117 Facts About Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez led the MBR-200 in its unsuccessful coup d'etat against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned.

The high oil profits coinciding with the start of Hugo Chavez's presidency resulted in temporary improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality and quality of life between primarily 2003 and 2007, though extensive changes in structural inequalities did not occur.

On 2 June 2010, Hugo Chavez declared an "economic war" on Venezuela's upper classes due to shortages, arguably beginning the crisis in Venezuela.

Under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela experienced democratic backsliding, as he suppressed the press, manipulated electoral laws, and arrested and exiled government critics.

Hugo Chavez's presidency saw significant increases in the country's murder rate and continued corruption within the police force and government.

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Internationally, Hugo Chavez aligned himself with the Marxist–Leninist governments of Fidel and then Raul Castro in Cuba, as well as the socialist governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

Hugo Chavez's presidency was seen as a part of the socialist "pink tide" sweeping Latin America.

Hugo Chavez described his policies as anti-imperialist, being a prominent adversary of the United States's foreign policy as well as a vocal critic of neoliberalism and laissez-faire capitalism.

Hugo Chavez supported Latin American and Caribbean cooperation and was instrumental in setting up the pan-regional Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Bank of the South and the regional television network TeleSUR.

Hugo Chavez was born on 28 July 1954 in his paternal grandmother Rosa Inez Hugo Chavez's home, a modest three-room house located in the rural village Sabaneta, Barinas State.

The Hugo Chavez family were of Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan and Spanish descent.

Aged 17, Hugo Chavez studied at the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences in Caracas, following a curriculum known as the Andres Bello Plan, instituted by a group of progressive, nationalistic military officers.

Hugo Chavez became interested in the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara after reading his memoir The Diary of Che Guevara.

In Peru, Hugo Chavez heard the leftist president, General Juan Velasco Alvarado, speak, and inspired by Velasco's ideas that the military should act in the interests of the working classes when the ruling classes were perceived as corrupt.

In 1975, Hugo Chavez graduated from the military academy as one of the top graduates of the year.

In 1977, Hugo Chavez's unit was transferred to Anzoategui, where they were involved in battling the Red Flag Party, a Marxist–Hoxhaist insurgency group.

Nevertheless, hoping to gain an alliance with civilian leftist groups in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez set up clandestine meetings with various prominent Marxists, including Alfredo Maneiro and Douglas Bravo.

Five years after his creation of the ELPV, Hugo Chavez went on to form a new secretive cell within the military, the Bolivarian Revolutionary Army-200, later redesignated the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200.

Hugo Chavez was inspired by Ezequiel Zamora, Simon Bolivar and Simon Rodriguez, who became known as the "three roots of the tree" of the MBR-200.

Hugo Chavez was sent to take command of the remote barracks at Elorza in Apure State.

Hugo Chavez began preparing for a military coup d'etat known as Operation Zamora.

Hugo Chavez delayed the MBR-200 coup, initially planned for December, until the early twilight hours of 4 February 1992.

Hugo Chavez gave himself up to the government and appeared on television, in uniform, to call on the remaining coup members to lay down their arms.

Hugo Chavez remarked in his speech that they had failed only "por ahora".

Hugo Chavez was arrested and imprisoned at the San Carlos military stockade, wracked with guilt and feeling responsible for the failure of the coup.

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Academic analysis of the election showed that Hugo Chavez's support had come primarily from the country's poor and "disenchanted middle class", while much of the middle and upper class vote went to Romer.

Hugo Chavez appointed new figures to government posts, adding leftist allies to key positions and "army colleagues were given a far bigger say in the day-to-day running of the country".

Hugo Chavez appointed businessman Roberto Mandini president of the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez initially believed that capitalism was still a valid economic model for Venezuela, but only Rhenish capitalism, not neoliberalism.

Hugo Chavez followed the economic guidelines of the International Monetary Fund and continued to encourage foreign investment in Venezuela, even visiting the New York Stock Exchange in the United States to convince wealthy investors to invest.

Hugo Chavez called a public referendum, which he hoped would support his plans to form a constituent assembly of representatives from across Venezuela and from indigenous tribal groups to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution.

