HUGO CHAVEZ DEAD

[Dalton]

BREAKING NEWS - NO DETAILS YET

[Dalton]

This has been confirmed by NBC News

[Flagg]

Was only a matter of time once they stopped treatment in Cuba. I wonder who they'll blame.

[Sea Skimmer]

Putting him back on chemotherapy probably collapsed his immune system and made his infections a hundred times worse. I believe the VP gave a speech just this morning blaming the US in fact. Its just unclear if the US did it with an orbital cancer ray or by blowing DU dust over all of Venezuela from NASA weather planes.

[Flagg]

Please. It would have had to be done in the Bush years and that dumb Texas cunt couldn't find a 7 foot tall arab worth $25,000,000 living in a Pakistani suburb in 7 goddamned years.

[Tribun]

Am I a bad person for actually feeling satisfaction that the world is finally rid of him?

[Kinyo]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21679053

Very brief confirmation on the BBC.

[Panzersharkcat]

Am I a bad person for actually feeling satisfaction that the world is finally rid of him?

Nope. Somebody should tell the King of Spain he finally shut up.

[Winston Smith]

Am I a bad person for actually feeling satisfaction that the world is finally rid of him?

Nope. Somebody should tell the King of Spain he finally shut up.

Well, I can get behind that statement.

BTW, hello

Wonder what comes next?

[Elfdart]

Am I a bad person for actually feeling satisfaction that the world is finally rid of him?

Yes.

[Lord Zentei]

Just came across it. Here is the CNN article.

Linka

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) -- Hugo Chavez, the polarizing president of Venezuela who cast himself as a "21st century socialist" and foe of the United States, died Tuesday, said Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Chavez, who had long battled cancer, was 58.

Chavez's democratic ascent to the presidency in 1999 ushered in a new era in Venezuelan politics and its international relations.

Once a foiled coup-plotter, the swashbuckling former paratrooper was known for lengthy speeches on everything from the evils of capitalism to the proper way to conserve water while showering. He was the first of a wave of leftist presidents to come to power in Latin America in the last dozen years.

Chavez leaves a revolutionary legacy

As the most vocal U.S. adversary in the region, he influenced other leaders to take a similar stance.

But the last months of Chavez' life were marked by an uncharacteristic silence as his health condition became "complicated," in the words of his government. Chavez underwent a fourth surgery on December 11 in Cuba, and was not publicly seen again. A handful of pictures released in February were the last images the public had of their president.

Chavez's ministers stubbornly maintained a hopeful message throughout the final weeks, even while admitting that the recently re-elected president was weakened while battling a respiratory infection.

Chavez launched an ambitious plan to remake Venezuela, a major oil producer, into a socialist state in the so-called Bolivarian Revolution, which took its name from Chavez's idol, Simon Bolivar, who won independence for many South American countries in the early 1800s.

"After many readings, debates, discussions, travels around the world, etcetera, I am convinced -- and I believe this conviction will be for the rest of my life -- that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism. The path is socialism," he said on his weekly television program in 2005.

Chavez redirected much of the country's vast oil wealth, which increased dramatically during his tenure, to massive social programs for the country's poor. He expanded the portfolio of the state-owned oil monopoly to include funding for social "missions" worth millions of dollars. That helped pay for programs that seek to eradicate illiteracy, provide affordable food staples and grant access to higher education, among other things.

But Chavez also leaves a legacy of repression against politicians and private media who opposed him.

He concentrated power in the executive branch, turning formerly independent institutions -- such as the judiciary, the electoral authorities and the military -- into partisan loyalists.

iReport: Send your thoughts on the death of the Venezuelan president.

Through decrees and a judiciary tilted in the president's favor, many political opponents found themselves barred from running in elections against the ruling party. Even former allies, like Chavez's onetime defense minister, Gen. Raul Baduel, faced accusations that critics called trumped-up corruption charges.

Chavez's government similarly targeted opposition broadcasters, passing laws and decrees that forced at least one major broadcaster and dozens of smaller radio and television stations off the air.

Opponents also have criticized his social programs, calling them unsustainable over the long run and responsible for unintended consequences. Price controls, for instance, drove up inflation, while expropriations of farmland depressed production.

