Hugo Chávez Says His Cancer May Have Returned

The announcement comes at the start of what could be Mr. Chávez’s most challenging re-election campaign since he first took office in 1999, and it seemed bound to unsettle the political landscape. Although he previously said that he had beaten cancer, questions about Mr. Chávez’s health have continued, including whether he would be able to campaign or stay in office if he were re-elected.

“I am in good physical condition to face this battle,” Mr. Chávez said on Tuesday, appearing to tear up as he spoke of not wanting his supporters to suffer on hearing the news of his setback. He spoke in a live television broadcast while touring a truck factory in his native state of Barinas, in western Venezuela.

During his remarks, the socialist president did not mention the political campaign or the election, which is scheduled for October, but he sounded a warning to critics who might take pleasure at his misfortune.

“Let no one be alarmed, and, I would say, let no one be happy, because independent of my personal destiny, this revolution, as Bolívar said one day, has gotten its start, and nothing and no one can stop it,” he said.

He denied reports and rumors that his cancer had spread to his liver or other parts of his body, or that he was dying.

“On the contrary, and it is good news,” he said. “I do not have metastasis anywhere.”

Mr. Chávez, 57, was given a diagnosis of cancer last June and underwent two operations in Cuba, followed by chemotherapy. His illness forced him to be absent from the country for long periods and tamped down his fiery presence, leading many to wonder whether he would be able to hold off the opposition during its electoral challenge.

Luis Vicente León, a political analyst, said that Mr. Chávez had built his political strategy around convincing the public that he had recovered from cancer. If he is able to keep campaigning, Mr. León said, he will in one sense be at a disadvantage against the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, 39, whose youth and energy will be accentuated in comparison with a weakened Mr. Chávez.

The president has never said exactly what kind of cancer he had, and his illness and treatment have been shrouded in mystery, which has fueled more doubts about his health. Those rumors spiked in recent days, as opponents of Mr. Chávez speculated on Twitter that he had been rushed to Cuba for an emergency operation. While the government made no official statement before Mr. Chávez’s appearance, the information minister, Andrés Izarra, called the rumors a “dirty war” in a Twitter post. Mr. Chávez said that he was responding to those rumors by making his announcement a day earlier than planned.

He said that he flew to Cuba over the weekend for a regular medical exam and that doctors had found a lesion about two centimeters in diameter in the same place that the tumor was found last year. He has said in the past only that his operation was in the pelvic region. Mr. Chávez said that the new operation should take place in the next few days and that doctors would perform tests to determine whether the lesion was malignant. He said Tuesday night that the procedure would take place in Cuba.

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Chávez Appears to Use Venezuelan Fuel to Help Syrian Leader

A ship owned by the Venezuelan state oil company sailed into the Syrian port of Baniyas, its location captured by a satellite system that tracks ship movements. The ship, making its second trip to Baniyas since December, appeared to be carrying fuel to help prop up the embattled Mr. Assad.

The Venezuelan shipment flies in the face of international efforts to isolate Mr. Assad and pressure him to step down, but Mr. Chávez is no stranger to such controversy. Last month, he played host to another Middle Eastern ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, ridiculing Western claims that Iran was seeking to be able to produce nuclear weapons.

Still, Mr. Chávez is at the start of what could prove to be a difficult re-election campaign overshadowed by his battle with cancer, and the political equation here may be shifting. While provocative moves like oil shipments to Syria play well among Mr. Chávez’s staunchest backers, they may prove to be a liability among voters who resent his oil tanker diplomacy.

The Venezuelan ship, the Negra Hipólita, arrived in the Syrian port on Feb. 15, according to John H. Paskin, the chief executive of Commodity Flow, a company based in London that compiles satellite data and other information to track the movement of ships.

He said the ship left a Venezuelan refinery complex at Puerto La Cruz on Jan. 25. The Puerto La Cruz complex produces gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel components, according to the Web site of the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, known as P.D.V.S.A.

Mr. Paskin said the tracking data showed that the ship made a previous trip to Syria last fall, leaving a Venezuelan refinery complex on the Paraguaná Peninsula on Oct. 15 and arriving at Baniyas on Dec. 1.

The ship is named after a slave who was a wet nurse and nanny to Simón Bolívar, the national hero, whom Mr. Chávez idolizes. A Venezuelan shipping broker said the shipment, first reported by Reuters, probably carried diesel and possibly other types of fuel.

Asked about the shipments and whether the fuel delivered could be used by Syria’s military, Mr. Chávez answered by referring to his country’s oil shipments to the United States, Venezuela’s largest customer.

“Have we by any chance asked the United States what it does with the fuel we sell to the United States?” he said in an exchange with reporters at the presidential palace last week. “Have we by any chance allowed anyone to impose conditions on our sale of petroleum to the United States?” He said that the answer was no and added, “We are a free country.”

William A. Ostick, a State Department spokesman, said that American or European sanctions did not prohibit shipments of fuel to Syria.

