Plans to display the remains of deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a glass coffin for eternity are now impossible.
Venezuelan officials had lofty goals to follow in the footsteps of Russia’s Lenin and China’s Mao, by displaying Chavez in a glass coffin forever. But acting President Nicolas Maduro announced last week that scientists have determined the process to embalm and therefore eternally preserve Chavez would now be “quite difficult.” The preservation process has not yet occurred and should have begun much sooner for it work. Starting it now would be much too late and ineffective.
Realizing now that there is no other alternative than to bury Chavez, Maduro spoke to Chavez’s mourners. “More than your physical body, we have the commander in eternal memory, especially this generation who heard it, touched it, saw him,” Maduro said. “We have to keep alive his image, his voice, his thinking.”
