Chavez back to Venezuela after surgery

PanARMENIAN.Net - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in Caracas following surgery in Cuba to remove a second cancerous tumor from his pelvic area, Bloomberg reports.

Dressed in a black sports jacket over a red polo neck shirt, Chavez descended from the plane flanked by his mother and two eldest daughters to be greeted by ministers on the tarmac. During a 30-minute speech he said he’d followed events in Venezuela closely from Cuba and felt reinvigorated, while revealing little about his operation or plans to receive radiotherapy.

“Each day my spirit gives me more strength and will to live, more will to fight and more will to win and triumph against adversary and difficulties,” Chavez said in comments broadcast across all channels in Venezuela. “I have promised you: I will live.”

He said he’ll address supporters from a balcony in the presidential palace.

Chavez, who has refused to reveal exactly what kind of cancer he has or allow access to medical records, has insisted his health problems won’t prevent him from running in an election on Oct. 7 in which he’s seeking to extend his thirteen years in power until 2019.

He said last week that doctors in Cuba on Feb 26 removed a two-centimeter “lesion” from the same area where a larger tumor was removed in June. Doctors determined it was probably a malignant recurrence that hasn’t spread to other parts of his body, Chavez said March 4. He will probably undergo a course of radiation treatment once the scarring process finishes, he said in the pre-recorded speech from Havana.