In lengthy, freewheeling speeches, Chavez saved his most acerbic barbs for the "imperialist" United States and its "colonial" allies in the region.

He accused the United States of trying to orchestrate his overthrow, and referred to President George W. Bush as the devil in front of the United Nations General Assembly.

At home, business interests accused him of scaring off investment by abusing the power of expropriation. Venezuela struggled to grow its economy during this period, even as the nation was flush with money from oil, which was at about $17 a barrel when Chavez took office and rose to more than $100 a barrel.

In addition to domestic social programs, the Chavez government pumped money into his foreign policy interests. He invested millions of dollars in oil and cash in countries that were ideologically similar.

Chavez considered former Cuban leader Fidel Castro a mentor, and aligned his country with Iran and other nations opposed to the United States.

Cuba loses a benefactor in Chavez, whose provision of an oil lifeline at below-market prices could be at risk under a new government.

While Chavez admired Castro, he found most inspiration from Bolivar, even renaming the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

An affable, if sometimes bombastic, man, Chavez had a disarming manner that even his critics could not deny.

Some called his style buffoonish, but he spoke like an ordinary Venezuelan -- not like a bureaucrat -- and voters reacted positively.

Other leftist leaders elected after him, like Bolivia's Evo Morales, Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, followed Chavez's example to varying extents.

Chavez could also be secretive. He was slow to publicly admit that he had cancer, and never shared what type of cancer affected him. The government kept a tight seal on details of the president's treatment and declining health.

The death of the Venezuelan president leaves a sharply polarized country, with no clear successor for his party and an untested opposition. Chavez' passing means new elections will be held, although he had said previously he wanted Maduro to succeed him.

Chavez was born in the plains state of Barinas, in southwest Venezuela, on July 28, 1954, the third of the seven children of two educators.

As a child, he was an altar boy who went on to develop a great love of baseball. Recently, even as questions arose about his health, the media-savvy Chavez sought to reassure the public by playing catch with his foreign minister on state television.

As a young man, he enrolled in the Military Academy of Venezuela, reaching the rank of sub-lieutenant in 1975. He joined the parachute corps of the army and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant colonel.

His first political steps came when he founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement, or MBR-200, in 1982. A decade later, on February 4, 1992, he led a failed military rebellion against then-President Carlos Andres Perez. He also made his first public appearance in front of the television cameras.

"Compatriots, sadly for now the objectives that we proposed were not achieved in the capital city," he said. "That is to say, we here in Caracas did not succeed in gaining power. You did it very well out there, but now is time to avoid more bloodshed. Now is time to reflect and new situations will come."

Chavez served two years in prison before then-President Rafael Caldera granted him amnesty.

Chavez went on to form a new political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, which carried him to a presidential election victory in 1998. His fiery campaign speeches blamed the traditional parties for corruption and poverty.

Chavez married twice and divorced twice. He had three children with his first wife, Nancy Colmenarez: Rosa Virginia, Maria Gabriela and Hugo Rafael.

Years later, he married Marisabel Rodriguez, with whom he had a fourth daughter, Rosa Ines. He divorced in 2003; Venezuela has had no first lady since then.

Upon taking office, Chavez made rewriting the constitution one of his first orders of business. A July 2000 referendum affirmed the new constitution, which the government printed as a little blue book that Chavez used regularly as a prop during speeches.

In the following years, the charismatic Chavez rattled off a string of electoral victories that made him seem almost invincible.

He won re-election in 2000, survived a recall election in 2004, and won another six-year term in 2006.

Chavez secured another re-election victory in October, describing his win as "a perfect battle, and totally democratic." He vowed to "be a better president every day."

A turning point for Chavez came in April 2002, when a coup briefly removed him from office.

But the interim government couldn't consolidate power, and within 48 hours, with the help of the military, Chavez returned to power.

While short-lived, the coup had a profound effect on Chavez, who took a more accelerated authoritarian and leftist turn afterward.

Human Rights Watch wrote in 2010 that the coup provided a pretext for policies that undercut human rights.

"Discrimination on political grounds has been a defining feature of the Chavez presidency," the report concluded.