“We continue to work with the friends of the Syrian people to increase pressure on the Assad regime to get him to step down,” Mr. Ostick said.

Venezuela has some of the world’s largest oil reserves, and Mr. Chávez has benefited from the high price of oil as he uses petroleum revenues to finance social programs at home. He has also used oil aggressively to promote his interests abroad.

He has helped prop up the debilitated Cuban economy through shipments of oil in exchange for doctors to staff Venezuelan clinics and for other aid.

China has become a major buyer of Venezuelan oil, and loans and investments have followed.

Venezuela has backed isolated Middle Eastern governments before, sending a gasoline blending component to Iran in late 2010 and early 2011, action that drew a rebuke from the United States.

In supporting autocratic governments in the Middle East, Mr. Chávez has portrayed them as the victims of imperialist aggression. He sounds the same message at home, and it is carried daily on state media: Mr. Chávez as a champion standing up to the bullying of the United States.

Such views resonate with Mr. Chávez’s followers.

“The United States wants to impose a new hegemony,” said Pedro Correa, 56, an industrial draftsman from Santa Teresa del Tuy, a city about an hour’s drive south of central Caracas, who supports Mr. Chávez.

But many Venezuelans who oppose Mr. Chávez are quick to voice resentment of his petro-diplomacy, especially the generous deal with Cuba.

“He gave our riches away to other countries,” said Carlos Cedeño, 55, a driver for a concrete company in Maracay. He supports Mr. Chávez’s opponent in the presidential election this year, Henrique Capriles Radonski.

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Capriles to Challenge Chávez in Venezuela

The challenger, who won a primary election held jointly on Sunday by a spectrum of opposition parties, is Henrique Capriles Radonski, the fresh-faced governor of Miranda, one of the country’s most populous states, which includes a large swath of Caracas, the capital. Mr. Capriles, a political moderate, will challenge Mr. Chávez in the general election scheduled for Oct. 7, which will inevitably be seen as a referendum on the socialist incumbent’s tenure of more than 13 years.

Speaking before thousands of supporters in Caracas on Sunday night, Mr. Capriles vowed to bring the country together.

“I aspire to be the president of all Venezuelans,” Mr. Capriles said. “The message is clear. Venezuelans are fed up with confrontation, with division.” He criticized Mr. Chávez’s policies but did not mention him by name.

Mr. Chávez has repeatedly dismissed his opponents as the craven remnants of an old order dominated by a small, often corrupt oligarchy, while casting himself as the champion of revolution and a remade society.

It is not clear whether Mr. Chávez, 57, can make that stick against Mr. Capriles, who is 39.

Yet even with a unified opposition behind him, Mr. Capriles faces the steepest of uphill climbs running against the agile Mr. Chávez, who still enjoys strong support from important constituencies, like the poor people who have seen their lives improve under his government, and the government and state-owned company employees who may feel that their jobs depend on Mr. Chávez remaining president.

Before the primary on Sunday, Mr. Chávez said he would give the opposition “the beating of the century” in the general election, and he predicted that he would win by 40 percentage points. Mr. Chavez was re-elected easily in 2006 with 63 percent of the vote, against a divided opposition that lacked fresh personalities.

Luis Vicente León, a political analyst and pollster, said that though this year’s election “is an unbalanced fight,” the opposition is at its strongest in years and an upset is possible. Though there is deep polarization in the country, Mr. León said, polls show that about one-third of the electorate is undecided about whom to support in October.

That group is known here as the Ni-Nis, meaning Neither-Nors, committed neither to Mr. Chávez nor to the opposition. For Mr. Capriles to win, he must persuade these voters that he can improve their lives, not simply urge them to cast a vote against Mr. Chávez, Mr. León said.

The primary on Sunday was the first time that a group of different parties in Venezuela have asked voters to choose a unity candidate for them to back.

Officials said more than 2.9 million voters had taken part in the primary, with 95 percent of the vote counted, a larger turnout than many had expected. The high turnout could spell trouble for Mr. Chávez because it suggests that the opposition is energized and well organized. Mr. Capriles received more than 1.8 million votes, more than double the next closest finisher.

Though the opposition is more united than in the past, the charismatic Mr. Chávez still has vast advantages over any opponent, including control of an enormous pot of money from the state-run oil industry, social programs that pour money into poor neighborhoods and a ubiquitous propaganda machine that turns almost every government program into an advertisement for the president. Mr. Chávez and his supporters enjoy a nonstop presence on state television.

Mr. Chávez remains a larger-than-life figure here despite a fight with cancer and lingering questions about his health. He is a master showman with keen political instincts, presenting the world in stark us-versus-them colors and delighting in taunting his enemies.

In contrast, Mr. Capriles has sought so far not to lock horns with Mr. Chávez, saying the country is tired of the president’s bellicose talk and is ready for someone who can bring people together. He emphasizes his record as an administrator during his tenure as governor and, before that, as mayor of a section of Caracas.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

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