CARACAS, March 16 – Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans on Friday marched alongside the casket of late President Hugo Chavez as his remains were taken to the mountaintop barracks he once called home and houses the Historic Military Museum today.
Chavez’s body will remain at the site located in the city’s working-class neighbourhood in northwest Caracas until officials decide on a final resting place, Xinhua news agency reported. The body of the socialist reformer had been lying in state at the capital’s Military Academy since the day after his death from cancer on March 5 with millions visiting to pay their respects.
Crowds filled the streets during Friday’s two-hour march to the barracks, where Chavez’s body was received with military honours and firing of cannon under the 32 flags of member nations of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a regional bloc Chavez helped established.
His casket was transported some 20 kilometres inside a black hearse draped with the Venezuelan flag and followed by a two-column motorcade of the National Guard as air force planes flew in formation overhead. Attending the ceremony were members of Chavez’s family, acting President Nicolas Maduro and his entire cabinet and the late president’s close political ally Bolivian President Evo Morales.
“Thank you for your total dedication, thank you, Commandant, for giving us back our country,” Chavez’s daughter Maria Gabriela said in an emotional tribute as she read a letter pledging to continue the socialist struggle spearheaded by her father.
Chavez governed Venezuela for 14 years and had recently been reelected to another six years. Venezuelans will go to the polls on April 14 to elect a new president. Maduro is running as candidate of the ruling socialist party against conservative opposition candidate Henrique Capriles who lost to Chavez in last October’s elections.
BERNAMA