Hugo Chavez said he had to run again; "Venezuela's socialist revolution was like an unfinished painting and he was the artist", he said, while someone else "could have another vision, start to alter the contours of the painting".

The constituent assembly, filled with supporters of Hugo Chavez, began to draft a constitution that made censorship easier and granted the executive branch more power.

Year, Hugo Chavez helped to further cement his geopolitical and ideological ties with the Cuban government of Fidel Castro by signing an agreement under which Venezuela would supply Cuba with 53,000 barrels of oil per day at preferential rates, in return receiving 20,000 trained Cuban medics and educators.

Hugo Chavez opposed of the 2001 American-led invasion of Afghanistan in response to the 11 September attacks against the US by Islamist militants.

In late 2001, Hugo Chavez showed pictures on his television show of children said to be killed in a bombing attack.

Meanwhile, the 2000 elections had led to Hugo Chavez's supporters gaining 101 out of 165 seats in the Venezuelan National Assembly, and so in November 2001 they voted to allow him to pass 49 social and economic decrees.

Once he came to power, Hugo Chavez started directing PDVSA and effectively turned it into a direct government arm whose profits would be injected into social spending.

Hugo Chavez had removed many of the managers and executives of PdVSA and replaced them with political allies, stripping the state-owned company expertise.

However, much of Hugo Chavez's opposition originated from the response to the "cubanization" of Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez's popularity dropped due to his relationship with Fidel Castro and Cuba, with Hugo Chavez attempting to make Venezuela in Cuba's image.

Hugo Chavez, following Castro's example, consolidated the country's bicameral legislature into a single National Assembly that gave him more power and created community groups of loyal supporters allegedly trained as paramilitaries.

Hugo Chavez sought to make PDVSA his main source of funds for political projects and replaced oil experts with political allies in order to support him with this initiative.

Anger with Hugo Chavez's decisions led to civil unrest in Venezuela, which culminated in an attempted coup.

Hugo Chavez believed that the best way to stay in power was to implement Plan Avila.

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Hugo Chavez agreed to be detained and was transferred by army escort to La Orchila; business leader Pedro Carmona declared himself president of an interim government.

Hugo Chavez used this new term to contrast the democratic socialism, which he wanted to promote in Latin America, from the Marxist–Leninist socialism that had been spread by socialist states like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China during the 20th century, arguing that the latter had not been truly democratic, suffering from a lack of participatory democracy and an excessively authoritarian governmental structure.

In May 2006, Hugo Chavez visited Europe in a private capacity, where he announced plans to supply cheap Venezuelan oil to poor working class communities in the continent.

On 15 December 2006, Hugo Chavez publicly announced that those leftist political parties who had continually supported him in the Patriotic Pole would unite into one single, much larger party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez initially proclaimed that those leftist parties which chose to not dissolve into the PSUV would have to leave the government; however, after several of those parties supporting him refused to do so, he ceased to issue such threats.

On 28 December 2006, President Hugo Chavez announced that the government would not renew RCTV's broadcast license which expired on 27 May 2007, thereby forcing the channel to cease operations on that day.

On 7 October 2012, Hugo Chavez won election as president for a fourth time, his third six-year term.

Hugo Chavez's opposition blamed him for unfairly using state funds to spread largesse before the election to bolster Hugo Chavez's support among his primary electoral base, the lower class.

Hugo Chavez's approach was more heavily influenced by the theories of Istvan Meszaros, Michael Lebowitz and Marta Harnecker, who was Chavez's adviser between 2004 and 2011, rather than by those of Heinz Dieterich.

Hugo Chavez defined his political position as Bolivarianism, an ideology he developed from that of Simon Bolivar and others.

The fact that Hugo Chavez's ideology originated from Bolivar has received some criticism because Hugo Chavez had occasionally described himself as being influenced by Karl Marx, a critic of Bolivar.

Hugo Chavez's connection to Marxism was a complex one, though he had described himself as a Marxist on some occasions.

One dictator Hugo Chavez admired was Marcos Perez Jimenez, a former president of Venezuela that he praised for the public works he performed.