"At times, the president himself has openly endorsed acts of discrimination. More generally, he has encouraged his subordinates to engage in discrimination by routinely denouncing his critics as anti-democratic conspirators and coup-mongers -- regardless of whether or not they had any connection to the 2002 coup," the report said.

Consolidation of power in the presidency -- to the detriment of separation of powers -- became a theme in Chavez's policies.

Another challenge to Chavez's rule followed the coup. From December 2002 to February 2003, a crippling general strike pressured the president. The economy took a hit, but Chavez outlasted the strikers.

The following year, in 2004, the opposition gathered enough signatures to hold a recall referendum on Chavez, but again, the president survived.

Chavez's vitriol toward the United States also increased in the period after the brief coup because Washington had tacitly approved it.

In one of his most memorable insults, Chavez said of Bush in 2006 before the U.N. General Assembly:

"The devil came here yesterday. And it smells of sulfur still today."

In 2007, Chavez tasted defeat for the first time, in a referendum seeking approval for constitutional reforms that would have deepened his socialist policies. Nonetheless, thanks to a National Assembly friendly to him, Chavez achieved some of his goals, including indefinite re-election.

That same year, Chavez created a new political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which merged his party with several other leftist parties.

His detractors accused him of being authoritarian, populist and even dictatorial for having pushed through a constitutional reform that allowed indefinite re-election.

Increasingly, Chavez used legislation to clamp down on broadcasters and other media. His government relentlessly went after opposition broadcaster Globovision, accusing it of a number of violations, from failure to pay taxes to disregarding a media responsibility law.

The broadcaster is the last remaining TV network that carries an anti-Chavez line, since the president refused to renew the license of another opposition station, RCTV, allegedly over telecommunication regulation violations. The station had to go off public airwaves and transmit solely on cable.

Abroad, Chavez was also known for his colorful -- if sometimes strange -- statements.

Last year, after several Latin American leaders were diagnosed with cancer, himself included, he wondered if the United States was behind it.

"Would it be strange if (the United States) had developed a technology to induce cancer, and for no one to know it?" he asked.

During a water shortage that Venezuela suffered in 2009, he took to the airwaves to encourage Venezuelans to take showers that lasted only three minutes.

At a summit in 2007, his repeated attempts to interrupt resulted in King Juan Carlos of Spain saying to him, "Why don't you shut up?"

Chavez was a believer that the days of the "Washington consensus," a model of economic reforms favored by the United States for developing countries, were over.

Along with Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and some Caribbean countries, Chavez formed the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, a group intended to offer an alternative to U.S. influence in the region.

As president, Chavez made clear his ambitions of being a regional and international leader who left, in his own way, changes that awakened passions and feelings in favor and against -- everything except indifference.

And here is a lengthy comment from a Venezuelan. Though I often avoid the comment section, this comment deserves to be posted.

Rest in peace, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. As a Venezuelan, I didn't agree with most of your policies and politics, but I do not rejoice in your death and I do respect the pain of your family and supporters.

In 1998, when you campaigned for the presidency -and promised to end corruption- despite my disappointment with the traditional parties, I did not support you because you had led a coup against president Carlos Andres Pérez. I didn't like Pérez, but he was elected by our people and attempting to overthrow him was proof that you did not respect the will of Venezuelans.

I didn't oppose 100% of what you did. I was grateful, for example, that you placed the issue of poverty on the table and you put the spotlight on millions of Venezuelans that until then had been excluded. I knew that the Cuban doctors in the slums were unprepared and unequipped, but I understood that they meant the world to the mother that knocks on their door at 3am. I was also happy of the way most Venezuelans started to care about politics again (some because they supported you; others because they opposed you). The anti-politic feeling we saw in the 90's was precisely what got you elected. And I also kept in mind that a majority of Venezuelans did support you, so you certainly had a right to be in office.

These are my 10 reasons why I will not miss you:

1. Your authoritarian manner (which reflected a flaw probably most Venezuelans have), and your inability to engage in an honest dialogue with anyone that opposed you. Even from your death bed, you had a Supreme Court justice fired because she didn't agree with your politics.

