World Bids Farewell to ‘Comandante Chavez’

Back in 2007, Hugo Chávez created a unique time zone, ordering Venezuela’s clocks back half an hour, but on Friday his heirs improvised a funeral like no other to stop the clocks and immortalize the comandante eternal.

Dozens of presidents, prime ministers and princes from around the world joined hundreds of thousands of paeople at the military academy in Caracas to bid farewell to a leader who simultaneously inspired, enchanted and repelled during his 14-year rule.
They came not to bury but enshrine him, for the funeral was a prelude to an indeterminate period of lying in state before Chávez’s body is embalmed and displayed in perpetuity at the Museum of the Revolution.
“We have decided to prepare the body … so that it remains open for eternity for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong,” said Nicolás Maduro, the vice-president who was sworn in as president at sunset after the ceremony. Maduro is widely expected to win a six-year term in an election due to be held within 30 days.
Amid a clear Arab absence, Cuba’s Raúl Castro, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and about 30 other heads of state and government filed into the academy’s chapel.

Crowds lining the route cheered Chávez’s mother Elena as she arrived, weeping.
All eyes rested on the wooden coffin draped in Venezuela’s flag. Before it was closed, some 2 million people, by the government’s count, had queued for a glimpse of him, dressed in military uniform and red beret. He was announced dead on Tuesday, aged 58, after a two-year battle with cancer.

Maduro placed a replica of the sword of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century liberator Chávez revered, on the coffin. Upon taking the podium, Maduro cried and proclaimed undying loyalty to his comandante. “No volveran!” he chanted. They will not return! A vow the opposition would not regain power.
“We have lost a great friend,” said Ahmadinejad. “I have the feeling I have lost myself … Chávez will never die.”

Red-shirted supporters, baking in the sun, repeated what have become mantras: Somos todos Chávez – We are all Chávez. Chávez vive en nosotros” – Chavez lives in us. Others coined a new slogan: Chávez did not die, he multiplied!
Chávez revealed that he was suffering from cancer in June 2011. Its nature remained a secret and he insisted last year he was cured, giving a marathon nine-hour speech to convince voters the miracle was real. They gave him another six-year term in last October’s election.

Supporters loved the showmanship but they appreciated even more the generous spending of oil revenues on social programs, subsidies and handouts that helped halve poverty and reduce inequality. “He gave me a house. I have every reason to be grateful. It changed my life,” said Tamara Rondon, 33, part of the ocean of red paying homage at the academy.
Others said their support was rooted not in the fridges, televisions and cookers the government gave out before elections but in Chávez’s extraordinary ability to connect with the poor, even after years in the presidential palace. “He was one of us,” said taxi driver Claudio Sembrano.

Rather than be sworn in at the national assembly Maduro chose to take the sash at the military academy, blending funeral and inauguration.