By Jane Nambi

Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez allegedly died from a heart attack which he suffered shortly before he died on Tuesday 5th March.

The head of Venezuela’s presidential guard on Wednesday said Chavez suffered a heart attack. He said the late Chavez mouthed that he still wanted to live. “He couldn’t speak but he said it with his lips … `I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die,’ because he loved his country, he sacrificed himself for his country,” Gen. Jose Ornella said.

Gen. Ornella said he spent the last two years with Chavez. Chavez was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and spent the last two years of his rule battling with the disease. He said Chavez’s cancer was very advanced when death came but gave no details.

Government had earlier on announced, on the eve of Chavez’s death, that he had suffered a severe new respiratory infection. It is not clear what kind of cancer Chavez had. During the first lung infection, doctors implanted a tracheal tube to ease Chavez’s breathing, but breathing insufficiency persisted and worsened, government revealed.

Ornella said that Chavez had “the best” doctors from all over the world but that they never discussed the president’s condition in front of him. “He suffered a lot.”

“I think it will be 50 years before they declassify a document (that) I think (will show) the hand of the enemy is involved,” he said. Acting president, Maduro suggested possible U.S. involvement on Tuesday but the U.S. State Department called the allegation absurd.

Chavez died Tuesday afternoon in a Caracas military hospital where he had been since returning from Cuba on Feb. 18.