This article was originally posted by The Latin American Tribune

President Hugo Chávez has decreed national mourning for the death of Néstor Kirchner, the former president of the Argentine Republic, secretary general of Unasur, and, as the decree says, “his brother and comrade, his route companion.” And the purpose of this national mourning is apparently to “meditate in sorrow on the work of this immense American.”

The communiqué sings the praises of Néstor Kirchner because it was as a result of the “clear leadership, unbreakable courage, and determination of this faithful heir of the great Juan Domingo Perón that Argentina rose from the ashes to which neoliberal capitalism wanted to reduce it to once again find the place that was always reserved for it in the field of free and independent nations.”

Regardless of whether this national mourning was appropriate or not, its declaration gives food for thought.

First of all, it would have been commendable had the Chávez administration extended similar courtesies upon the death of Luis Herrera Campins (2007) and Rafael Caldera (2009), two former Venezuelan presidents who died during Chávez’s terms in office and who have earned many more credits in the struggle for the democracy and freedom of the peoples of America than Kirchner.

Not only that, thousands of Venezuelan families would also have liked to hear during the President’s constant marathon broadcasts even the slightest word of condolence for the loss of their loved ones at the hands of criminals. According to the report “A decade of impunity in Venezuela (1998-2009)” by the Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), more than 120,000 Venezuelan have fallen victims to crime and Chávez has been heard to say little, not to say nothing, by way of regret for the useless loss of those lives.

Another thought that comes to mind is that this contempt for everything that does not fit in with the revolutionary context has led Chávez to want to rewrite the history not only of Venezuela but of other nations as well.

Just as today he turns a dictator such as Perón into the “great Juan Domingo Perón,” so has he tried to erase Venezuela’s historical roots and great leaders of democracy from its collective memory. That is why he has renamed squares, parks, avenues, and freeways to remove the names of the country’s leaders, as he did with Rómulo Betancourt Park, which today carries the name of Francisco de Miranda.

In short, sadly “the State has ceased to serve constitutional freedoms and guarantees in order to serve a totalitarian ideology,” as former Ambassador Diego Arria put it this Wednesday at VenEconomy’s seminar “Venezuela 2010-2012?”