The “assassination” of Hugo Chávez

Last Sunday night, journalist Kennedy Alencar, on his Rede TV! program, É Notícia, re-aired an interview he conducted with former president Hugo Chávez in May 2010, less than three years ago. An interview that I had even watched, but which I logically didn't remember, and which now gives us the possibility to analyze much better the suspicion expressed by the interim president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, that his deceased leader may have been assassinated by his political enemies, possibly by the biggest of them, the United States – or, at least, by the US government.

The interview is incredibly rich and allows for a much better understanding of a man whose image has been distorted for over a decade – often in a literally criminal way – which has contributed to the proliferation in this country of one of the worst journalistic and political treatments ever seen in the world regarding the death of someone who, whether you like him or not, has already entered the annals of history as one of the most important political leaders humanity has ever known, and about whom, concretely – setting aside speculation – one can only say that he pulled millions of Venezuelans out of hell and, at worst, led them to purgatory.

However, it must be emphasized that, in the opening moments of the interview, a question posed by journalist Kennedy Alencar – whom I respect and admire for his work of the utmost seriousness – to the now deceased Chávez made me shudder to my bones because it showed how implausible it is that a man who, until that May of 2010, was extremely healthy, would have taken, between the diagnosis of his illness in June 2011 and his tragic end in March 2013, a mere year and nine months to die.

The questions and answers from the interview allow us to form an understanding of the physical state of this man who was so suddenly taken by cancer that it is astonishing, even when compared to recent – ​​and incredibly coincidental – cases of other South American leaders who were afflicted by the same disease and who managed to diagnose it in time and thus survived. The question then arises as to why a political leader who took such good care of his own health could not also be saved.

At 6 minutes and 40 seconds into the first segment of the interview, which this blog reproduces below in three parts, the interviewer asks the interviewee about their health. See below for the transcript of that part of the interview.

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[...]

Kennedy Alencar – Do you take any special care of your health, avoid eating any certain types of food, exercise?

Hugo Chávez – Yes, very much so. First, I've been an athlete my whole life. I played and still play baseball and softball. Well, I'm a soldier. I was in combat battalions, in the paratroopers, always training and maintaining good physical fitness. I still do that often. I like it, you know? We relax a lot running, on the bars, exercising. Maintaining a more or less acceptable weight for my age, for my responsibilities, for good health. I'm always on a diet, I'm on a permanent diet. I try not to eat too much fat, nor those types of foods that generate cholesterol and obesity. I take care of myself and am taken care of, because that's an obligation, part of the tasks and work we have.

KA – Is it true or a myth that when you travel, you bring your own food for safety reasons?

HC – Not only for safety reasons. Besides, it's a diet. It's prepared under medical supervision with regulated proteins and calories. But also for safety reasons.

KA – Do you smoke?

HC – Sometimes. I used to be a smoker. I smoked mainly in prison, during the long hours in jail. But now I can say that I don't smoke. Sometimes, now and then, when someone takes a cigarette... But no, I'm not a smoker. And I don't advise it to anyone, it's bad for your health.

[...]

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Chávez was certainly in better physical shape than Lula, Dilma Rousseff, Cristina Kirchner, Fernando Lugo, and the vast majority of ordinary citizens who contracted cancer during the same period after early diagnosis, just as both the Venezuelan and any of the others managed to achieve with this insidious disease. Given all this, some questions must be asked:

1 – So why was Chávez swept away like a leaf by the disease?

2 – Can anyone with even a modicum of honesty deny that there is something strange about the process that took the life of the former president of Venezuela?

3 – Given their long history of ordering the assassination of their political enemies, the United States – let's not forget, the world's leading technological power – are the most obvious suspects in the possible poisoning of Chávez – would they possess the technology to cause a fatal illness in a living being?

4 – Isn't it ridiculous to think that the US doesn't possess this technology, or that, even if they did, they wouldn't use it against someone who bothered them so much and whom they couldn't simply force to succumb to their bombs?

Before or after reflecting on these issues, however, if you haven't watched the interview in question, I strongly recommend that you do. It shows Chávez without third-party interpretations and, more than that, it shows another side of this story that those who only get their information from the mainstream Brazilian media are certainly unaware of.

Watch below, in three parts, the last edition of É Notícia, which featured an interview with Hugo Chávez by Kennedy Alencar in 2010 and which aired between Sunday night and Monday morning.

PART 1

 

PART 2

 

PART 3