Venezuela's President Chavez due today on first state visit
Guyana Chronicle
February 19, 2004
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez is coming here this morning on his first state visit to Guyana.
An itinerary said to be tentative up to press time indicates that the Venezuelan Leader will have a hectic day.
Chronicle understands that the itinerary includes a civic reception, a number of courtesy calls, an address to parliamentarians and closed-door discussions with President Bharrat Jagdeo.
President Chavez is coming to Guyana at a time when the two countries are realizing a commitment to settle their differences by peaceful means, to improve bilateral relations, and to collaborate in a number of international forums and on an array of issues.
President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias was born in the town of Sabaneta, State of Barinas, Venezuela on July 28, 1954. According to information obtained from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry's web-page (www.mre.gov.ve), Chavez obtained a college-level degree in Military Sciences and Arts, Engineering Branch, Ground Speciality at the Military Academy of Venezuela, graduating as a Second Lieutenant on July 5, 1975.
According to the website, it was there where his passion for the ideals of Venezuelan Liberator Simon Bolivar was born. He then continued his military career until promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
He obtained the highest marks in the different courses taken in the Armed Forces. He also realized postgraduate studies at the Simon Bolivar University, in the speciality of Political Sciences.
He held numerous professional responsibilities and his close contact with the different communities made him understand the political and social drama experienced by the nation (Republic).
President Chavez has proven to have great artistic sensibility and a special predilection for baseball, the most popular sport in Venezuela.
Short stories, poems and pictorial works are the fruit of his reverence for art and culture. Likewise, his vocation of a passionate fighter for social and just causes has been proved in the most critical moments of Venezuela's recent history.
Risking everything at the head of a movement of young officers of the Armed Forces, inspired with Bolivarian thought, he rebelled on February 4, 1992 against a political and social order mainly characterized by corruption and injustice.
The fight of that new group of idealist officers and of those who accompanied him was not in vain. As a result of that heroic act Hugo Chavez was imprisoned. But in 1994, as a result of the demands of the Venezuelan people, which impressed President Rafael Caldera, he was pardoned and freed by discontinuance of the case. As of then a new chapter was reinitiated in the struggles of the Venezuelan people.
The website went on to say that he and a qualified group of his 'brothers in arms' founded the V Republic Movement (Movimiento V Republica): later, together with political organizations such as the MAS, PPT, PCV, MEP and a very wide spectrum of the civil society, projected him as President of the nation.
During his imprisonment he dedicated himself to studying, reflecting upon and analyzing the national and international reality; and once freed he began touring the far corners of the country preaching freedom and justice, which was shared enthusiastically by vast sectors of the nation.
The proposal of re-founding the Republic was supported by the majority of the people through direct, universal and secret suffrage.
According to the website, it is President Chavez's turn now to lead the Venezuelan people through a new historical cycle since the old structures of power have cracked, given in and collapsed.
"The forces and new trends of alternatives have sprung up from the pores of society; demands full of hope and unheard-of challenges are there for the future (and) the political model founded on the Punto Fijo Pact (Pacto de Punto Fijo) has come to an end," the website stated.
Hugo Chavez Frias assumed the Presidency of the State on February 2, 1999 in a historical and multitudinous act, to lead the destiny of the nation until the year 2004. He is, therefore, the last Venezuelan president of the XX Century and the first of the new millennium.
President Chavez is married to Maria Isabel Rodriguez and is the father of five children: Rosa Virginia, Maria Gabriela, Hugo Rafael, Raul Alfonzo and Rosa Ines.