Venezuela: Chavez isn’t dying
CARACAS —Venezuela blasted World Bank chief Robert Zoellick on Friday, a day after he claimed that cancer- stricken President Hugo Chavez’s days are “numbered.”
“The World Bank and especially Mr. Zoellick are instruments of a system that is destroying humanity,” Information Minister Andres Izarra told AFP.
“The predatory capitalism promoted by the World Bank has all of humanity on borrowed time,” he said, adding that Chavez meanwhile was “promoting world peace.”
On Thursday, Zoellick had said in a speech in Washington that the days of cancer- stricken Chavez were “numbered” and that the “democrats of Latin America ... should be preparing.”
“There will soon be an opportunity to make the Western Hemisphere the first Democratic Hemisphere. Not a place of coups, caudillos, and cocaine — but of democ- development, and dignity,” Zoellick said.
Chavez is Latin America’s most prominent leftist leader, and critics say he runs an autocratic regime that has cracked down on human rights in his oil- rich country.
In power since 1999, he is currently seeking a third consecutive term as a “revolutionary socialist” despite two surgeries to remove malignant tumors.
He has not disclosed the type of cancer he has or the prognosis, fueling political uncertainty and a wave of rumors.
Zoellick also said Thursday that without Chavez’s support, the leftist regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua will struggle.