2. Your disrespect for the rule of law and your contribution to a climate of impunity in Venezuela. In 1999, you re-wrote the Constitution to fit your needs, and yet you violated it almost on a daily basis. With this example, it is no surprise that crime exploded in Venezuela. In 14 years, our homicide rate more than tripled from 22/100K to 74/100K. While judges were busy trying to prove their political allegiance to you, only 11% of homicides led to a conviction.

3. Your empty promises and the way you manipulated many Venezuelans to think you were really working for them. In 14 years you built less public housing than any president before you did in their 5 year periods. Hospitals today have no resources, and if you go there in emergency you must everything from medicines to surgical gloves and masks. The truth is that you were better at blowing your own trumpet than at getting things done.

4. The astounding level of corruption of your government. There was corruption before you got elected, but normally a government's scandals weren't made public until they handed power to the opposing party. Now we've heard about millions and millions of dollars vanishing in front of everybody's eyes, and your only reaction was to attack the media that revealed the corruption. The only politicians accused of corruption have been from parties that oppose you, and mostly on trumped up charges. For example, Leopoldo Lopez was never condemned by the courts but you still prevented him for running for office. His crime? Using money from the wrong budget allocation to pay for the salaries of teachers and firemen -because your government withheld the appropriate funds.

5. The opportunities you missed. When you took office, the price of oil was $9.30, and in 2008 it reached $126.33. There was so much good you could have done with that money! And yet you decided to throw it away on corruption and buying elections and weapons. If you had used these resources well, 10.7% of Venezuelans would not be in extreme poverty.

6. Your attacks on private property and entrepreneurship. You nationalized hundreds of private companies, and pushed hundreds more towards bankruptcy. Not because you were a communist or a socialist, but simply because you wanted no one left with any power to oppose you. If everyone was a public employee, you could force them to attend your political rallies, and the opposition would not get any funding.

7. Your hypocrisy on freedom and human rights. You shut down more than 30 radio and television stations for being critical of your government, you denied access to foreign currency for newspapers to buy printing paper (regular citizens can't access foreign currency unless you authorize it), you imprisoned people without trial for years, you imprisoned people for crimes of opinion, you fired tens of thousands of public employees for signing a petition for a recall referendum and you denied them access to public services and even ID cards and passports.

8. Your hypocrisy on the issue of Venezuela's sovereignty. You kicked out the Americans but then you pulled down your pants for the Cubans, Russians, Chinese and Iranians. We have Cuban officers giving orders in the Venezuelan army. Chinese oil companies work with a higher margin of profit than any Western companies did. And you made it clear that your alliances would be with governments that massacre their own people.

9. Your hypocrisy on the issue of violence. You said this was a peaceful revolution but you allowed illegal armed groups like Tupamaros, La Piedrita and FBLN to operate. You gave them weapons. You had the Russians set up a Kalashnikov plant in Venezuela. You were critical of American wars but yet you gave weapons to the Colombian guerrilla, whose only agenda is murder and drug-dealing.

10. Your hypocrisy on democracy. Your favorite insult for the opposition parties in Venezuela was "coupists", but you forgot you organized a coup in 1992, and the military that was loyal to you suggested they would support a coup in your favor if the opposition ever won the presidential elections. There was no democracy in your political party: you chose each of the candidates for the National Assembly and for city and state governments. When the opposition won the referendum that would have allowed you to change the Constitution in 2007, you disavowed the results and you figured out a way to change the articles and allow yourself to be reelected as many times as you wanted. You manipulated the elections in 2010 to make sure the opposition didn't get more than a third of seats in Parliament even though they got 51% of the popular vote. Your democracy was made of paper, you made sure there were no meaningful checks and balances and all institutions were your puppets.

So no, Hugo I will not miss you. Rest in peace now, while we try to rebuild the mess of a country that you left us.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Putting him back on chemotherapy probably collapsed his immune system and made his infections a hundred times worse. I believe the VP gave a speech just this morning blaming the US in fact.

Pretty much.

Venezuela VP: Chavez's cancer was an 'attack' by his enemies

"There's no doubt that Commandante Chavez's health came under attack by the enemy," Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in an address to the nation from the presidential palace.

"The old enemies of our fatherland looked for a way to harm his health,'' according to Maduro, drawing a parallel to the illness and 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, which some supporters blamed on poisoning by Israeli agents.

