海角大神

As Venezuela mourns the passing of President Hugo Ch谩vez and foreign dignitaries gather to pay their respects, a big question for a post-Ch谩vez Venezuela remains answered: How will the country's role in the world change?

Earlier today, Mr. Ch谩vez lay in state at the military academy where he began his career, drawing hundreds of thousands of mourners 鈥� including the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay 鈥� reports the Associated Press.

And his funeral, scheduled for tomorrow, will be attended by both friends and foes of the firebrand leader. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a close ally of Ch谩vez's, left Tehran today for Venezuela, reports AP. And the Los Angeles Times adds that Washington also plans to send a delegation 鈥� despite Ch谩vez's tempestuous relationship with the US.

In fact, it is not surprising that so many dignitaries will attend, since Ch谩vez had a profound effect both on his country and his region 鈥� though opinions remain sharply divided on whether that effect was good or bad.聽 Either way, his attention to Venezuela's poor reshaped the political scene in both Venezuela and Latin America, the Monitor reports.

But Ch谩vez didn't just provide guidance to Latin America's leftist leaders. He also provided some with direct financial support 鈥� support that blogger Anya Landau French warns may not be so generous under future Venezuelan governments. That could have a huge impact on beneficiaries like Cuba, she writes.

Regardless, says Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, Ch谩vez "made Venezuela a much more independent country, and made South America more independent of the US than Europe is today.鈥�

In the West, and the US in particular, there is hope that Venezuela's post-Ch谩vez government will soothe the country's often contentious international relations 鈥� though at least in the US, the Monitor reports, "no one expects tensions to evaporate from the relationship overnight."

Ch谩vez's political heir, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, showed that immediate changes were not coming on Wednesday, when he accused the US of being behind the late president's death and promised to investigate further. Mr. Maduro is set to run in upcoming elections to succeed Ch谩vez, and is expected to rely heavily on anti-US rhetoric to rally support.

The US isn't alone in hoping for more consistent, positive relations with post-Ch谩vez Caracas. Spain, as Europe's main liaison with Latin America, has had a hot-and-cold relationship with former colony Venezuela, the Monitor reported yesterday. Although Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garc铆a Margallo described the ties between the two countries as "solid relations," he conceded that the Venezuelan president was an obstacle.