Hugo Chavez presente!

March 6, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Venezuela's revolutionary leader Hugo Chavez has died. The Venezuelan people will face the enormous challenge of continuing their socialist revolution without unifying and mobilising figure of Chavez, who has been at the forefront of deepening and extending its radical course.

Green Left Weekly's Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, reported from Venezuela:

Venezuelan media today announced that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died.

At approximately 5.30pm local time on March 5, Vice-President Nicolas Maduro addressed the nation, stating that after nearly three months of treatment in Cuba and Venezuela, Chavez passed away in the Dr. Carlos Arvelo military hospital in Caracas.

“Those who die for life, can’t be called dead”, he stated, after announcing that the president has lost his two year battle with cancer.

Hugo Chavez, who was 58-years-old, was re-elected president in October 2012 (for the fifth time since 1998) on a platform of deepening the popuar and democratic socialist revolution his government has been leading. The Bolviarian revolution has greatly reduced poverty, nationalised strategic industries and promoted a range of new forms of participatory democracy.

Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, and its sister publication Green Left Weekly, sends its deepest condolences to the people of Venezuela and Latin America, and to all those around the globe who have been inspired both by Hugo Chavez's political struggle against exploitation and oppression, and his personal struggle against the deadly disease that finally struck him down.

Our mission statement states that, "Inspired by the unfolding socialist revolution in Venezuela, as well as the continuing example of socialist Cuba, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is a journal for 'Socialism of the 21st century', and the discussions and debates flowing from that powerful example of socialist renewal."

In that spirit, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal pledges its deep solidarity with Venezuelan people as they continue their revolution in the name of Hugo Chavez. Please follow analysis of those developments as they unfold with us at our Venezuela page HERE.

Readers are also urged to follow the developments at Green Left Weekly and Venezuelanalysis.

If you would like to join the solidarity movement with Venezuela, please visit the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network web page.