Chavez honors hero Bolivar with giant mausoleum

The remains of Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar will soon be moved to a modern structure in Caracas that towers over nearby buildings like an enormous ship's sail. The 50-meter (160-foot) tall structure, covered in white ceramic, was commissioned by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who fancies himself the 19th century revolutionary's ideological heir. The mausoleum will be accessible through a vestibule connected to the National Pantheon, a much smaller 19th century neo-Gothic church where other Venezuelan heroes are buried. Known here simply as the "Liberator", Bolivar is a towering figure in Venezuela's history. A portrait of Bolivar adorns buildings throughout the country, and even the national currency is named after him. Plans are for Bolivar's remains to be placed in a mahogany sarcophagus covered with precious stones that will sit on a simple elevated granite platform under the curved structure. Sunlight will stream in through a single skylight. Even before it was completed, this wave-shaped building has been a lightning rod for controversy, as its massive size and flashy architectural style clashes with the surrounding buildings. "It reflects a disproportionate ego -- a distortion in the proportion of things," said Venezuelan architect Oscar Tenreiro, who fretted that the looming mausoleum "minimizes" the nearby pantheon. Even the president of the Bolivarian Society of Venezuela, which promotes the work and life of Simon Bolivar, deemed the project off-kilter. "It was not necessary to build a work on an Pharaonic or Napoleonic scale," said Juan de Dios, regretting that the project had not been the subject of more public debate before it was built. "Bolivar was neither one nor the other," he said. Francisco Sesto, a local government official, insisted that the scale and scope of the $140 million project is appropriate for a figure of Bolivar's stature. "There has always been a feeling here that Bolivar had to have a mausoleum," he told AFP. Sesto dismisses criticism as being "politically motivated." A cherished military and political icon who died in 1830, Bolivar has been a supreme source of inspiration for Chavez, who calls his own efforts to remake his nation after socialist ideals a "Bolivarian revolution." Chavez also says his country is undergoing its "second and definitive" struggle for independence, after winning its hard-fought war against Spanish colonial rule in 1821. In addition to securing independence for Venezuela, Bolivar helped liberate Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia -- a country named in homage to the revolutionary general. In July 2010 Chavez ordered his hero's remains exhumed to look into a theory that Bolivar was poisoned by his enemies instead of dying of tuberculosis when he was 47, as history books say. The test results were inconclusive, but the exhumed bones at the time were honored at a sober ceremony at its former site, the National Mausoleum in Caracas. Chavez openly wept over the remains of his hero. "My God, my God," Chavez exclaimed in a Twitter update about the bones, which where laid to rest in the mausoleum in 1876. "I confess we cried." Chavez has been in power for 13 years, and during the last two years has been battling an undisclosed form of cancer. In October he faces a tough reelection battle against Henrique Capriles, the governor of the state of Miranda and the candidate of the unified opposition. In July 2011 Chavez joined national celebrations marking Bolivar's birth even as he was recovering from cancer surgery. "Today and forever Bolivar lives in us, our ideas, and our behavior every day," Chavez wrote via Twitter, saying Bolivar's legacy "must live on." Bolivar's remains are expected to be moved to the new site in July.