Colon Cancer to Kill Chavez

The medical care in Venezuela must really stink if the country's dictator bolts for Cuba for cancer treatment. No one has ever claimed Cuba's medical care is anything other than free. No one has ever claimed Cuban medical treatment is good. But when you're a dictator you can't let it get around that you've got colon cancer.

Nevertheless, word has leaked out, and now the world knows Chavez will never again run Veneuela. He'll probably die in Cuba while getting chemotherapy that doesn't work.

Chavez Says Cancer to ‘Strengthen’ Him

By Daniel Cancel - Jul 2, 2011

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who recently revealed that he’s receiving treatment for cancer in Cuba, said that the illness will strengthen him and he’s optimistic he’ll return to full health.

Chavez, speaking in a live telephone call to a Cuban television program yesterday for the first time since June 12, said that Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president, detected his frail health. Castro pushed him to remove a cancerous tumor after an operation to drain a pelvic abscess.

“No one expected this illness but I’m optimistic and sure that I’ll emerge from it stronger,” he said. “If it weren’t for Fidel, who knows what labyrinth I’d be in right now.”

Until now, Chavez only had been shown in previously recorded videos and images. Chavez told Venezuelans in a nationally broadcast speech on June 30 that he was operated on twice in Cuba and that he won’t hurry his return during treatment.

The 56-year-old leader, who has run South America’s largest oil producer since 1999, has vowed to keep ruling from Cuba as long as it takes, though his political foes have called on Vice President Elias Jaua to assume his daily activities, citing articles in the constitution. Chavez had announced his intention before the illness to seek a third presidential term next year.

Peanut Butter, Lamb

Earlier yesterday, Venezuelan state television broadcast a 45-minute video from June 29 showing Chavez as his followers have grown accustomed to seeing him over the past decade: making national policy while telling jokes and humming military marches from his days as a paratrooper commander. Accompanying him was his brother, Barinas state Governor Adan Chavez, Foreign MinisterNicholas Maduro and Henry Rangel Silva, head of the nation’s military.

In a bid to project an image of normalcy after weeks of speculation over his health, Chavez told his allies that he’s recovering favorably and is running his nation’s affairs from abroad. He said Fidel Castro checks in on him almost daily, bringing peanut butter and small bits of lamb, while at night he’s reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

“I’ve committed mistakes, fundamental mistakes as Nietzsche would say, and I apologize for it,” said Chavez. “Sometimes you get swept up in the passion and forget that you’re just made of flesh and bone and don’t take care of your health.”

Clout
Yields on the nation’s benchmark bond plunged yesterday as investors increased bets Chavez may give up a re-election bid, opening the door for a new government that could reverse policies fueling the fastest inflation in the world. Jaua would succeed Chavez if the president resigns or is declared unfit to govern.

With nobody in the government able to match Chavez’s clout with the poor, his hold on power may be challenged if he doesn’t return home soon, said Luis Vicente Leon, director of Caracas- based pollster Datanalisis.

The prospect of Chavez’s prolonged absence may further embolden the opposition, which was strengthened after winning the majority of votes in congressional elections last September. Support for Chavez fell to near the lowest in eight years in March as a 40 percent devaluation of the bolivar and the fastest inflation among 78 countries, tracked by Bloomberg, erode the purchasing power of his working-class base.

Cancer

“There is no chavismo without Chavez,” said Boris Segura, a Latin America strategist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in an interview yesterday in Caracas. “He hasn’t groomed a successor on purpose because this is a one-man project.”

The Venezuelan leader may have colon cancer that would require chemotherapy for at least six months to a year, Ramon Baeza, an oncologist with the IRAM cancer clinic in Santiago, Chile, said in a phone interview.

“It’s a common cancer in his age range,” said Baeza, who has no connection to the case and said he can’t give a medical opinion based on the information available. Chavez’s chances of recovery could be low depending on whether the abscess ruptured and if the cancer spread to the rest of the abdomen, he said.

The self-declared revolutionary socialist said yesterday that he’s received support from regional leaders, including cancer survivors Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff.

Canceled Summit
Leaders of the opposition have criticized the government’s handling of the political crisis though have also gone to lengths to wish Chavez a speedy recovery.

