Mourning in venezuela

Published: March 08. 2013 4:00AM PST

People line up outside the military academy in Caracas on Thursday to get a glimpse of body of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez. which lies in state within. While Venezuela remains deeply divided over the country’s future, the multitudes who reached the president’s coffin were united in grief and admiration for a man many considered a father figure. Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state for “at least" another seven days, then would be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at Caracas’ Museum of the Revolution — in the style of Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh. A state funeral will be held Friday attended by 33 heads of government, including Cuban President Raul Castro and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, will represent the United States, which Chavez often portrayed as a great global evil even as he sent the country billions of dollars in oil each year.
Rodrigo Abd The Associated Press

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