Hugo Chavez was much better than Romulo Betancourt, much better than all of those others.

Hugo Chavez was well acquainted with the various traditions of Latin American socialism, espoused by such figures as Colombian politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan and former Chilean president Salvador Allende.

Early in his presidency, Hugo Chavez was advised and influenced by the Argentine Peronist Norberto Ceresole.

From his election in 1998 until his death in March 2013, Hugo Chavez's administration proposed and enacted populist economic policies.

The social programs were designed to be short-term, though after seeing political success as their result, Hugo Chavez made the efforts central to his administration and often overspent outside of Venezuela's budget.

The social works initiated by Hugo Chavez's government relied on oil products, the keystone of the Venezuelan economy, with Hugo Chavez's administration suffering from Dutch disease as a result.

Economist Mark Weisbrot, in a 2009 analysis of the Hugo Chavez administration stated that economic expansion during Hugo Chavez's tenure "began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003".

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Hugo Chavez gained a reputation as a price hawk in OPEC, pushing for stringent enforcement of production quotas and higher target oil prices.

Hugo Chavez made it his stated goal to lower inequality in the access to basic nutrition, and to achieve food sovereignty for Venezuela.

Price controls initiated by Hugo Chavez created shortages of goods since merchants could no longer afford to import necessary goods.

Hugo Chavez blamed "speculators and hoarders" for these scarcities and strictly enforced his price control policy, denouncing anyone who sold food products for higher prices as "speculators".

Hugo Chavez used exchange rate subsidies to underwrite imports; this policy was not welfare-maximizing, but rather benefited special interests.

Hugo Chavez further explained that common criminals felt that the Venezuelan government did not care for the problems of the higher and middle classes, which in turn gave them a sense of impunity that created a large business of kidnapping-for-ransom.

In September 2010, responding to escalating crime rates in the country, Hugo Chavez stated that Venezuela was no more violent than it was when he first took office.

An International Crisis Group report that same year stated that when Hugo Chavez took office, there were some factors beyond his control that led to the crime epidemic throughout Venezuela, but that Hugo Chavez ignored it as well as corruption in the country; especially among fellow state officials.

Hugo Chavez supporters stated that the Bolivarian National Police has reduced crime and said that the states with the highest murder rates were controlled by the opposition.

Hugo Chavez explained that prisons are controlled by gangs and that "very little has been done" to control them.

Finally, Hugo Chavez allegedly used the judiciary in order to detain or intimidate opposition politicians or NGOs accused of receiving money from the United States purportedly in order to overthrow the government.

Hugo Chavez reportedly put pressure in the attorney general's office in order to replace three key employees and have any case that might damage the government or Chavez himself undisclosed.

In December 1998, Hugo Chavez declared three goals for the new government; "convening a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, eliminating government corruption, and fighting against social exclusion and poverty".

Hugo Chavez created a system in which the FARC would provide the Venezuelan government with drugs that would be transported in live cattle and the FARC would receive money and weaponry from the Venezuelan government.

Hugo Chavez was moved to house arrest in Caracas in February 2011, but she is still barred from practicing law, leaving the country, or using her bank account or social networks.

Human rights groups accused Hugo Chavez of creating a climate of fear that threatened the independence of the judiciary.

OAS observers were denied access to Venezuela; Hugo Chavez rejected the OAS report, pointing out that its authors did not even come to Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez said Venezuela should boycott the OAS, which he felt is dominated by the United States; a spokesperson said, "We don't recognize the commission as an impartial institution".

Claims of antisemitism were prompted by various remarks Hugo Chavez made, including in a 2006 Christmas speech where he complained that "a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ", now had "taken possession of all of the wealth of the world".

Hugo Chavez used state-run bodies to silence the media and to disseminate Bolivarian propaganda.

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Human Rights Watch criticized Hugo Chavez for engaging in "often discriminatory policies that have undercut journalists' freedom of expression".

In 2004, Hugo Chavez used the National Commission of Telecommunications and the Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Electronic Media law to officially censor media organizations.

