Latin America 2005 highlights attempt to sabotage Venezuelan democracy

The Venezuela Information Center (UK): Over 300 people attended a national conference of solidarity with Latin America -- “Latin America 2005” -- at the headquarters of the National Union of Teachers in London on Saturday, December 3.

The event was organized by Cuba Solidarity Campaign and the Venezuela Information Center UK and was sponsored by a large number of organizations concerned with, or sympathetic with solidarity action with Latin America in the United Kingdom.

A among those attending were: the Haiti Support Group, Peru Support Group, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, Caribbean Labour Solidarity, Latin American Bureau, Liberation, Brazil Network, Central America Women’s Network, Justice for Colombia, Noticias Latin America, and the NGOs War on Want, One World Action, plus the Latin American Workers’ Association and the Transport & General Workers’ Union (T&GWU), ... one of the biggest in the country.

The conference began with messages of support and opening remarks from the ambassadors of the Republic of Cuba and of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Keynote speakers were John Fisher (T&GWU), Tariq Ali, Richard Gott, John Crabtree, Tony Benn (the well-known beacon of the British Left), Jenny Pearce and Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn. The conference had the distinguished honored of the presence of Sr. Carlos Polanco, adviser to the Venezuelan Ministry of Education.

All of the speakers explained how Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia find themselves at the sharpest end of hostility, aggression and acts of destabilization efforts by the Bush administration. They emphasized the need to express and organize solidarity with these countries, and to ensure that thel British people obtain the truth about US efforts to undermine their these countries’ sovereignty, as well as to lead a and campaign to oppose US interference and to defeat their aggression.

• They also contrasted the horrors of neo-liberalism with the the efforts now being undertaken in Cuba and Venezuela to create more just societies in a peaceful and integrated world and the emergence of Bolivarian integration efforts led primarily by Cuba and Venezuela.

Particular emphasis was given to the significant defeat of US efforts to impose its neo-liberal agenda on the whole of Latin America at the recent Mar del Plata Summit under the guise of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement. Colombia also received special attention due to the systematic violation of human rights taking place for some time under the mantle of ‘combatting the drug trade.’

The conference was full-ranging and covered a broad range of themes key issues now facing the peoples of Latin America in their efforts and struggle to rid themselves of the legacies of colonialism, combined pressures of US aggression and interference, and of the scourge of neo-liberal economic policies and which have so much devastated and impoverished the continent for the last decades.

From a host of specialists and activists the conference workshops examined and discussed the following issues: building solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution; the struggle for justice for the Miami 5; issues faced by the Latin American communities in the UK, NAFTA, CAFTA and the FTAA;, the illegal US blockade of Cuba; struggles by indigenous peoples in Peru and Bolivia against neo-liberalism, the connection between neo-liberalism and Latin America’s unpayable external debt; the Brazilian Landless Movement and the crisis in Brazil; another world is possible in Colombia; the struggle for women's equality in Latin America and the struggle for sovereignty in the Caribbean.

• Of particular interest was the workshop on building solidarity with Venezuela, a theme introduced by Rod Stoneman, executive producer of the film 'The Revolution will not be Televised.' The film was also shown during the conference.

On the boycott announced by minority opposition parties in Venezuela in the December 4, 2005, parliamentary elections, speaker after speaker denounced it to be a cynical maneuver, orchestrated by Washington and aimed at sabotaging the democratic process, gravely undermining the sovereign right of the Venezuelan people to express their political preferences free from blackmail and external interference.

The opposition parties knew very well that poll after poll had indicated that they would be overwhelmingly defeated. It is evident that this represented the main incentive to boycott the election and the conference saw it as yet another attempt ... after the April 2002 coup, the three-month sabotage of the oil industry in 2003 and the recall referendum of 2004 ... to destroy and undermine the Bolivarian process and take the country back to the corrupt old regime led by the very parties that were now boycotting the election.

The Venezuela Information Center UK distributed information containing the November 28, 2005, statement by the Organization of the American States (OAS) Electoral Observer Mission to the December 4 parliamentary elections, wherein satisfaction was expressed with the Venezuelan electoral system. Material explaining what lay behind the electoral boycott by the opposition under tutelage from Washington made it clear that it was part and parcel of another attempt to prepare the ground intentions to discredit the Venezuelan electoral system aiming to prepare the ground for another, probably bigger, US assault on Venezuelan democracy during the run up to the presidential elections in 2006.

To enthusiastic support from the audience, speaker after speaker rejected the electoral boycott as the latest effort to sabotage Venezuelan democracy and pledged their support for the Venezuelan people's efforts to defend their right to express their democratic will. They pledged to defend Venezuela’s sovereignty and its right to determine its own future without internal sabotage or outside interference from the USA.

Gordon Hutchison, g.hutch@blueyonder.co.uk
Venezuela Information Centre (UK)