Venezuela's liberation hero Simon Bolivar turns 229
Celebrations in honor of Bolivar's birthday come in the middle of Hugo Chavez's reelection campaign, and include the opening of a personal mausoleum, writes a guest blogger.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez unveils a photograph-like portrait of Venezuela's independence hero Simon Bolivar on the 229th anniversary of Bolivar's birth at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, July 24, 2012. A team of researchers produced the image based on studies of Bolivar's remains. (AP Photo/
Fernando Llano/AP
鈥� A version of this post ran on the author's blog, . The views expressed are the author's own.
S-Bol鈥檚 [Simon Bolivar] 229th birthday won鈥檛 be an ordinary one. Right in the middle of the presidential campaign, the Chavernment [Chavez government] will use it to push its electoral narrative while continuing the adaptation of our history to its ideological purposes.
First, . Turns out the Libertador was, let鈥檚 say, lucky to live before the invention of photography.
I guess what we saw during our lifetimes in and was, to put it politely, 鈥渁rtistically鈥� kind.聽is unmistakably creepy.聽 indeed.
After that presentation, about Bolivar鈥檚 death were given, based on . The tests (carried out in the UK) indicate that neither syphilis or tuberculosis were responsible of his death but , probably produced by a pulmonary infection. Symptoms are, it seems, easy to mistake for tuberculosis.
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[Today], as the new personal mausoleum of Simon Bolivar (located behind the ) even if . , Bolivar鈥檚 remains have already been moved there.
The construction was accelerated to the point that . The project was marked by constant delays and it went way over budget. .
These new developments unfold while in order to avoid taking about his 14-year record. However, it looks like he will cling once again to the past glories of our history, as his own version of independence .
鈥� Gustavo Hernandez Acevedo is a writer for , the place for opposition-leaning-but-not-insane analysis of the Venezuelan political scene since 2002