourself. Correa, be careful. We just don't know.
Fidel always told me, 'Chávez take care. These people have
developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you
eat, what they give you to eat ... a little needle and they inject
you with I don't know what.'"
According to Maduro on Tuesday, there will be an investigation to see
whether Chávez was inoculated with the cancer that killed him. Maduro
announced that one of the alleged conspirators, US Defense Attaché
David del Mónaco, was the mastermind of the plot, and "He has been
evicted; he has 24 hours to leave Venezuela; our armed forces should
be respected; we have forwarded a legal notice to the US government."
El Universal and
Guardian (December 2011)
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