Brazil offers medical treatment for Chavez

On Monday, July 4, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, returned from Cuba where he was hospitalized for 24 days and had a cancerous tumor in his abdomen removed (it is not clear exactly what kind of cancer he had). Speaking in public for the first time in almost two months, on Tuesday, July 5, wearing a military uniform and his trademark red beret, Chavez promised the Venezuelan people that he would win his battle against cancer. Venezuela was celebrating 200 years of independence and later Chavez attended a concert by the Sinfónica Juvenil Simón Bolívar.

“The best cure for any disease is love. Thank you for this special love that has come from not only Venezuela but other parts of the world,” he declared to a cheering crowd in front of the presidential residence in Caracas.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota, informed the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, that Chavez could treat his cancer at a hospital in Brazil if he wanted. So far no one in Caracas has responded to the offer from the Dilma Rousseff administration. Recently the president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, has been treating lymphatic cancer in Brazil.