Hugo Chavez

It's very interesting to hear about the political conspiracies and the way that both left and right wing attempt to destabilise regimes and remove leaders of state. We can only judge on what we are fed in the media. I travelled in Venezuela in 2005 and found the slums and the violence in Caracas shocking. In spite of the good that Chavez did with the oil money in terms of free healthcare and education there was an almost complete absence of local government. That unsung hero that keeps the UK ticking over so well. For a start they didn't have a local tax base both decent houses and slums were most often built upon unregulated plots so no property taxes were collected or at least not enough of them. As a result there were heaps of litter alongside all of the roads and deep craters not just potholes in the road. So in spite of Ken's visit re advice on local government, at the time I went it had had little impact. One thing I loved about the country apart from its staggering beauty outside the urbanised areas was the unique absence of American and British influence so that there were many things I saw there for which I had little reference points for from Anglo Saxon culture. It had a big impact on me and I wish I could go back there. So I can only hope that the death of Chavez does not mean a worse future for the Venezuelan people.

There was talk about doing away with Lenin's tomb but as far as I know it's still there. However, the government no longer pays for maintaining his body so, as private subscriptions decrease which they inevitably will over time, he'll go all spotty, discoloured and mouldy and have to be put somewhere less visible.

and Ho Chi Minh although (before his death obviously!) he specifically said that he didn't want that. On a recent visit, we were trouped past it. I could hardly look - gruesome!!

That was extremely interesting, Tegan! Thank you

Embalmed versus "stardust"...I'm opting for the latter.

Goodness gracious me!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18616380

I agree with you annodomini and I still remember the solemnity and dignity of his funeral.

It's not in our psyche, vegasmags but if any figure from our past had been embalmed and put on show, surely it would have been Winston Churchill. He had his flaws, but they broke the mould when he died.

Adventures! Tell us more, Tegan!

I think they embalmed Eva Peron and she had quite a few adventures after her decease. But I'm going to google it to double check [memory not what it was].

I find it rather humbling. It's impossible to imagine a UK politician being deemed worthy of immortalisation in this way. It seems our adulation is reserved for minor royals and Z list celebrities.

I think Lenin. I heard this morning that they shoved Stalin under the Kremlin. (I think that's right. I was half asleep at the time)

Yes indeed I thought that j08 when i heard it earlier. And a tad gruesome. Was it Lenin or Stalin they did that with? Or both?

Now that is hero worship.

They are going to embalm his body and leave it on permanent display!

Some things you can lay at the door of the USA, but I understand that President Chavez was a lifelong heavy smoker.

Yes do agree Eloethan about US destabilising regimes that don't suit them, if I remember rightly the CIA orchestrated the toppling of democratically elected Allende in Chile in the 1970s and then they got that awful right wing junta headed up by that man Pinochet and like Argentina and dissenters just disappeared.

You can't compare the US to Eastern bloc countries.

Yes, but you wouldn't think a programme like Today would give it any credence at all.

j08 I didn't say that I believed it and I don't but I was pointing out the ridiculous lengths that the CIA went to in the hope of destroying Fidel Castro and restoring the previous corrupt set-up. So discussing the possibility of the CIA's causing Hugo Chavez's cancer was not as unrealistic a proposition as it might first have sounded. After all, who would have believed death by the poisoned ferrule of an umbrella, courtesy of Bulgaria, and death by a radioactive isotope, courtesy of Russia – both of them in London?

j08 The US has a history of destabilising regimes that don't suit them, and supporting despotic regimes that do.

If you believe that Absent.

j08 Why ever not? Look at the attempts to spread disease in Cuba, never mind the exploding cigars for Castro. You can never over-estimate the idiocy of the CIA when its playing politics.

Can't believe the Today programme actually dedicated the last few minutes of the programme this morning to whether or not the US could have caused his cancer!