Chavez Gets Hero's Welcome at World Social Forum

[RPankn]

By Alan Clendenning Associated Press Writer

Published: Jan 30, 2005


PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) - Sporting a red shirt embossed with a picture of the revolutionary Che Guevera, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome Sunday at the World Social Forum, where activists greeted him with hugs and cries of "Here comes the boss!"

Tens of thousands of people attending the six-day gathering held to protest the simultaneous World Economic Forum in Switzerland consider Chavez their strongest voice against the U.S.-sponsored spread of liberalized trade in Latin America, a move they say benefits multinational companies while enslaving workers.

"Now the imperialist forces are starting to strike against the people of Latin America and the world," Chavez said. "And it's up to our soldiers to stay alert and be prepared to defend the people and not to submit themselves to the interests of the empire."

Chavez, a self-described revolutionary, is mounting an aggressive land reform campaign and funneling profits from Venezuela's oil riches to the poor as part of a political movement loosely based on the ideas of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

While Chavez was cheered at the social forum, some jeered Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva when he spoke Thursday, accusing him of failing to come through on promises of social reforms to eradicate Brazilian misery.

Chavez was greeted like a rock star by 15,000 activists in a sports stadium, and came to Silva's defense after speaking for an hour and a half against American imperialism.

"I love Lula!" he yelled. "I respect him. Lula is a good guy with a big heart. He's a brother and a comrade." Silva is popularly known as Lula.

Brazilian activist Gledson Oliveira, who lives in the country's impoverished northeast, called Chavez "an icon of the struggling classes right now from a socialist perspective."

"He's taking on agrarian reform and improving education, showing he's a true revolutionary," Oliveira said. "I think the Brazilian public was expecting from Lula something like Chavez is providing in Venezuela."

Earlier Sunday, Chavez traveled 81 miles in a heavily guarded convoy to the town of Teves, visiting a cooperative at the end of a bumpy dirt road, where poor farmers with no land invaded a spread of unused property seven years ago.

The 33 families squatted on the land for years, went to the courts to win possession and now grow rice, corn and fruit. Chavez donned a keffiyah, the checkered Arab headdress, given to him by an admirer and asked farmers what they used to fertilize their crops. Then he dumped a bag of live fish into a rice paddy to control pests and weeds.

To cheers from thousands of members of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement, many of them bused in from hundreds of miles away, Chavez said his government will attempt to expropriate 7.4 million acres this year and give it to peasants.

An additional 42 million acres in Venezuela may be seized to combat what he described as modern-day feudal land ownership of huge estates by the rich and businesses.

"This can't be tolerated," Chavez said. "We're going to keep on giving power to the people."

Landless Brazilian farmers stage invasions of idle farmland, then stay and work the land while they take the owners to court in a bid to gain title.

Activists at the social forum say Chavez is eclipsing Silva in agrarian reform with a push the Venezuelan leader has called "war against owners of large land estates." It uses a 2001 law allowing the taxation and expropriation of idle farmlands.

Government opponents, including cattle ranchers and owners of large land estates, argue the law is unconstitutional because it violates private property rights that are constitutionally guaranteed.

But Jacek Padee, a Pole who has been living in Brazil for more than a year while studying the landless movement, said Chavez is in a better position than Silva to promote land redistribution because Venezuela has vast oil reserves to prop up its economy. Silva has had to struggle to turn Brazil's economy around after a near-recession in 2003.

American Mike Fox, of San Francisco's Global Exchange human rights group, said Chavez has become the model leftist leader in Latin America.

Since surviving a referendum bid last year aimed at ousting him, Chavez has promised a new role for Venezuela's state-owned oil company in the "redistribution of national income." High oil prices have allowed the Venezuelan leader to fund massive social programs for the poor.

"In Latin America, he's the one a lot of people in other countries are looking to with a lot of hope," Fox said.

AP-ES-01-30-05 1941EST


ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBYDUVXL4E.html

[RPankn]

I'll give anyone $1 million if they can find where Chavez has a picture of Guevara on his shirt in these pictures from the WSF. Maybe $1 if a picture of Chavez wearing a keffiyah can be found. But, like the purported picture of Guevara, I think it's more AP propaganda on behalf of the Judeo-Christian fascist 5th column which has hijacked this country.

[Moses]

Who is Alan Clendenning? AP has no way of challenging their stories, I think. No editor to write to or anything like that.

[Moses]

Maybe its that tiny little circle thing the size of a shoe-button?

[camaxtle]

Hell yeah and Hallelujah. More Latin American leaders need to look to Chavez for direction. If Colombia could get it together it would be a real wake up call to the United States. Anyone ever read "Laberinto de Soldedad" Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz. An excellent book that explains through history why Democracy has such a hard time flourising in Latin America. It all goes back to the conquest and everything since then. He suggested the ideal form of government for Latin American countries is a elected Monarchy. Having lived in Mexico and Colombia, I tend to agree.
Okay you can all ream me a new one now.