[Phantasee]

My boy in Venezuela says things aren't looking too hot for the country. Per the constitution, 30 days until the National Assembly will announce when the next Presidential elections will take place. "In the run of the year we're gonna have 2 devaluations of the currency.. the first one already happened and with this for certain there will be another one. Inflation rates around 41% and we expect 78% at the end of june".

[Guardsman Bass]

Those currency devaluations are bad news in a country that imports over two-thirds of its food (one-third of it from the US). It's a big budget strain on the Venezuelan government.

As for Chavez, he was just a left-ish, authoritarian "El Presidente" type of leader, like several others from back in the twentieth century Latin America - except with more money because of oil. When oil prices were up, Venezuela had solid GDP growth, albeit declining over time even before the recession in 2007 (and more money to spend on anti-poverty programs). And despite all his rambling speeches against the US, we did pretty well in terms of trade - we bought Venezuelan oil, and a huge chunk of the money they made off of it was simply cycled back into the US to pay for American imports (the US is Venezuela's biggest trade partner). I don't feel any real joy at his death.

I wonder if he would have survived longer if he had instead gone to a better hospital, like the one that Brazil's leader went to (Hospital Siro-Libanes).

[K. A. Pital]

Chavez probably did more to unite the former guerilla leaders of LA nations than any other person. So I guess he made himself a name.

[Aaron MkII]

Am I a bad person for actually feeling satisfaction that the world is finally rid of him?

Why would you even ask? A man you didn't know, from another country, and whose policies probably never effected you or anyone you know, has died.

What do you think?

[Lagmonster]

Assuming Tribun wasn't affected by his policies in any way, caveat, caveat, etc..

The proper thing to do is simply state "I don't miss the bastard", rather than ask for other people to judge you for the belief. If you're going to feel that way, at least own that shit.

[Col. Crackpot]

A good friend of mine is from Caracas. Two of his older siblings have had their state pensions frozen for the simple offense of living in the united states. The estate of their parents is also frozen in venezuela for the same reason. Chavez was a two bit thug and robber baron who disguised his graft with the flowery prose of "bolivarian socialism". Fuck him.

[mr friendly guy]

According to TYT he did quite a bit wrong, but the statistics showed that poverty decreased dramatically under his reign, and in terms of inequality his country is better than the US easily. So he gets that credit. My question is, how much of the Chavez hatred is because he engaged in anti US rhetoric.

[Simon_Jester]

Am I a bad person for actually feeling satisfaction that the world is finally rid of him?

Why would you even ask? A man you didn't know, from another country, and whose policies probably never effected you or anyone you know, has died.

What do you think?

I'm pretty sure I and those I know weren't personally affected by Pol Pot. But after the things he did to Cambodia, the world is a better place without him in it. Had I been aware of it and able to think clearly about it at the time, I would have said "good riddance" when he died in 1998.

Chavez isn't anywhere near that bad a man, not to within... about five orders of magnitude; I'm not glad he's dead. But I can imagine someone bad enough that I would.

[Aaron MkII]

Yeah, so can I.

Chavez isn't that guy though, as you say.

[Lord Zentei]

According to TYT he did quite a bit wrong, but the statistics showed that poverty decreased dramatically under his reign, and in terms of inequality his country is better than the US easily. So he gets that credit. My question is, how much of the Chavez hatred is because he engaged in anti US rhetoric.

It may be more equal economically, but it is also less stable and Chavez had an authoritarian and corrupt streak a mile wide. See the post I made above as well as a couple of anecdotes others have posted here. Considering how high the inequality was before Chavez, I certainly can understand his support among the poor, though I can't condone his undermining of the rule of law, nor do I applaud anything else about his economic policies.

[Simon_Jester]

Does that include the economic policies that acted to reduce the inequality?

[Lord Zentei]

Does that include the economic policies that acted to reduce the inequality?

Your question does not make sense. Please rephrase.

[Simon_Jester]

You said "nor do I applaud anything else about his economic policies."

My question was "Does that [the non-applauding] include the economic policies that acted to reduce the inequality?" I might add as a postscript, "could you expand on why you do not approve of those policies that acted to reduce the inequality?

Does the question make sense now?