“Those who die for life cannot be called dead”
He was born on 28 July 1954 in a lower middle class family. Both of his mother and father were schoolteachers. He spent his childhood with his grandmother in poverty. He completed his high school education from Daniel O Leary from city of Barians. It was the only high school in the state at that time.
Married twice and divorced both of his wives. He was catholic and decided to become a priest in his life. He thought his socialist ideas match with teachings of Jesus Christ. In 2011, he suffered through cancer and finally died on Tuesday 5 March 2013 at the age of 58.
This is the story of Venezuelan’s president Hugo Chávez. Chavez started his practical life as an army officer. Soon he became the critics of the political setup and finally overthrowed government of President Carlos in 1992 for which he was imprisoned. On releasing, he founded social democratic party and introduced his own political ideology of Bolivarianism. After long tireless effort, he was elected president of Venezuela in 1998.
During his presidential reforms, he founded social establishments to eradicate poverty. Because of his actions, poverty was lowered by 30 percent between 1995 and 2005 according to World Bank. During his presidential era, he faced many crises, one of major crises was the strike by PDVSA, national oil company that led to a coup attempt and he was imprisoned in the presidential palace. During that coup leader declared, that Hugo had resigned but after 48 hours, the coup was defeated and Hugo was reinstated.
In August 2004, during the second presidential term he conducted a referendum about the continuation of presidential period of second term. The aim of referendum was to gain more confidence of Venezuelans to carry out major changes in the country’s economy. In 2005, he signed a land reform law to eliminate large estates and redistribute land among poor people. He dreamed to make Venezuela a social republic following the ideology of Bolivarian socialism.
Hugo’s foreign policy was focused to strengthen relations with U.S adversaries like Iran and Syria and unite the South Americans. During his era, Venezuela took great steps to activate the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries to use oil as a tool against overpowering countries to curb their domineering approach. He decided to trade oil to Cuba and resisted efforts made to stop narcotic trafficking across the Cuba. Venezuela played a great role to double the oil prices during the first decade of twenty first century. Soon Hugo became the symbol of Latin American’s integration being part of commercial deals against American’s hegemony. He had belief that he was called to save the planet and took steps to prove him that he was an international defender of poor and weak all around the world.
During June 2011, Hugo was informed that he was suffering from cancer. He underwent through three surgeries to remove the tumors. After the third surgery, he made known that he could no more carry out his presidential jobs and could not be inaugurated for fourth term in January 2013. After that, he nominated the vice president Nicolas Maduro as his successor. At last, this man of nerves died on 5th March 2013 and will always be remembered as a symbol of USA adversary.