[Moses]

What about Hernando De Soto's ideas? (Which haven't come about because those who hold power and property will not allow the status quo to change).

[RPankn]

Imperialism Is Not Invincible

Venezuela’s Chavez Closes World Social Forum With Call To Transcend Capitalism

February 01, 2005

by Cleto A. Sojo
Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, Jan 30, 2005 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was warmly received at the 2005 edition of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he held several meetings with local leaders, intellectuals and activists, and gave the closing speech at the Gigantinho Stadium. Chavez generated great interest among Forum participants, many of whom see Chavez and his project of political transformations being implemented in Venezuela, as an inspiration in the struggles for a more better world.

The Venezuelan President visited the Lagoa do Junco agrarian settlement in Tapes set up by Brazil's Landless Movement (MST), and later held a press conference with more than 120 media organizations, where he criticized the U.S. government for claiming to lead a fight against terrorism while undermining democracy in Venezuela. [Unlike the AP article, no mention of Chavez wearing a keffiyah to inflame American imperialistic sensibilities]

Chavez highlighted the recent creation of Latin American satellite TV network TVSur, "which will allow us to tell our people’s reality in our own words." He added that TVSur will be at the disposal of the people, not of governments.

The leader added that his country's military forces are undergoing a period of modernization of its weapon systems and resources, but asserted that it is aimed at defending the country's sovereignty. "Venezuela will not attack anybody, but don’t attack Venezuela, because you will find us ready to defend our sovereignty, and the project we are carrying forward," he added.


"The FTAA is death"

During the closing speech at the Gigantinho Stadium, the president added that the 2005 arrived and the FTAA was not implemented. "The FTAA is death, what they got was mini-FTAA’s because the U.S. imperialism did not have the strength to impose the neocolonial model of the FTAA."

The President highlighted the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a proposal made by Venezuela in opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), and which emphasizes social and cultural exchanges above profit-based economic deals. "We can’t wait for a sustained economic growth of 10 years in order to start reducing poverty through the trickledown effect, as the neoliberal economic theories propose."[/u]

He praised the cooperation with Cuba, which along with several Central American countries, receives Venezuelan oil at below market prices, in exchange for assistance in healthcare, education, agriculture and other areas. He highlighted that about 20.000 Cuban doctors work in Venezuela at free medical clinics in poor neighborhoods, and that Venezuela has used a Cuban literacy method approved by UNESCO that has allowed more than 1.3 million Venezuelans learn how to read and write. He said Venezuela is using Cuban vaccines, which now allow poor children to be vaccinated against diseases such as hepatitis.

The President criticized alleged media distortions with regard to plans by Fidel Castro and him to spread Communism in the Americas, overthrow governments and set up guerrillas, "after 10 years it seems like we haven’t been very successful."

"Cuba has its own profile and Venezuela has its own, but we have respect for each other, but we celebrate accords and advance together for the interest of our peoples." He said that any aggression against either country will have to confront the other, "because we are united in spirit from Mexico down to the Patagonia."

Chavez said U.S.-Venezuela political relations are unhealthy because of “permanent aggressions from there”. He criticized U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who recently asserted that Chavez was “a negative force in the region.” He said those relations will stay unhealthy as long as the U.S. continues their policies of aggression. "The most negative force in the world today is the government of the United States," he said.

The President criticized the U.S. government for asking other countries to pressure Venezuela in the crisis with Colombia over the kidnapping of a Colombian guerrilla activist in Caracas last December. “Nobody answered their call… they are more lonely everyday.” He praised the cooperation of other Latin American countries in the resolution of the crisis, and mentioned that Cuban President Fidel Castro held talks with Colombian President Jorge Uribe to try to help in the resolution of the crisis. Chavez agreed to meet Uribe early in February to settle the dispute.


"Imperialism not invincible"

Chavez added that U.S. imperialism is not invincible. "Look at Vietnam, look at Iraq and Cuba resisting, and now look at Venezuela." In reference to the recommendations of some of his close advisors, he said that "some people say that we cannot say nor do anything that can irritate those in Washington." He repeated the words of Argentine independence hero José de San Martin "let’s be free without caring about anyone else says."

"When imperialism feels weak, it resorts to brute force. The attacks on Venezuela are a sign of weakness, ideological weakness. Nowadays almost nobody defends neoliberalism. Up until three years ago, just Fidel [Castro] and I raised those criticisms at Presidential meetings. We felt lonely, as if we were infiltrated at those meetings."

He added that those ideological and economic weaknesses will continue to increase. "Just look at the internal repression inside the United States, the Patriot Act, which is a repressive law against the U.S. citizens. They have put in jail a group of journalists for not revealing their sources. They won't allow them to take pictures of the bodies of the dead soldiers, many of them Latinos, coming from Iraq. Those are signs of Goliath's weaknesses."

