This past month, on July 16, in the middle of the night, Venezuelan
President, Hugo Chávez, along with aides, soldiers, a television crew, and
forensics experts gathered
to exhume Simón Bolívar. Simón Bolívar
helped free six countries from the Spanish Empire, rendering him the hero of
most of Latin America.
Chávez has
explained that Venezuela intends to perform tests to determine whether Bolívar
died not from tuberculosis but in fact from arsenic poisoning, a hypothesis
which is tied to a broader conspiracy scheme which also implicates Andrew
Jackson and the King of Spain. Though
the scientist who initially suggested a reexamination of Bolívar’s cause of
death points to possibly contaminated water or medicine which contained
arsenic, Chávez and the commission investigating this three-year study have
seized upon murder as the origin of the potential arsenic poisoning.
The history
behind Bolívar’s death, as is described in John Lynch’s biography Simón
Bolívar: A Life, is that he died at the country house of Joaquin Mier
three miles from St. Marta in Colombia, with
a funeral held on December 20, 1830.
Lynch strongly disagreed with the new assessments of arsenic poisoning,
saying to NPR
that “Historically, [Chávez has] got it all wrong…In spite of the
disagreements, my own view remains that of the tradition that he died of
tuberculosis.”
Why this
interest in Bolívar? As Lynch explains
in the final chapter of the biography, a cult has developed surrounding
Bolívar, molding him into sometimes propagandistic fiction. Bolívar was first exhumed much earlier, in
November 1842 to Caracas, his hometown in Venezuela. Since this move from Colombia to Venezuela, the term Bolívarian,
which referred to his close advisors, became a title for the many who promoted
an idealized vision of Bolívar.
Lynch also begins
to address Chávez’s efforts to continue to connect Bolívar and Venezuela, the latter which Lynch notes Chávez
renamed the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The political message of this exhumation clearly
goes beyond scientific research and continues these goals of Chávez. Once Bolívar’s remains have been tested they
will be moved to a new pantheon, replete with golden urn for his bones. With this new exhumation, many are examining
the actions of Chávez and how they fit in with what we know about Bolívar. Chávez has worked hard for a long time to be
seen as an heir to Bolívar. This
connection that Chávez has developed is refuted by a number of people,
including Thor Halvorssen, a descendant of Bolívar’s youngest sister. Halvorssen argues
that Chávez’s socialist leanings stray far from the Enlightenment ideals of Simón
Bolívar, who Halvorssen sees as Chávez’s chief competition.
To better
understand the history behind this complex issue, John Lynch’s biography Simón Bolívar: A Life is a close and
deeply researched look at the life and work of Bolívar.
