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Hugo Chavez was a Facebook friend of mine. I respected him and hoped for his success as a great leader of his country. I ask all Venezuelans to honor his legacy and try to reestablish the national coalition and policies he established under his chosen successor. Hugo understood his people and the enemies of his country. Please honor the leadership of his successor, in time he will succeed against the American and European forces now undermining your government.

The following is a history of Hugo Chavez from Wikipedia.

Early life
Childhood
Further information: Early life of Hugo Chávez
Sabaneta, Barinas, where Chávez was born and raised.

Hugo Chávez was born on 28 July 1954 in his paternal grandmother Rosa Inéz Chávez’s home, a modest three-room house located in the rural village Sabaneta, Barinas State. The Chávez family were of Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish descent.[16] His parents, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez and Elena Frías de Chávez, were working-lower middle class schoolteachers who lived in the small village of Los Rastrojos.

Hugo was born the second of seven children, including their eldest, Adán Chávez.[17][18] The couple lived in poverty, leading them to send Hugo and Adán to live with their grandmother Rosa,[19] whom Hugo later described as being “a pure human being… pure love, pure kindness.”[20] She was a devout Roman Catholic, and Hugo was an altar boy at a local church.[21] Hugo described his childhood as “poor…very happy”, and experienced “humility, poverty, pain, sometimes not having anything to eat”, and “the injustices of this world.”[22]

Attending the Julián Pino Elementary School, Chávez’s hobbies included drawing, painting, baseball and history. He was particularly interested in the 19th-century federalist general Ezequiel Zamora, in whose army his own great-great-grandfather had served.[23][24] In the mid-1960s, Hugo, his brother and their grandmother moved to the city of Barinas so that the boys could attend what was then the only high school in the rural state, the Daniel O’Leary High School.[25]
Military Academy: 1971–1975

Aged seventeen, Chávez studied at the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences in Caracas. At the Academy, he was a member of the first class that was following a restructured curriculum known as the Andrés Bello Plan. This plan had been instituted by a group of progressive, nationalistic military officers who believed that change was needed within the military. This new curriculum encouraged students to learn not only military routines and tactics but also a wide variety of other topics, and to do so civilian professors were brought in from other universities to give lectures to the military cadets.[26][27][28] Living in Caracas, he saw more of the endemic poverty faced by working class Venezuelans, something that echoed the poverty he had experienced growing up, and he maintained that this experience only made him further committed to achieving social justice.[29][30] He also began to get involved in local activities outside of the military school, playing both baseball and softball with the Criollitos de Venezuela team, progressing with them to the Venezuelan National Baseball Championships. Other hobbies that he undertook at the time included writing numerous poems, stories and theatrical pieces, painting[31] and researching the life and political thought of 19th-century South American revolutionary Simón Bolívar.[32] He also became interested in the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–67) after reading his memoir The Diary of Che Guevara, although he also read books by a wide variety of other figures.[33]

In 1974, he was selected to be a representative in the commemorations for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Ayacucho in Peru, the conflict in which Simon Bolívar’s lieutenant, Antonio José de Sucre, defeated royalist forces during the Peruvian War of Independence. In Peru, Chávez heard the leftist president, General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1910–1977), 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,[34] he “drank up the books [Velasco had written], even memorising some speeches almost completely.”[35] Befriending the son of Panamanian President Omar Torrijos (1929–1981), another leftist military general, Chávez subsequently visited Panama, where he met with Torrijos, and was impressed with his land reform program that was designed to benefit the peasants. Being heavily influenced by both Torrijos and Velasco, he saw the potential for military generals to seize control of a government when the civilian authorities were perceived as serving the interests of only the wealthy elites.[34][36] In contrast to military presidents like Torrijos and Velasco however, Chávez became highly critical of Augusto Pinochet, the right-wing general who had recently seized control in Chile with the aid of the American CIA.[37] Chávez later related that “With Torrijos, I became a Torrijist. With Velasco I became a Velasquist. And with Pinochet, I became an anti-Pinochetist.”[38] In 1975, Chávez graduated from the military academy, being rated one of the top graduates of the year (eight out of seventy five).[39][40][41]
Early military career: 1976–1981
Further information: Military career of Hugo Chávez

I think that from the time I left the academy I was oriented toward a revolutionary movement… The Hugo Chávez who entered there was a kid from the hills, a Ilanero with aspirations of playing professional baseball. Four years later, a second-lieutenant came out who had taken the revolutionary path. Someone who didn’t have obligations to anyone, who didn’t belong to any movement, who was not enrolled in any party, but who knew very well where I was headed.
Hugo Chávez[42]

“This tree [of Bolívar, Zamora and Rodríguez] has to be a circumference, it has to accept all kinds of ideas, from the right, from the left, from the ideological ruins of those old capitalist and communist systems.”[60] Indeed, Irish political analyst Barry Cannon noted that the early Bolivarian ideology was explicitly capitalist, but that it “was a doctrine in construction, a heterogeneous amalgam of thoughts and ideologies, from universal thought, capitalism, Marxism, but rejecting the neoliberal models currently being imposed in Latin America and the discredited socialist and communist models of the old Soviet Bloc.”[61]

Chávez was a Catholic. He intended at one time to become a priest. He saw his socialist policies (Liberation Theology) as having roots in the teachings of Jesus Christ,[366] and he publicly used the slogan of “Christ is with the Revolution!”[367] He had some disputes with both the Venezuelan Catholic clergy and Protestant groups like the New Tribes Mission.[368][369] Although he traditionally kept his own faith a private matter, Chávez over the course of his presidency became increasingly open to discussing his religious views, stating that both his faith and his version of Jesus’ personal life and ideology had a profound impact on his Liberation Theology.
Illness

