CARACAS – The Venezuelan government, citing Hugo Chávez’s health problems, cancelled a July 5th-6th regional summit just hours after broadcasting images of an apparently fit president in Havana, a move that raised fresh questions about the gravity of the socialist leader’s ailments.
Mr Chávez was due to host the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a hemispheric bloc that excludes the US and Canada.
The Venezuelan president is undergoing a “very strict medical treatment” following an operation to remove a pelvic abscess that prevented him from attending, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“President Chávez wasn’t going to cancel such an important event if his health wasn’t worse,” said Luis Vicente Leon, director of Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis. “This information amplifies the worries that already exist about the president’s health and without a doubt will generate a significant increase in the rumours.”
Chávez has made Latin American integration – which he sees as countering the “imperialist” influence of the US in the region – a centrepiece of his foreign policy, said Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, a public policy centre on western hemisphere affairs. He would have found the opportunity to host the summit “irresistible”, Mr Shifter said.
Mr Chávez (56) underwent surgery on June 10th in Cuba as he completed the final leg of a regional tour that also included Brazil and Ecuador.
The former paratrooper, who hadn’t spoken in public since June 12th, appeared in a video broadcast yesterday on state television alongside Fidel Castro, Cuba’s ex-president, in what the Caracas government said was evidence of a satisfactory recovery.
Mr Chávez spoke animatedly while standing and reading headlines from Cuban newspapers and then sat in a rocking chair, chatting with Dr Castro about his career and about former Chilean president Salvador Allende.
“These images should bring calm to the Venezuelan people about the president’s health,” information minister Andres Izarra said after still images of the meeting were shown. “Images speak more than a thousand words.”
The foreign ministry did not say whether Mr Chávez would return for the 200th anniversary of the country’s independence from Spain, also on July 5th.
Mr Chávez, who frequently invokes Simon Bolivar in speeches and talks of fulfilling the South American liberator’s dream of uniting the continent as one state, has used the bicentenary celebrations as a rallying cry to stoke nationalist sentiment ahead of elections next year.
Should he fail to attend the public celebrations, his hold on power will appear even more fragile, said Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the New York-based Council of the Americas.
The president’s post-surgical seclusion and lack of information about his health have raised questions about whether he should be running South America’s largest oil producer from Havana. Venezuela’s political opposition, which wants to remove Mr Chávez from power in next year’s elections, has called on vice-president Elias Jaua to replace him until he recovers. Mr Jaua has ruled out such a move. – (Bloomberg)