[News] Chavez Returns to Venezuela

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Chavez Returns to Venezuela

By Ewan Robertson
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7822

Mérida, 18^th February 2013 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Venezuelan 
president Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela in the early hours of this 
morning after over two months in Cuba recovering from cancer surgery.

"We've arrived once again to the Venezuelan Homeland. Thank you God! 
Thank you beloved people! We'll continue treatment here," announced 
Chavez on Twitter when he arrived in Caracas airport at 2.30am this 
Monday morning.

The Venezuelan head of state had been in Cuba recovering from an 
operation in the pelvic region undergone on 11 December, in what was his 
fourth cancer surgery in 18 months.

In another tweet Chavez also thanked the Castro brothers, Cuban 
president Raul and former president Fidel for their support, as well as 
his medical team, declaring, "We will live and we will overcome!"

Fidel Castro also wrote a letter 
<http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7823> to Chavez before his 
departure from Havana, in which he referred to the stage reached in the 
Venezuelan president's recovery.

"A long and agonising wait, as well as your astonishing capacity for 
physical resistance and the total dedication of a team of doctors...were 
necessary to achieve this objective," he wrote.

Upon arrival Chavez was taken to the Dr. Carlos Arvelo military hospital 
in Caracas, where he will continue treatment as part of his recovery.

On Friday the first images of Chavez since his operation were released, 
which showed the Venezuelan president smiling and reading, while an 
official statement <http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7768>confirmed that 
temporarily he had difficulty speaking due to having a tracheal tube in 
place for respiratory insufficiency.

This morning, Venezuelan communication minister Ernesto Villegas argued 
that the official information given on Chavez's recovery had been 
vindicated as accurate against voices in international and Venezuelan 
media which sought to speculate on the president's health.

"He's back, he's back, he's back," said Villegas in an interview on 
state channel VTV, continuing, "the ominous voices are defeated, those 
who were calling into question the information emitted by the national 
government with respect to Chavez's health".

Villegas added that "a terrible machinery was activated to delegitimise, 
to call into question all of the information that was being given, 
including by echoing the most atrocious versions (of Chavez's state of 
health)".

The minister also said that Chavez "ordered at all times that the 
country was informed on the progress of his treatment," and that the 
government had given 30 official updates on the president's clinical 
progress during his stay in Cuba.

Venezuelan vice president Nicolas Maduro called on people to gather 
around the country to celebrate Chavez's return.

By dawn a crowd had already gathered outside the Dr. Carlos Arvelo 
military hospital in Caracas to show their support for Chavez.

Maduro also confirmed that the leadership of Chavez's party, the United 
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), would be meeting today to discuss 
the party's political strategy in the new circumstances.

-- 
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