It was murder: the Chávez version of liberator's death

President turns sleuth to challenge historians' view of Simón Bolívar's demise

History books record that Simón Bolívar, the liberator of South America, died of tuberculosis in 1830: a banal end to a magnificent life. Now Bolívar is depicted as the victim of a perfect murder, a crime so deft that for almost two centuries nobody suspected a thing.

In the absence of any evidence to support the allegation, the amateur sleuth who made it would normally command little attention. But Hugo Chávez is difficult to ignore.

Venezuela's president elicited gasps when he told a press conference in Caracas that Bolívar did not succumb to disease. "He was assassinated - they wanted him dead."

The socialist leader said he had conducted his own investigation and concluded there was a conspiracy and cover-up. He asked scientists and historians to open an inquiry and promised "to move heaven and earth" to confirm the conclusion.

The allegation was the latest sign of Bolívar's elevation to the status of official deity. The president's reverence for the liberator, whom he calls a spiritual father, verges on theological. Chávez has renamed the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and describes his "socialist revolution" as a continuation of Bolívar's anti-imperialist ideals. At meetings he reportedly leaves a chair empty for the liberator's spirit.

"That chair would attest to the presence of the hero," wrote Elías Pino Iturrieta, a historian, in a book about the cult of Bolívar. "Occasionally the commander's eyes would gaze at that space, occupied by no one."

Chávez has spoken of ruling at least until 2021 because that is the 200th anniversary of Bolívar's triumph at the battle of Carabobo.

Murder would make Bolívar a martyr and enrich the theology. But analysts said the foray into a historical whodunnit also reflects Chávez's concern at growing opposition to his rule from within his movement.

"There is a contemporary tie-in. Chávez believes he is being stabbed in the back just like Bolívar was," said Steve Ellner, a political scientist at Venezuela's University of the East.

Official history states that Bolívar led insurgent armies that ousted Spanish colonial troops from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama, then resigned as president in April 1830 after a precipitous decline in his health, popularity and power. Abandoned by his senior commanders, the 47-year-old made a lonely, painful trek to a farmhouse in Santa Marta, Colombia, and succumbed to tuberculosis eight months later. The Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez immortalised his final days in the novel The General in his Labyrinth.

This week Chávez changed the script. "I am not convinced Bolívar died of tuberculosis." He had read up on contemporary documents, including the postmortem report, and conducted elementary detective work.

The key detail was the arduous trip just before his death. "Bolívar covered I don't know how many kilometres." According to an unnamed doctor whom the president consulted, such a feat would have been impossible for someone enfeebled by advanced tuberculosis. The other evidence was that many people wanted Bolívar dead. Chávez did not identify suspects but implied they were former allies who had fought with the liberator against the Spanish.

Coincidence or not, General Raúl Baduel, a former defence minister and long-time Chávez ally, broke with the president last week. He accused Chávez of nurturing dictatorship by abolishing term limits in a draft constitution that is expected to be passed in a referendum next month. Other figures within chavismo have expressed similar fears.

Chávez branded the dissidents "traitors" and repeated his claim that the US was fomenting a coup that could result in his assassination. His mentor and friend Fidel Castro echoed the concern. Washington tacitly backed a coup that briefly ousted Chávez in 2002.

Few doubt that Chávez believes his Bolívar theory. But few Venezuelans seem to share his belief. State television and newspapers ignored or played down the claim.