Hugo Chavez’s health problems forestall Latin American summit

Venezuelan president has yet to return to Venezuela after reportedly undergoing emergency surgery in Cuba A meeting of Latin American leaders in Venezuela planned for next month has been cancelled, raising further doubts over the health of the country’s convalescing president, Hugo Chavez. Chavez has yet to return to Venezuela after reportedly undergoing emergency surgery in Cuba on 10 June. But the Venezuelan president had been tipped for a triumphant homecoming at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or Celac, on 5 July. The summit, which was to be held on Margarita Island, would have coincided with the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s independence from Spain. Heads of state, including Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Chile’s Sebastián Piñera, had planned to attend. Today, however, senior officials in Venezuela and Brazil confirmed that the meeting would no longer take place. Authorities in Caracas said the meeting had been “postponed” but did not set a new date for the summit. In a statement Venezuela’s foreign ministry said the decision was related to the president’s ongoing treatment. “As is well known to the national and international public opinion, the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Commander Hugo Chávez Frías is currently in the midst of a process of recovery and medical treatment,” the statement said. A source in Brazil’s foreign ministry confirmed that his country’s authorities had been informed by Caracas that the meeting would no longer take place. Chavez’s continued absence from Venezuela has led to a flurry of speculation and provoked a bitter row between opposition leaders and chavistas. Allies claim Chavez, 56, is recovering well after operating a pelvic abscess but a series of conspiracy theories have also surfaced, ranging from prostate cancer to death. On Tuesday night Venezuelan state television broadcast images of Chavez, alongside Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro, reputedly filmed in Havana earlier that day. Commentating on the silent images, Venezuela’s information minister, Andrés Izarra, said: “There we are seeing commander Chávez very dynamic.” Castro and Chavez had been discussing “different current events,” Izarra added. “We see him recovering.” But the images did little to appease furious political opponents who have grown increasingly vocal in their calls for more detailed information about Chavez’s condition. “The nation needs a clear message that will end this national and international speculation, as well as the discomfort and suspicion caused by the mysterious silence,” said Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader who is tipped to run against Chavez next year but is currently in exile in Peru, said in a statement on Monday. Analysts are divided on whether Chavez’s protracted absence will help or hinder him as he prepares for the 2012 presidential elections. “It’s hard to tell what the electoral impact might be, but there is no question that for a country that has become accustomed to seeing and hearing the president all the time, this rule in absentia is certainly shocking for everyone,” said Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert and professor of political science at Massachusetts’ Amherst College. “The conditions surrounding this absence are as mysterious as the conditions surrounding the time that Fidel Castro, still president of Cuba, went into some kind of medical absence before retiring from the presidency,” Corrales noted. Hugo Chávez Venezuela Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 29, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.