CARACAS, Venezuela —
Hugo Chavez’s body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb
at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled
for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment
given Communist revolutionary leaders like Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.
Vice President Nicolas
Maduro, Venezuela’s acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state
for “at least” seven more days at the museum, which will eventually become his
permanent home. It was not clear when exactly he would be moved from the military
academy where his body has been since Wednesday.
A state funeral will be held Friday
attended by 33 heads of government, including Cuban President Raul Castro and
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York
Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, will
represent the United States, which Chavez often portrayed as a great global
evil even as he sent the country billions of dollars in oil each year.
Maduro said the ceremony would begin
at 11 a.m., but did not say where.
“We have decided to prepare the body
of our ‘Comandante President,’ to embalm it so that it remains open for all
time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao
Zedong,” Maduro said.
He said the body would be held in a
“crystal urn” at the Museum of the Revolution, a stone’s throw from Miraflores
presidential palace.
The announcement followed two
emotional days in which Chavez’s supporters compared him to Jesus Christ, and
accused his national and international critics of subversion.
A sea of sobbing, heartbroken
humanity jammed Venezuela’s main military academy Thursday to see Chavez’s
body, some waiting 10 hours under the twinkling stars and the searing Caribbean
sun to file past his coffin.
But even as his supporters attempted
to immortalize the dead president, a country exhausted from round-the-clock
mourning began to look toward the future. Some worried openly whether the
nation’s anointed leaders are up to the task of filling his shoes, and
others said they were anxious for news on when elections will be
held. The constitution mandates they be called within 30 days, but the government has yet
to address the matter.
“People are beginning to get back to
their lives. One must keep working,” said 40-year-old Caracas resident Laura
Guerra, a Chavez supporter who said she was not yet sold on Maduro, the acting
head of state and designated ruling party candidate. “I don’t think he will be
the same. I don’t think he has the same strength that the ‘comandante’ had.”
At the military academy, Chavez lay
in a glass-covered coffin wearing the olive-green military uniform and red
beret of his paratrooper days and looking gaunt and pale, his lips pressed
together. In a nod to the insecurity that plagues this country, mourners had to
submit to a pat down, pass through a metal detector and remove the batteries
from their mobile phones before they entered.
