VHeadline Venezuela News (Roy S. Carson) reports: In a last-minute decree issued under an congressionally-approved "Enabling Act" granting him special discretionary powers, Venezuela's President (Lt.Colonel) Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias has promoted himself to the rank of 4-Star General and Commander-in-Chief under a modification of the National Armed Forces Act -- LOFA -- as set out in Presidential Decree 6,239, dated August 1, 2008.
Under Article 40 of LOFA it states that "the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has the military rank of Commander in Chief, and is the highest hierarchical authority of the National Armed Forces. The insignia grade and the banner of Commander-in-Chief will be established in respective regulations." Those regulations, prepared and approved by the Ministry of Defense show that the rank of Commander-in-Chief bears with it the rank of "four suns" (the Venezuelan equivalent of four stars!).
Local newspaper reports published today, Saturday (August 2) say the military degree is a Constitutional rank given to the Presidency of the Republic "as a symbol of the subordination of military power to civilian authority."
Elsewhere in Latin America, however, the Presidential rank is only held by the Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba ... retired President Fidel Castro.
VHeadline Venezuela News
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Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future
