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State media: Chavez returning to Venezuela

Posted at 9:47 PM, Apr 11, 2012
and last updated 2012-04-11 21:47:49-04

(CNN) — Hugo Chavez was leaving Cuba and heading back to Venezuela Wednesday night, state media reported.

A post on the Venezuelan president’s official Twitter account said Chavez was leaving Cuba.

“We are taking off! Toward the Cradle Country,” the Twitter post said.

Chavez has been in Cuba, where he is undergoing cancer treatment, since Sunday.

His planned return to Venezuela comes as the country marks the anniversary of a 2002 coup that briefly removed Chavez from power. The state-run AVN news agency reported that he was expected to take part in events commemorating the failed coup.

“The empire and its bourgeois lackeys thought they were overthrowing us. I said to them: This is not a disarmed revolution,” another Twitter post on the president’s official account said.

Doctors in Cuba have operated on Chavez twice to remove cancerous tumors, he has said.

Since the beginning of the year, the 57-year-old president has spent 38 days in Havana.

Chavez has not specified the type of cancer he is battling, and the government has released few specifics — fueling widespread speculation about his health and political future.

The outspoken, flamboyant socialist leader has led Venezuela since 1999 and has pledged to run for re-election in October.