In June 2011, Chávez revealed in a televised address from Havana, Cuba, that he was recovering from an operation to remove an abscessed tumor with cancerous cells.[370] Vice President Elías Jaua declared that the President remained in “full exercise” of power and that there was no need to transfer power due to his absence from the country.[371] On 3 July, the Venezuelan government denied, however, that Chávez’s tumour had been completely removed, further stating that he was heading for “complete recovery”.[372] On 17 July 2011, television news reported that Chávez had returned to Cuba for further cancer treatments.[373]

Chávez gave a public appearance on 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.[374] Soon after this speech, in August Chávez announced that his government would nationalize Venezuela’s gold industry, taking it over from Russian-controlled company Rusoro, while at the same time also moving the country’s gold stocks, which were largely stored in western banks, to banks in Venezuela’s political allies like Russia, China and Brazil.[375]

On 9 July 2012, Chávez declared himself fully recovered from cancer just three months before the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election, which he won, securing a fourth term as president.[376] In November 2012, Chávez announced plans to travel to Cuba for more medical treatment for cancer.[377]

On 8 December 2012, Chávez announced he would undergo a new operation after doctors in Cuba detected malignant cells; the operation took place on 11 December 2012.[378] Chávez suffered a respiratory infection after undergoing the surgery but it was controlled.[379] It was announced 20 December by the country’s vice-president that Chávez had suffered “new complications” following his surgery.[380] It was announced on 3 January 2013 that Chávez had a “severe” lung infection that had caused respiratory failures following a strict treatment regimen for “respiratory insufficiency”.[381] However he was reported to have overcome this later that month,[382] and it was reported that he was then undergoing a “supplementary course of treatment”.[383] On 18 February 2013, Chávez returned to Venezuela after 2 months of cancer treatment in Cuba.[384] On 1 March 2013, Vice President Nicolás Maduro, letting out for the first time, said Chávez had been receiving chemotherapy in Venezuela as he “continues his battle for life” since undergoing his last surgery in Cuba.[385] On 4 March, it was announced by the Venezuelan government that Chávez’s breathing problems had worsened and he was suffering a new, severe respiratory infection.[386]

After his first cancer surgery in 2011, Chávez indicated that a baseball-sized tumor had been removed from his pelvis, but never revealed what type of cancer he suffered from then or later when further surgery, chemotherapy and radiation were used.[387]
Death
Main article: Death and state funeral of Hugo Chávez

On 5 March 2013, Vice President Nicolás Maduro announced on state television that Chávez had died in Caracas at 16:25 VET (20:55 UTC).[388] The Vice President said Chávez died “after battling a tough illness for nearly two years.”[388] According to the head of Venezuela’s presidential guard, Chávez died from a massive heart attack, and his cancer was very advanced when he died.[389] Gen. Jose Ornella said that near the end of his life Chávez could not speak aloud, but mouthed, “I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die.”[389] The funeral was planned to be held in Caracas.[390][391][392][393][394] Chávez is survived by four children and four grandchildren.[395]

Vice President Maduro and Chávez’s supporters had suggested foul play was behind Chávez’s illness and death.[388][396] Maduro speculated that Chávez had been poisoned or infected by enemies, and expressed a belief that the claim could someday be tested scientifically. It was unclear whether Maduro was referring to Chávez’ cancer, or his respiratory infection. During the same address, Maduro announced the expulsion of an attaché to the U.S. embassy for what he called “a plot against the government” of Venezuela.[397][398][399][400][401] Chávez himself had claimed to be “a victim of U.S. assassination attempts.”[402] The U.S. Department of State dismissed the allegation as “absurd”.[403] Argentine doctor Eduardo Cazap dismissed to the BBC the Venezuelan claims of the existence of a cancer-inducing weapon: “Our body is extremely resistant to all the factors that could affect it. And when you need to produce cancer in an experimental manner you need to use huge amounts of drugs or huge amounts of toxins”.[404]

His death triggered a constitutional requirement that a presidential election be called within 30 days. Venezuela’s foreign minister says Vice President Maduro will serve as interim president.[405]
Recognition
A painted mural in support of the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) found in Barcelona, Venezuela

The United States-based Time magazine included Hugo Chávez among their list of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2005 and 2006.[406][407] In a 2006 list compiled by the British magazine New Statesman, he was voted eleventh in the list of “Heroes of our time”.[408] In 2010 the magazine included Chávez in its annual The World’s 50 Most Influential Figures.[409] His biographers Marcano and Tyszka believed that within only a few years of his presidency, he “had already earned his place in history as the president most loved and most despised by the Venezuelan people, the president who inspired the greatest zeal and the deepest revulsion at the same time.”[410]

During his term, Chávez was awarded the following honorary degrees:[411]

Honorary Doctorate in Political Science – Granted by Kyung Hee University (South Korea) by Rector Chungwon Choue on 16 October 1999.
Honorary Doctorate in Jurisprudence – Granted by the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) on 9 March 2001.
Honorary Doctorate – Granted by the University of Brasília (Brazil) by Rector Alberto Pérez on 3 April 2001.
Honorary Doctorate – Granted by the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russian Federation) on 15 May 2001.
Honorary Doctorate in Economics – Granted by the Faculty of Economics and Commerce of Beijing University (People’s Republic of China) on 24 May 2001.
Hugo Chávez received a posthumous award, the Order of the Republic of Serbia.[412]