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Bicentennial feeds clash in Venezuela

(Folha de S. Paulo, April 18, 2010)



Amid the energy crisis and inflation, Chavez prepares grand birthday celebration of independence and intensifies liaison Bolivar will Celebrations with the government and the National Academy of History exposes cracks in interpreting the ephemeris by the poles of Venezuelans

FLÁVIA Marreira
DE CARACAS

are already 9am in the middle of the night Caracas. Two men without uniforms and work with small cans of paint paint the curb of the avenue Mexico. They are part of the brigade more or less informal thousands of people that the government has put Chavez in the streets to clean statues, gardens and squares to retouch the party of tomorrow: the 200th anniversary the creation of the board of Caracas, 1810, the beginnings of independence.

State media called Chavez and mainly take pains to secure the official reading of the anniversary: it is the beginning of the fight for the sovereignty of Venezuela which is only now being completed by the "Bolivarian Revolution."

Government intensifies the strategy of linking the president to the hero of the independence of several countries in the region, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), whose centrality in Venezuelan culture will of the academies of history the popular imagination, he is one of the revered spirits of the religion of Maria Lionza, syncretic site similar to african-Brazilian religions. The state newspaper "Vea" brought a poster of the president and other national hero last Sunday.

The commemoration began in clash historians connected with the government and the traditional National Academy of History (ACH). Historian Ines Quintero, speaker of the ACH ceremony on Thursday, asked to reject a vision "providential, heroic, epic, militaristic" process.

"It was a political revolution unprecedented that it will launch after the foundations for the construction of the living Republican, part of the ongoing debate here and in several countries of Latin America, "followed, claiming" the individual freedom "and" division among the Branches "as a legacy.

Days earlier, in the historic chapel, where independence was declared in 1811, met historians convened by the National Center for History, attached to the Ministry of Culture. Approved a document claiming the character indigenous and popular of the independence-not the result of the crisis of European absolutism, and defends the 21st century socialism. "The oligarchy has seized the image of Bolivar. The revolution is making it possible to resume, "said Peter Cazaldilla Leaf, deputy culture minister who heads the CNH.

Historians also maintain a concrete dispute: custody of the archives of Bolivar and the national hero Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816). Government decree stipulates that they be transferred until June for the National Library, and the academy will meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

At a time when the country faced severe energy crisis and the popularity of Chavez is also suffering from inflation, the government is preparing a grand feast. Tomorrow will be no military parade, a monument of 48 meters will be installed in the plaza Venezuela, in the center.

is also scheduled to inaugurate a controversial bust of Fidel Castro. For the event, the soldiers rehearsed a gait different from traditional the Chinese, in honor of 60 years of communist revolution, which caused discomfort in some generals according to local newspapers.