Menu

03/04/13 - MERCO PRESS (Buenos Aires)   - Bolivian president Morales confirms Chavez suffering from relapses

Bolivian president, Evo Morales, says his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo
Rafael Chávez Frías, is in stable conditions but still suffering from
relapses in his recovery from a fourth round of surgery for cancer. Morales
couldn't meet with Chavez but said doctors and relatives of Chávez informed
him about his current condition.

"He's in good spirits and fighting for his life, then he'll fight for his
land: Venezuela" Morales said in a press conference held in Cochabamba,
Bolivia.

Chávez, who's convalescing in seclusion at a Caracas military hospital, is
suffering from complications since coming back to Venezuela after
undergoing a fourth round of surgery for cancer in Cuba, where he stayed
for over two months.

Morales statement comes amid demands from the Venezuelan opposition that
the government in Caracas tell the truth about the president's health.

On Friday Vice president Nicolas Maduro revealed that Chavez has been
undergoing "tougher" new treatment for cancer including chemotherapy.
Speaking after a Catholic Mass to pray for Chavez's health, Maduro
described how the populist president had personally given the order to
leave Cuba in mid-February, two months after his latest cancer surgery
there.

Chavez was first diagnosed with cancer in the pelvic region in June 2011,
but the government has never disclosed the exact nature, location and
severity of the cancer.

However two well informed Venezuelan nationals, a journalist and a doctor
agree that the Cuban doctors looking after Chavez got the diagnosis wrong
from the beginning since they started treating him for a colon cancer.

Bocaranda a very much respected journalist, even by the members of the
Chavez government, and Dr Jose Rafael Marquina, a physician living in the
US who all along has been very well informed on the case coincided that the
Venezuelan leader was wrongly diagnosed back in 2011. This does not mean
Chavez would have overcome his health condition but would have certainly
not been exposed to so much pain and suffering.