Venezuela’s Minister of Communication and Information Ernesto Villegas issued a government statement March 4 on the worsening health condition of President Hugo Chávez.
Chávez, leader of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolutionary process since his election in 1998, has been battling for his life against cancer, which was diagnosed in June 2011.
According to the March 4 communiqué, “there is a worsening in his respiratory function, related to the President’s depressed immune system” and “currently he presents with a new and severe infection.”
Ever since Chávez returned suddenly to Cuba in early December for further medical treatment, the Venezuelan masses who support him have rallied by the hundreds of thousands. The message: “We are all Chávez!”
Despite the opposition’s defeat with Chávez’s presidential re-election last Oct. 7, the right wing—with Washington’s behind-the-scenes backing—is trying to foment confrontations in their hopes to destabilize the government.
For several days now, some 50 right-wing university students have chained themselves near the Supreme Court in eastern Caracas, demanding that Chávez take the oath for his fourth presidential term.
Of course, they don’t really want him to be president; it is simply their attempt to delegitimize Chávez’s leadership.
But they are far outnumbered by the revolutionary youth, who have been rallying by the tens of thousands.
Vice-president Nicolás Maduro warned that the former presidential candidate, opposition figure Henrique Capriles, is in the United States, having met with the extreme right-wing former U.S. officials Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, as well with the State Department.
On March 5, after an emergency meeting of 20 pro-Chávez governors and the cabinet, Vice-president Maduro announced the expulsion of two U.S. Embassy officials for meeting with active military officers to plot de-stabilization of the country. The meeting discussed emergency measures to protect the country against any such efforts.
The government is calling on the revolutionary people to stay alert.
Its communiqué says in part:
“The Bolivarian government continues accompanying the children and other family members of the Commander President in this battle full of love and spirituality, and we call on all our people to remain prepared for struggle, unscathed against the psychological war deployed by foreign laboratories with their spokesperson in the corrupt Venezuelan right wing, which seeks to generate scenarios of violence as a pretext for a foreign intervention in the homeland of Bolivar.
“The Bolivarian government also repudiates the hypocritical attitude of those historical enemies of Hugo Chávez, who have always spread hatred, insults and scorn, and now they are trying to utilize his state of health as an excuse to destabilize the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
“Fortunately, this people awoke with Commander Chávez and those corrupt right-wing forces will never return.
“In this hour, unity and discipline are the bases to guarantee the political stability of the Homeland.
“Long Live Chávez!”
The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands in full solidarity with our heroic brother, President Hugo Chávez, his people, and the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution. This is a most urgent time for all progressive people to remain on alert and defend the revolution.
