Chavez announces on Twitter he is back in Venezuela

CARACAS - Agence France-Presse

In this photo released Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 by Miraflores Presidential Press Office, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, center, poses for a photo with his daughters. AP Photo/Miraflores Presidential Press Office

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced in a Twitter message early on Monday that he had returned home to Venezuela following his cancer surgery in Cuba.

"We have arrived again to the Venezuelan motherland," Chavez wrote. "Thank you God. Thank you my beloved people. We will continue my treatment here." From the airport, he was taken to a military hospital in Caracas, said Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is the president's son-in-law. Chavez, 58, was first diagnosed with cancer in 2011. After surgery and treatment he declared himself free of the disease and went on to win another term in elections last October.

But he suffered a relapse, and after the latest surgery on December 11 in Havana he was still too sick to come back to Venezuela for his scheduled inauguration on January 10. The inauguration has been postponed indefinitely, and Vice President Nicolas Maduro has essentially been running Venezuela in Chavez's absence.