“Chavez is still the head of state, but he can’t run the government’s daily affairs,” said Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, executive secretary of the Democratic Unity Table alliance. “The government isn’t functioning normally and they know it.”

Chavez, who canceled a July 5 summit with Latin American and Caribbean leaders on Margarita Island due to his health, said that he never had any intention of staying in Cuba so long and that his cancer was first detected at the tail end of a regional tour after he arrived on June 8.

“Truly, I was only going to spend two days here,” Chavez said in the live telephone call last night. “I feel as if I were in Venezuela amid my people. Long live Cuba, and long live Fidel.”

Dead Chavez Walking

As if we didn't know. Chavez has cancer and the only place he believes he can get treatment is Cuba. Okay. In other words, he's a good as dead. Will he be deposed in a coup? Now that he's left his country, how can he govern? Will a general seize power and tell him to stay in Cuba? Anyway, the days of Chavez are over.

Chavez cancer upends Venezuelan politics

Venezuelans stunned by Chavez cancer confirmation

CARACAS | Fri Jul 1, 2011 7:22am EDT

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist leader Hugo Chavez acknowledged he had surgery for cancer, shaking the political system he has dominated for more than a decade and alarming supporters counting on him to win re-election in 2012.

The usually loquacious Chavez, 56, confirmed in a stern speech on Thursday that he had undergone surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumor and was receiving more treatment. He said he needed to recover before returning to Venezuela to run his self-styled socialist revolution.

Supporters vowed they will continue his leftist drive, which has included nationalization of vast swathes of the economy, a broad diplomatic challenge to Washington's dominance of the region and a steady takeover of an oil industry that is a key supplier to the United States.

"We will live and we will conquer. Until my return!" Chavez ended Thursday night's emotion-charged address from Havana.

In poor Caracas shantytowns, where Chavez is still widely loved for using oil revenues to build new clinics and schools, supporters saluted him with fireworks. "He's alive! He's alive!" one group shouted in the poor Catia area after the speech.

Opposition leaders, seeking to rally around a unity candidate to be picked in February for the 2012 presidential vote, may take the news as a sign Chavez is weakened and less likely to win next year's vote after sweeping repeated elections since 1998.

"For the Republic, the best thing that can happen is for the president to recover and to take over full governance, so that the natural political process can evolve, which is to carry out elections next year," said Teodoro Petkoff, who runs the opposition newspaper Tal Cual.

The opposition was trying hard to avoid appearing gleeful at Chavez's ill health, though some detractors posted vitriolic messages on Twitter and other sites.

Financial markets will watch closely for precise details of his condition or a timeframe for when he could return to power. Venezuelan bonds have rallied on hopes his absence may spur changes in the country's state-dominated economy.

"It is impossible to deduce if he will or will not be in a physical state and the right mood to go into the 2012 campaign," said local analyst Luis-Vicente Leon.

VENEZUELA'S FUTURE

Known for eight-hour speeches and frequent camera appearances, Chavez left Venezuela in near silence and its government functioning at half-steam for almost three weeks after a June 10 operation to remove a pelvic abscess.

His continued convalescence raises questions about how he can still govern from Cuba, whether or not he can control his sometimes unruly coalition, and whether he will in fact be able to rule for another decade as he has often vowed.

Perhaps to answer fears of a power vacuum or succession fight, Chavez said he remained "at the helm" of government" in "permanent communication" with his Vice President Elias Jaua.

Chavez's ministers said the government would remain united and, in their joint appearance immediately after the president's address, pledged commitment to his socialist reforms even in his absence.

Supporters seemed shocked and at times in denial at the news of his cancer, which government supporters had until Thursday passed off as idle rumor spread by the opposition.

Chavez's combative rhetoric, Caribbean folksy charm and social programs from rural villages to shantytowns have allowed him to win almost all the elections his coalition has confronted, undermining the argument of critics who call him a dictator.

But he has alienated many with his authoritarian streak, reflected in his stranglehold on government and belligerent treatment of political opponents, and his aggressive nationalization of a wide range of industries.

His popularity has been weakened in recent years as he has struggled to keep up with bread-and-butter government tasks such as keeping electricity flowing, putting criminals in jail and providing housing for the poor.

Remaining in Cuba could further compromise advances in those areas, especially since state leaders are notoriously slow to make decisions without his direct involvement.

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