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I've always admired President Chavez for standing up to imperialism and the meddling of the American government in South America.

I am just a humble worker. Commander Chavez decided I should be president. To President Obama, we remember that young leader and of the workers of Chicago. So we have a different kind of relation. For him and John Kerry. We talked to Edward Kennedy.

I can tell you that I never aspired to be president. I always honour something that Commander Chavez told us: that while we were in these posts, we must be clothed in humility and understand that we are here to protect the man and woman of the streets.

I admire President Chavez for his strength to resist the United States. Instead, Bush is waging a war of terrorism against the world.

Chavez made a compete fool of himself in front of the entire world while giving the U.N. a black eye. But the real losers are the Venezuelan people who have to put up with this unstable character every day.

One of my biggest inspirations is President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Yea, President Hugo.

Chavez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody.

I barely need to reiterate what you already know: the close links that exist between our people and the people of Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, the promoter of the Bolivarian Revolution and the United Socialist Party he founded.

In 1958, a year before the revolution, Magnum wanted to send me to Cuba because they had contacts with the rebels. I'd just spent six months in South America and said 'No', so I missed everything.

This has been a great victory for the Venezuelan people.