Venezuela gave Hugo Chavez a lavish farewell on Friday at a state funeral that brought some of the world’s most notorious strongmen to tears, with music, prayers and a fiery speech by his successor.

Venezuela gave Hugo Chavez a lavish farewell on Friday at a state funeral that brought some of the world's most notorious strongmen to tears, with music, prayers and a fiery speech by his successor.

More than 30 heads of state paid tribute to the leftist president as his body lay in state in a flag-covered coffin at a military academy.

"There you are, undefeated, pure, transparent, unique, true, alive forever," his political heir, Nicolas Maduro.

"Mission accomplished comandante! The struggle goes on," he added, the vice president due to be sworn in as acting president later Friday.

Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus sat next to each other, wiping away tears as a band played one of Chavez's favorite sentimental songs, typical from his native land.

"We have lost a great leader, a great man," Ahmadinejad said after the ceremony. "Hugo came from the people and he served the people."

Several Latin American leaders, including Cuban President Raul Castro, were invited to stand around the coffin, which was closed and covered in the yellow, blue and red colors of Venezuela, in an honor guard.

Chavez's body will lie in state for seven more days and officials said his body will be embalmed and preserved "like Lenin" to rest in a glass casket in the military barracks where he plotted a failed coup in 1992.

Foreign Minister Elias Jaua and a crowd of flag-waving Chavez supporters greeted leaders as they arrived at the military academy for the funeral. The crowd chanted "Chavez lives, the struggle goes on!"

Venezuela is giving Chavez a long farewell, with hundreds of thousands of people filing past his open casket nonstop since Wednesday, one day after Chavez lost his two-year battle with cancer at age 58.

Some fainted from the heat, many spent the night outside to see the man who became a hero of the poor with social programs funded by Venezuela's vast oil wealth.

The doors re-opened to the public after the funeral and the casket was half-open again, allowing people to once more see his face.

Leaders from Africa and the Caribbean attended the funeral but European nations sent lower-level delegations while the United States was represented by its charge d'affaires and two Democratic Party politicians.

Despite testy ties, Maduro welcomed US Representative Gregory Meeks of New York and former congressman Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, who were sent by President Barack Obama to the ceremony.

"We love all people of the Americas. But we want relations of respect, of cooperation, of true peace," he said, calling for a world "without empires."

US black civil rights leader Jesse Jackson gave a prayer, urging God to "heal the breach between the US and Venezuela."

Maduro said Thursday Chavez's body will be taken to the "Mountain Barracks" in the "January 23", a public housing project that was a bastion of Chavez support. The barracks is to be converted into a Museum of the Revolution.

It was there that Chavez spearheaded what proved to be a failed coup against then-President Carlos Andres Perez on February 4, 1992. His arrest turned him into a hero and led to his first of many election victories in 1998.