Tags:
Journalism of Courage
World leaders gathered in Caracas to join throngs of mourners at a state funeral for Venezuelas Hugo Chavez Friday,while the nation begins life without him with the formal swearing-in of his political heir. The state funeral was set to begin at 2100 IST at a military academy. In the evening,Nicolas Maduro was set to be sworn in as interim president.
Venezuela plans to embalm Chavezs body for eternity. Other leaders whose bodies have been put on perpetual display:
VLADIMIR LENIN: Body of Soviet Unions founder has been displayed since January 1924 in a mausoleum at Red Square. Communists consider his tomb almost a shrine. The embalmment for display is considered the model for subsequent Communist world leaders put on exhibit.
JOSEF STALIN: Soviet dictators embalmed body was put on display next to Lenin on March 9,1953. Soviet authorities ordered it removed from the tomb October 31,1961,and had it buried during a period of de-Stalinization.
HO CHI MINH: Corpse of the Vietnamese revolutionary leader was put on display on August 29,1975. It rests in a glass sarcophagus in the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi and is a popular destination for tourists.
MAO ZEDONG: Embalmed body of the founding father of the Peoples Republic of China was unveiled on September 9,1977. It rests in the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in the centre of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Long lines of people form daily to view the man commonly known as Chairman Mao.
KIM IL-SUNG: Preserved body of the man considered the founding father of North Korea was unveiled on July 8,1995. It lies under glass for viewing purposes in the Kumsusan mausoleum,a cavernous former presidential palace.
KIM JONG-IL: The leaders body,still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit,was unveiled on December 17,2012,the anniversary of his death. It rests a few floors below the body of his father,Kim Il Sung,in the Kumsusan mausoleum.
