www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, February 03, 2003 - 2:31:19 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

According to Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) secretary general Manuel Cova, the results of Sunday's Opposition-organized petition, which is estimated to have been signed by around four million of Venezuela's 12 million registered voters, should be translated into actions during the Organization of American States (OAS) peace negotiations.

• This should happen over the next few days and produce "the final direction that the people should take towards an electoral solution."

In Cova's opinion, Sunday's events should have a major impact on the international community and in particular the Friends of Venezuela group, made up of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States and this should now be "taken into account" during negotiations.

"We demonstrated that the opposition is in the majority in Venezuela, that President Hugo Chavez Frias has already lost the support of the vast majority of the Venezuelan people."

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, February 03, 2003 - 3:15:51 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Millions of Venezuelans across the country took part in the opposition-organized petition on Sunday, during which they were asked to choose one out of ten possible solutions to the current political crisis, with a constitutional amendment cutting the term of President Hugo Chavez Frias to four from six years being the preferred option for Coordinadora Democratica leaders. 

3,650 booths were set up nationwide and opposition leaders hoped several million of Venezuela's 12 million registered voters would turn up and participate, as for an amendment to be considered they need to collect signatures from 15% of these voters, around 1.8 million. 

This solution was one of the two proposed by former US President Jimmy Carter, with the other being that the opposition waits for the August revocatory referendum that is permitted within the current Constitution. 

The result of Sunday's petition is unlikely to be known for several days, but early impressions appeared to please opposition leaders, who applauded the high turn out.

www.greenleft.org.au BY ORLANDO SEPULVEDA

PORTO ALEGRE — Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva spoke to tens of thousands of people at the World Social Forum (WSF) on January 25. It was the first time that Lula, a former factory worker and union leader, addressed a mass audience of the left as leader of the biggest nation in Latin America.

There was a great deal of expectation about the speech — particularly after the announcement that Lula would then go on to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to meet the world's top political officials and corporate chiefs.

But in his speech at the WSF, a very cautious Lula explained to his followers that the times are tough — and that it would be practically impossible to comply with every one of the demands of the Brazilian people. “We have four long years to work”, Lula said. He claimed that he was going to Davos “to bring the voice of Porto Alegre to them".

Despite the fact that the WSF showed very clearly the widespread opposition to neoliberalism, the Washington-backed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and George Bush's war on Iraq, Lula followed the same script in Davos as all new presidents who want to gain the favour of the big moneylenders. In his speech to the wealthy and powerful, he spoke of fiscal responsibility and greater openness to imports and foreign investment.

Two days later, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez came to Porto Alegre for an indoor rally at the city hall and a press conference. News of Chavez's visit spread like wildfire, with people attending the WSF anxious to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of Venezuela.

Delegates understand that the workers and poor of Venezuela are suffering from a disruption of the oil industry by a bosses' “strike" backed the Bush administration. Many have organised solidarity activities, such as a Brazilian youth group that issued a statement opposing the bosses' strike and denouncing US imperialism.

Unfortunately, the WSF authorities didn't provide space for Chavez to speak to a mass demonstration. This would have been a great opportunity to show support for the Venezuelan people.

The close relationship between the organisers of the WSF and the Brazilian Workers Party, Lula's party, is responsible for this missed opportunity.

Lula was given the chance to speak to a mass meeting of the Latin American left to crown his career from trade union organiser to Brazilian president — and by extension, the new leader of Latin America. But now, as president, Lula wants to be seen as the leader of all Brazilians — including Brazilian capitalists. So he didn't make the kind of fiery speech that he's famous for — and WSF organisers apparently didn't want Chavez to upstage him.

Lula did provide emergency oil shipments to Venezuela during the bosses' strike. But he also tried to broker a deal with an international “group of friends" of Venezuela that included the US — even though Washington openly backed a coup attempt last April.

Chavez and Lula don't have fundamental differences in their approach to issues like the FTAA, the International Monetary Fund and neoliberalism. Chavez was unacceptable to the WSF organisers, who were afraid of giving away Lula's leadership. This approach deprived the Venezuelan people of a great opportunity to gain the kind of international solidarity that they urgently need.

[From Socialist Worker, weekly paper of the US International Socialist Organization. Visit www.socialistworker.org.]

From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

www.greenleft.org.au BY FEDERICO FUENTES

PORTO ALEGRE — This year's World Social Forum (WSF), a countersummit to the corporate elite's World Economic Forum, held in this southern Brazilian city, January 23-28, attracted 100,000 participants, including 20,763 delegates, representing 5717 organisations from 156 countries.

The third WSF had two central themes — the growing resistance to the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and opposition to the impending US-led war on Iraq. These two themes predominated on the banners and placards carried by participants at the WSF's opening march through the streets of Porto Alegre and on the march which concluded the official agenda of the WSF. They were also the main themes reflected in the panels and 1700 workshops held during the forum.

