Former Panamanian ambassador to the OAS says Hugo Chavez has been “brain dead since December"

Reading a Cuban paper with his daughters on Feb 14. Photoshop? 

Guillermo Cochez, former Panamanian ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), said in a television interview on Wednesday, February 27, that Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, has been effectively “brain dead” since last December.

However, there have been no other sources confirming this information, and Cochez is not the most reliable source, having made such claims before.

Guillermo Cochez said in the interview that Chavez has since been taken off life support on orders from his daughters in order to stop the “abuse his body has suffered."

He then threw down the gauntlet, saying, "I challenge the government of Venezuela to disprove me, and to show President Chavez."

Cochez said that Chavez’s followers will feel betrayed by Venezuala’s political leaders, who are maintaining the charade.  Specifically, he said that Chavez was effectively brain dead as of December 30, and that he was returned to Venezuela while still hooked up to life support.

He further accused the government of falsifying information, including photographs, and said that he had no connection with the Venezuelan opposition – effectively denying that he was doing this as part of a political campaign against the socialist leader.

"My sources are credible,” he said. “I can’t reveal them, but they come straight from Venezuela."

However, Cochez was dismissed by Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli on January 17 after he had approached the Venezuelan ambassador Roy Chaderton Matos and said that the situation in Venezuela was “wrong”.

Chavez told the world that he had cancer on June 30, 2011. A year later he said he was fully cured, but then in November of last year he said he would be going to Cuba for further treatment. In early December he said that his doctors had discovered new malignant cells, and that he would have to undergo another round of treatment, including surgery. Then on December 20 the Venezuelan vice-president said Chavez had suffered complications, and on January 3^rd these were confirmed as being due to a severe lung infection. However, on February 18 Chavez allegedly returned to Cuba, though no one has seen him in public.

(TE Wilson is the author of Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel.)

Twitter: @TimothyEWilson

Email: lapoliticaeslapolitica [at] gmail [dot] com

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