[Continued in next post]

[RPankn]

"The south also exists"

He said there were old and new actors in the geopolitical map who are coming into the scene and have an influence in the weaknesses and strengths of the U.S. hegemony. "Today's Russia is not Yeltsin's... there is new Russian nationalism, and I have seen it in the streets of Moscow... there is a good president, Mr. Putin, at the wheel." He also praised China's fast economic growth, and highlighted the new Spanish socialist government, "which no longer bends its knees in front of U.S. imperialism."

"The south also exists... the future of the north depends on the south. If we don't make that better world possible, if we fail, and through the rifles of the U.S. Marines, and through Mr. Bush's murderous bombs, if there is no coincidence and organization necessary in the south to resist the offensive of neo-imperialism, and the Bush doctrine is imposed upon the world, the world will go into destruction," he said.

Chavez warned of drastic weather changes that would bring catastrophic events if no action is taken soon, in reference to uncontrolled or little regulated industrial activity. Chavez added that perhaps before those drastic changes take place, there will be rebellions everywhere "because the peoples are not going to accept in peace impositions such as neoliberalism or such as colonialism."


"The U.S. people are our brothers"

He added that all empires come to an end. "One day the decay inside U.S. imperialism will end up toppling it, and the great people of Martin Luther King will be set free. The great people of the United States are our brothers, my salute to them."

"We must start talking again about equality. The U.S. government talks about freedom and liberty, but never about equality. "They are not interested in equality. This is a distorted concept of liberty. The U.S. people, with whom we share dreams and ideals, must free themselves… A country of heroes, dreamers, and fighters, the people of Martin Luther King, and Cesar Chavez."


Christ "revolutionary"

Chavez thanked Spanish intellectual and director of Lemonde Diplomatique Ignacio Ramonet for saying that Chavez was a new type of leader. He said he is inspired by old types of leaders such as Christ, whom he described as "one of the greatest anti-imperialist fighters, the redeemers of the poor, and own of the greatest revolutionaries of the history of the world." The President mentioned Venezuela’s independent hero Simon Bolivar, Brazil's José Ignacio Abreu Elima, Che Guevara "that Argentine doctor that traveled through the continent in a motorcycle and who was a witness of the U.S. invasion of Guatemala in 1955, one of the many invasions of the U.S. empire in this continent," and Cuban President Fidel Castro.


“Capitalism must be transcended”<br>
"Everyday I become more convinced, there is no doubt in my mind, and as many intellectuals have said, that it is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism can’t be transcended from with capitalism itself, but through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. But I’m also convinced that it is possible to do it under democracy, but not in the type of democracy being imposed from Washington," he said.

Chavez said that Venezuela is trying to implement a social economy. "It is impossible, within the framework of the capitalist system to solve the grave problems of poverty of the majority of the world’s population. We must transcend capitalism. But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one which puts humans, and not machines or the state ahead of everything. That’s the debate we must promote around the world, and the WSF is a good place to do it."

He added that in spite of his admiration for Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, he said Che’s methods are not applicable. "That thesis of one, two, or three Vietnams, did not work, especially in Venezuela."

The President cited Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky by saying that "each revolution needs the whip of the counterrevolution to advance." He listed actions by the opposition and the U.S. government to drive him out of power. "But we resisted, and now have gone into the offensive. For instance, we recovered our oil industry... In 2004, from the oil industry budget we utilized $4 billion in social investments, education, health, micro-credits, scholarships, and housing, aimed at the poorest of the poor, what neoliberals call waste of money. But that is not a waste of money because it is aimed at empowering the poor so that they can defeat poverty. He added that "that money before stayed out of Venezuela or just benefited the rich."

He criticized privatizations by saying that "privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can’t be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can’t be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights."


Defends Lula

Chavez defended Brazilian President Luis "Lula" Da Silva, who has been sharply criticized by the Latin American left, and who was booed during his speech at the World Social Forum.

"I say this from the bottom of my heart. In Venezuela at the beginning of my presidency, many of my supporters criticized me and asked me to go at a faster pace [to implement changes], and be more radical, but I considered that it was not the right moment because each process has several phases and different rhythms that not only have to do with internal situations in each country, but with the international situation at the time. So, I risking that you make some strange noise, want to say that I like Lula, I appreciate him, and he is a good man, of a great heart. He is a brother, a comrade and I send him a hug, my love and affection. I'm sure that with Lula and the people of Brazil, with Nestor Kirchner and the Argentine people, with Tabaré Vasquez and the Uruguayan people, we will be opening the path to realizing the dream of a united Latin America."


www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=7151

[Moses]

Such a great speech!! Scarey that no one here is giving it, and instead, a former military man without such a good reputation. And yet can you find one flaw in this speech?