22/07/2010
The lights are off and my radio is on.
The chilling music builds to a crescendo and the voice of someone who sounds like Vincent Price says, “What awe-inspiring moments we've experienced tonight. We've seen the remains of the great Bolívar!”
Bolívar?
A team of experts in white protective suits open the casket to reveal…a Venezuelan flag—one the last physical obstacles in the pursuit of that elusive truth—of the answer to the question that has been on the minds of everyone from Mexico City to Buenos Aires since that fateful day in December 1830: What really killed Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco?
“I tell you,” the voice continues, “That glorious skeleton has to be Bolívar…”
“Tuberculosis?”
And now the voice starts to sound more like Robert Stack.
“More likely, murder.”
Ok, even if my imagination has maybe amplified the level of kitsch and added a David Caruso-like one-liner, these are the actual words of Hugo Chávez.
After hundreds and hundreds of episodes, I thought the material of Aló Presidente had finally got a little dry and predictable, but alas, Hugo really has outdone himself this time.
Just brilliant.
Here he’s been all these years, renaming his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (lest the statues all over the world and that country to the south with that remarkably similar name be associated with some other Bolívar) and giving away replicas of his man’s sword to Rob Mugabe and all his other misunderstood buddies. Yet somehow I didn’t see this coming.
Somewhere along the line he renounced what I thought was improvisation; but he had a vision all along, and that never should’ve been doubted.
31% inflation; rising crime rates; hundreds of thousands of pounds of imported food rotting on ports and in warehouses courtesy of his darling PDVAL (Venezuelan Food Producer and Distributor) —I thought the attempted coup back in 2002 was the rising action, his return to power—the climax, everything else an extended denouement.
That was still just the exposition.
This was always the plan for the rising action.
One thing is certain, his trusty team of CSIs will have every tool they need at their disposal to solve the case. But I really don’t know what the next move will be if somehow it’s determined his beloved Bolívar was in fact… murdered.
I haven’t thought that far ahead. Hugo certainly did.
It won’t take too much creativity to link the Monroe Doctrine (1823) to the murder (1830); after all, imperialists never change, right?
And if it really was tuberculosis?
Well, all this fun has to have at least been somewhat distracting…like maybe enough for everyone to forget about everything else till October...after those pesky parliamentary elections.
Maybe that’s a little cynical. They’re digging up the Ceauşescus in Romania.
Maybe disinterment is in. Maybe I’m out of touch with the modern zeitgeist.
And if that’s the case, the cause of death doesn’t really matter, does it?
There’re always other libertadores to dig up.
I always preferred San Martín, anyway…
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