Hugo Chavez inaugurated TeleSUR in July 2005, a Pan-American news channel similar to Al Jazeera, which sought to challenge Latin American television news by Univision and the United States-based CNN en Espanol.

In 2006 Hugo Chavez inaugurated a state-funded movie studio called Villa del Cine.

Hugo Chavez had a Twitter account with more than 3,200,000 followers as of August 2012.

Hugo Chavez said Twitter was "another mechanism for contact with the public, to evaluate many things and to help many people", and that he saw Twitter as "a weapon that needs to be used by the revolution".

Hugo Chavez refocused Venezuelan foreign policy on Latin American economic and social integration by enacting bilateral trade and reciprocal aid agreements, including his so-called "oil diplomacy" making Venezuela more dependent on using oil, its main commodity, and increasing its longterm vulnerability.

Hugo Chavez aligned himself with authoritarian nations and radical movements that were seen as being anti-Western, with relations with Cuba and Iran becoming a particular importance.

In particular relations between Venezuela and the United States deteriorated markedly as Hugo Chavez became highly critical of the US foreign policy, opposing the US -led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and condemning the NATO–led military intervention in Libya.

Hugo Chavez focused on a variety of multinational institutions to promote his vision of Latin American integration, including Petrocaribe, Petrosur, and TeleSUR.

Bilateral trade relationships with other Latin American countries played a major role in his policy, with Hugo Chavez increasing arms purchases from Brazil, forming oil-for-expertise trade arrangements with Cuba, and creating unique barter arrangements that exchange Venezuelan petroleum for cash-strapped Argentina's meat and dairy products.

Domestic mishandling of the country under Hugo Chavez prevented Venezuela from strengthening its position in the world.

Hugo Chavez first wed Nancy Colmenares, a woman from a poor family in Chavez's hometown of Sabaneta.

When Hugo Chavez was released from prison, he initiated affairs with women that had been his followers.

Allegations were made that Hugo Chavez was a womanizer throughout both his marriages, having encounters with actresses, journalists, ministers, and ministers' daughters.

Hugo Chavez was, in general, a liberal Catholic, some of whose declarations were disturbing to the religious community of his country.

Hugo Chavez would declare his belief in Darwin's theory of evolution, stating that "it is a lie that God created man from the ground".

In June 2011, Hugo Chavez revealed in a televised address from Havana, Cuba, that he was recovering from an operation to remove an abscessed tumor with cancerous cells.

On 17 July 2011, television news reported that Hugo Chavez had returned to Cuba for further cancer treatments.

Hugo Chavez gave a public appearance on 28 July 2011, his 57th birthday, in which he stated that his health troubles had led him to radically reorient his life towards a "more diverse, more reflective and multi-faceted" outlook, and he went on to call on the middle classes and the private sector to get more involved in his Bolivarian Revolution, something he saw as "vital" to its success.

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On 9 July 2012, Hugo Chavez declared himself fully recovered from cancer just three months before the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election, which he won, securing a fourth term as president.

In November 2012, Hugo Chavez announced plans to travel to Cuba for more medical treatment for cancer.

On 8 December 2012, Hugo Chavez announced he would undergo a new operation after doctors in Cuba detected malignant cells; the operation took place on 11 December 2012.

Hugo Chavez suffered a respiratory infection after undergoing the surgery, but it was controlled.

On 18 February 2013, Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela after two months of cancer treatment in Cuba.

On 1 March 2013, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said that Hugo Chavez had been receiving chemotherapy in Venezuela following his surgery in Cuba.

Venezuela's hybrid regime, after Hugo Chavez's death, became more selectively accommodating on the inside and more explicitly repressive on the outside.

On 5 March 2013, Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced on state television that Hugo Chavez had died in a military hospital in Caracas at 16:25 VET.

The Vice President said Hugo Chavez died "after battling a tough illness for nearly two years".

Maduro alleged that Hugo Chavez was poisoned or infected with a cancer virus by the US government.

In July 2018, former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz said that Hugo Chavez had actually died in December 2012 and the announcement of his death was delayed for political reasons.

Hugo Chavez's death triggered a constitutional requirement that a presidential election be called within 30 days.