VENEZUELA: The Cult Of Simon Bolivar... Lives.

NYTIMES/ SIMON ROMERO/    President Hugo Chavez recently exhumed the body of the legendary So.American revolutionary Simon Bolivar. Romero adds some new details to the question of "WHY?"

ROMERO: "Even Venezuelans used to Mr. Chávez’s political theater were surprised by the exhumation, which pushed aside issues like a scandal over imported food found rotting in ports, anger over an economy mired in recession and evidence offered by Colombia that Colombian guerrillas are encamped on Venezuelan soil."

AND: "This country’s intelligentsia fixates on Bolívar’s legacy and the use of Bolívar not just by Mr. Chávez but by rulers stretching back to the 19th century.
Slip into a bookstore and titles like “Divine Bolívar,” “The Cult of Bolívar,” “Thought of the Liberator” and “Why I’m Not Bolivarian” line the shelves. Scholars argue over how it was possible for one 20th-century dictator, Juan Vicente Gómez, to have conveniently shared the dates of his birth and death with Bolívar’s."

VENEZUELA: Impressions Of Hugo Chavez.

SLATE/ Christopher Hitchens/OPINION/   Hitchens expounds on "What I learned about Hugo Chávez's mental health when I visited Venezuela with Sean Penn" during a trip in 2008, and the recent TV broadcast of Simon Bolivar's exhumation.

"Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830."

VENEZUELA: Simon Bolivar's Sister To Be Exhumed In August For DNA Comparison.

LAHT/     The government confirmed that it will exhume the remains of Maria Antonia Bolivar, the older sister of Simon Bolivar, at the end of August from a crypt in the Caracas Cathedral in order to compare DNA. The alleged remains of Simon Bolivar were exhumed last week and will be tested against those of Maria Antonia to try and determine the cause of his death.

VENEZUELA: IST UPDATE: Simon Bolivar's Remains Are Televised.

LINK CHANGE/CNN/1ST UPDATE/   In a bizarre ritual, Venezuelan state television showed the skeletal remains of Simon Bolivar, President Hugo Chavez's hero. Bolivar's tomb was opened because Chavez suspected that foul play caused his hero's death  in 1830.  Chavez said he wept with emotion upon seeing the Bolivar's "glorious skeleton." "Bolivar is alive. Let us not see him as a dead man and let us not see him as a skeleton. He is like lightning, like a sacred fire," Chavez said. Most historians assert that Bolivar died of tuberculosis. Chavez believes that Bolivar was murdered.
For a More Detailed Analysis about Chavez and the exhumation, see
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2004526,00.html?xid=rss-topstories