Conference builds solidarity with Venezuela

Activists gathered here Nov. 17-19 to show solidarity with the people of Venezuela and opposition to U.S. intervention in that country. Some 100 activists met at Macalester College, two weeks before the Dec. 3 presidential elections in Venezuela.

Those attending, many from Latin Americasolidarity groups both in the United States and abroad, participated in a weekend of cultural events, speeches, workshops and strategizing about how to raise the issue of Venezuela in the progressive movement.

A recent poll by the U.S.-based Evans/McDonough Co. showed President Hugo Chávez with a 22-point advantage over his leading rival. (AP, Nov. 7)

Nevertheless, speakers at the conference warned that the U.S.-backed opposition is “ready to declare election fraud” on the day after the election. They charged that Washington has channeled millions of dollars to right-wing opposition parties by way of “aid” to organizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy.

Dr. Nelson Pineda, Venezuela’s deputy ambassador to the Organization of American States, and Adina Bastidas, vice president of Venezuela from 2000-2002 and current executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank for Venezuela and Panama, took part in the conference.

Bastidas said that to understand the Venezuelan Revolution it’s necessary to see it “in the context of the neo-liberal model being imposed on the people of the world.” She said that the revolutionary struggle “has its roots in Venezuelan land. It’s not imported.”

Bastidas, who was the first woman vice president in Venezuela, cited many examples of the progress achieved in the past six years. She announced that UNICEF has now declared Venezuela free of illiteracy.

“We worked with a Cuban project,” said Bastidas, “recognized by UNICEF. And they have given us our ‘certificate of freedom from illiteracy.’ We achieved a millennium goal that was set for 2015; and we achieved it in 2005.”

She also cited remarkable health-care achievements. Now, she said, as a result of the Barrio Adentro (Inside the Neighborhood) program, in any neighborhood in Venezuela “there is a building where a doctor is available 24 hours a day.”

Jesus “Chucho” Garcia, founder of the Afro-Venezuelan Network, told the conference that Venezuela has delivered 100 million barrels of petrol to the most impoverished communities in the United States. Venezuela has also provided free eye surgery to poor people in Chicago under an eye-care program that flies patients to Venezuela for cataract operations.

“That’s solidarity,” said Garcia. “Contrast this to how the U.S. gives ‘foreign aid’ in order to promote counter-revolution.”

Audrey Thayer, a member of the White Earth Reservation and community organizer, connected the Venezuelan struggle with the aspirations of oppressed people in the United States.

She described the oppressive conditions for Native peoples in northern Minnesota, who face epidemic rates of incarceration, poverty and suicide. “I go to two to three funerals of young people every week,” she said. But she cited Venezuela’s example as a beacon of hope and moved the participants to applause when she said, “I want to thank Venezuela so very much.”

Jorge Veloz of the Afro-Venezuelan Network focused on the issue of racism and the role of indigenous peoples in the Bolivarian revolutionary process.

In the new Constitution, he said, “All the rights of the indigenous people are recognized. In order to re-found the Republic, we had to include and recognize all sectors of the country which had been excluded.”

Veloz continued: “Never before in Venezuela have the most excluded groupings had as much participation as they have today. In public discourse, the themes of racism and discrimination are ever present. This is what’s at stake on Dec. 3—all these advances of social inclusion.”

The weekend event was organized by the newly formed Venezuela Solidarity Conference. The group plans to celebrate an election victory and congratulate the reelected President Hugo Chávez with another meeting, on Dec. 4, at Macalester College, that will feature a live connection from Venezuela.

Readers can go to www.venezuelasolidarityconference.org for more information about the conference.