In the opening panel, entitled “Against Militarisation and War” renowned Marxist scholar Istvan Meszaros, noted that in the context of this current US war drive, Rosa Luxemburg's famous saying had to be modified to read “socialism or barbarism … if we are lucky”. The panelists each stressed the point that war was an integral part of the neoliberal drive for “free markets” and global “free trade” and therefore had to be seen as an integral part of the anti-neoliberal movement around the world.

Egyptian-born political economist Samir Amin added that without stopping the current US drive for permanent war, “no progressive change would be possible”. New Left Review editor Tariq Ali pointed out the key role that the anti-war movements in the US and Britain had to play in order to stop the war against Iraq. Ali noted that opinion polls in the US showed support for a war against Iraq dropped from 60-70% to 30-35% if the war was to be carried out unilaterally, which meant that pressure on other governments to withdraw their support for such a war could politically isolate the US government.

Noam Chomsky, who spoke on the final panel, “How do we confront empire”, noted that “if we do not make them [the US rulers] pay a high cost for going to war, then they will already be planning their next”. He stressed that there was hope, pointing to the hundreds of thousands who turned out in the US on January 18 to protest the war. The US movement against war was “unprecedented”.

Chomsky reminded the audience that it was just over 40 years since the then US president John Kennedy announced the first deployment of US combat troops to Vietnam, but that it took years before there was any significant opposition to that war. Today, however, even before US combat troops have invaded Iraq there is a mass movement in the US opposing the war.

Another theme running through this year's WSF was discussion of the growing social movements in Latin America. A number of workshops looked at the political situation in Argentina one year after the popular uprising against neoliberalism, the developing process of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela and the situation in Brazil under the newly elected government of Workers Party (PT) leader Luis (“Lula”) Inacio de Silva.

A common thread among these presentations was that the social struggles taking place in these countries were not just limited to local demands but had incorporated opposition to the FTAA, defence of human dignity and national sovereignty.

The planned protests against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September were highlighted as a common focus for the social movements in Latin America and the rest of the world, as was the February 15-16 international day of action against the war on Iraq.

Two of the figures around which much of the discussion focused, not only in the context of Latin American resistance, but more broadly at the WSF, were present in Porto Alegre but not officially part of the WSF. Both Lula and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were excluded from the official agenda of the WSF due to its secretariat's ban on official participation of government representatives and political parties.

Despite the ban, more than 100,000 people turned out on January 24 to hear Lula speak, many wanting to know what he would say about the fact that the following day he would be flying to Davos, Switzerland, to participate in the World Economic Forum. In his speech, Lula pledged to take the issues of the WSF to the WEF. He said he wanted to make clear at the WEF that “an economic order in which a few eat five meals a day while many go five days without eating is unacceptable” and that “we need peace, not war”.

While most of those present seemed to accept Lula's explanation for attending the WEF, a considerable minority at the WSF continued to oppose his decision, fearing it would give unwarranted credibility to the WEF, fostering the false idea that the corporate elite represented at the WEF could be persuaded to reform their profit-before-people's needs outlook and agenda.

Chavez, whose presence in Porto Alegre was only confirmed a few days before he arrived on January 26, spoke for two hours to a packed room in the local Legislative Assembly building. Thousands showed up to hear him but could not fit into the room, and the local police used batons and pepper spray to move the crowd away from the doors.

During his visit to Porto Alegre, Chavez announced that his government would be introducing currency and price controls to block the rich exporting their capital from Venezuela and to protect the poor from price rises.

As at the two previous WSFs, participants at this year's meeting discussed a wide range of issues from Third World debt to the plight of women in war, to HIV/AIDS and pharmaceutical companies. In conjunction with the WSF, a World Children's Forum, the World Parliamentary Forum and an Assembly of the World Social Movements were held, as were a diverse range of cultural and musical events.

The third Intercontinental Youth Camp also took place with its own agenda of political debates, discussion, cultural events and video presentations. Some 25,000 young people attended.

Many of the members of the WSF organising committee and many delegates noted the lack of representation of the diverse social movements from, for example, Africa and Asia. Developments in Africa received only 2% of the official agenda time.

In order to help the process of further internationalising the “Porto Alegre process”, the WSF international council (IC) decided to hold the next WSF in India in 2004. The IC also resolved that due to the feeling that the WSF had overtaken the WEF in political importance, the dates of its meeting would not necessarily have to coincide with those of the WEF. The IC decided to call for an annual international day of action under the banner of “Against neoliberalism and war, another world is possible”, which would be organised on one of the days of the WEF.

From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

Estimados amigos:

Los invitamos a participar en el foro:

"Análisis de la situación petrolera hoy", en el cual participarán el Ing. Horacio Medina, Luis Pacheco ex-gerente de Planificación de PDVSA, el Dr. José Toro Hardy y el Dr. Humberto Calderón Berti.

El foro se llevará a cabo este miércoles 5 de febrero en el Auditorio Polar a las 2:00 pm.

Contamos con su asistencia y agradecemos pasar esta invitación a quienes crean que están interesados en participar.

Muchas gracias.

APUM-RDU UNIMET