Venezuelan ambassador discusses ‘offensive against poverty’

Standing ovations greeted Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez at a Community Meet and Greet Reception in Detroit June 14. Organized by Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, the packed grassroots potluck was supported by U.S./ Cuba Labor Exchange, Justice for Cuba Coalition, Latinos Unidos, International Action Center, Call ‘em Out and more.

The community reception capped a daylong visit to Michigan by the ambassador and representatives from the Venezuelan Consulate in Chicago facilitated by Michigan State Rep. LaMar Lemmons III.

Ambassador Alvarez explained how the home heating oil program that assisted 200,000 people in nine U.S. states last winter grew from needs exposed by the Katrina hurricane disaster. Bolivarian Venezuela organized immediate aid, including opening CITGO’s Lake Charles oil refinery for emergency shelter, funding housing for evacuees in Houston and even bringing buses from Miami to transport stranded people to safety. But Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez predicted that the skyrocketing oil prices from the hurricanes compounding the invasion of Iraq would create even more hardships in poor communities inside the United States.

“Then we started thinking that the most vulnerable, the weak sectors of society were the low-income families who use heating oil,” Alvarez said.

The crowd, many of whom are veteran fighters for affordable water, erupted in applause when Alvarez quoted President Chávez: “You know that we always talk about the North and the South. He said what is key here for me is that the South exists in the North. All these struggles we have had against neoliberalism and this idea of an inhuman form of capitalism is not only affecting us, it is affecting people in the U.S.”

In addition to the social exclusion of the African American communities exposed by Katrina, Alvarez observed personally through heating oil deliveries that in Vermont and other Northeastern states many white people are also very poor. Alvarez described the condition of one oil recipient on a fixed income whose husband is unemployed and suffering from severe diabetes: “For her it is as simple as whether she heats her house or pays for medicine. As simple as that! It is incredible.”

Alvarez commented that perhaps the most advanced societies are in Africa and among the indigenous in Latin America because although there is poverty no one is left behind.

As many in Detroit fear anti-immigrant deportation raids, a special note hit home with the crowd. Alvarez described how the Bolivarian government found 3 million people in Venezuela with no official identification documents. Nearly 1 million of them were immigrants from Haiti, Colom bia, Ecuador and other countries. All have received Venezuelan citizenship and the right to maintain dual citizenship.

Alvarez announced a new program to extend the free eye surgery program begun by Cuba to the U.S. Midwest. He also told of plans to transform the value of the oil discount into a social development fund.

Alvarez summed up his message saying: “The only way to fight poverty is through empowering the poor people. Be part of this offensive against poverty and exclusion.

Again, we are not going to solve all the problems. But together we can show that another world is possible, with a little resources and a lot of solidarity.”

While in Michigan, Ambassador Alvarez and the Chicago Consulate delegation met with the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus in Lansing, and in Detroit with city council members and the mayor.