latin america
Bolivians mobilise. ``If our government officials are to be wise, they must be pushed by
popular initiatives so that the people can feel they are doing it
themselves. The state's paternalism, in building socialism, may help
at first, but we must create popular protagonism.'' Photo by Ben Dangl.
Marta Harnecker interviewed by Edwin Herrera
Salinas, for the Bolivian newspaper La Razón. Translation by MRZine's
Yoshie Furuhashi. Posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission
[The following is an excerpt from the "Role and tasks of the Fourth International", a report adopted by the Fourth International at its 16th World Congress held in Belgium in February 2010. Click here for the full report.]
Chavez’s call to found a Fifth International poses other questions about its origins, its framework, that is to say, its viability. The Fourth International declares that it is willing to participate in the debates and preparatory meetings that may be organised. We will contribute our historic gains and our vision about what a new international and its programatic foundations could be. A genuine new international can only be born if its members share a program, an ability to intervene in society, a democratic, pluralist form of functioning, as well as clear independence from governments in order to break with capitalism.
By Laurent Carasso
February 2010 -- This report will not attempt a detailed survey of the world but will try to stress what is most significant, what, in our view, should come under a common understanding of events and tasks. On many regional situations, the comrades will broadly enrich the discussion through their interventions.
(I) The world situation is marked by crisis
For the first time in history, this crisis is located is explained by capitalist globalisation. No territory is immune. All the economic, social and political factors are interrelated worldwide. The economic crisis is not a conjunctural crisis. This is a systemic, structural crisis: this is the most serious crisis since 1929. The United States has lost 35% of its financial wealth and the Euro zone 25%. And, when governments speak of “emerging from crisis” we do not agree. There may be short-term recoveries, related to policies in support of activity in this or that country, but the countries of the centre -- the USA and Europe -- are not emerging from crisis. The explosion of public debt in southern Europe -- in Greece, Spain -- and the banking and financial uncertainty demonstrate the instability of the situation and a new phase of the crisis, at least in Europe.
The crisis is not over!
Official announcement for the II International Conference “Bolivar, Lincoln and Marti in the ‘ALMA’ of our America” to be held in Caracas, Venezuela, November 17 to 20, 2010, within the framework of the bicentennial of the independence o
By Pablo Solón Romero
March 19, 2010 -- http://pwccc.wordpress.com/ -- In the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate conference, those who defended the widely condemned outcome tended to talk about it as a “step in the right direction”. This was always a tendentious argument, given that tackling climate change cannot be addressed by half measures. We can’t make compromises with nature.
Bolivia, however, believed that Copenhagen marked a backwards step, undoing the work built on since the climate talks in Kyoto. That is why, against strong pressure from industrialised countries, we and other developing nations refused to sign the Copenhagen Accord and why we are hosting an international meeting on climate change in Cochabamba, Bolivia, from April 19 to 22, 2010. In the words of the Tuvalu negotiator, we were not prepared to “betray our people for 30 pieces of silver”.
By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
March 22, 2010 -- The free, sovereign and independent homeland of our dreams will only come true if we radicalise the process and speed up the transition to socialism”, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez wrote in his March 14 weekly column “Chavez Lines”.
The Venezuelan government has launched a number of initiatives in recent weeks aimed to tackle threats to the revolutionary process — including from elements within the pro-Chavez camp that seek to undermine plans to deepen the revolution.
Central to this are new measures aimed at speeding up the transfer of power to organised communities.
Chavez wrote in his February 21 column: “The time has come for communities to assume the powers of state, which will lead administratively to the total transformation of the Venezuelan state and socially to the real exercise of sovereignty by society through communal powers.”
Participatory democracy
The previous day, Chavez announced the creation of the federal government council in front of thousands of armed peasants that are part of the newly created peasant battalions in the Bolivarian militia.
Federico Fuentes, Green Left Weekly
22.März 2010
„Die freie, souveräne und unabhängige Heimat unserer Träume wird nur wahr werden, wenn wir den Prozess radikalisieren und den Übergang zum Sozialismus beschleunigen“, schrieb der venezolanische Präsident am 14.März in seiner Kolumne „Las Lineas de Chavez“.
Die venezolanische Regierung hat in den letzten Wochen mehrere Initiativen gestartet, um Gefährdungen des revolutionären Prozesses zu bewältigen – einschliesslich solche, die vom Pro-Chavez Lager ausgehen und versuchen, Pläne zur Vertiefung der Revolution zu untergraben.
Zentral dabei sind neue Massnahmen die darauf abzielen, die Übergabe der Macht an organisierte Comunidades zu beschleunigen.
Kiraz Janicke (right).
By Ali Mustafa
March 23, 2010 -- As Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution enters a new decade of struggle and defiantly advances towards its goal of “21st century socialism”, serious challenges to the future of the process emerging from both inside and outside the country still abound. As a result, key questions surrounding Venezuela's mounting tensions with the West, the role played by its fiery and outspoken leader Hugo Chavez and the future of the process itself remain as relevant today as ever before. Australian-based journalists and long-time Venezuela solidarity activists Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke have been carefully following Venezuela's ongoing political transformation for several years now, countering mainstream media spin and providing invaluable on-the-ground coverage and analysis about the process as it unfolds. I had the fortunate opportunity to sit down and speak with them in Toronto before they returned to Caracas, following a 10-day solidarity tour of Canada.
* * *
von Federico Fuentes, Caracas
23.02.2010 — Green Left Weekly — Am venezolanischen Horizont drohen entscheidende Kämpfe zwischen den Kräften der Revolution und denen der Konterrevolution.
Der Wahlkampf vor den Parlamentswahlen (am 26. September) wird wichtige Entscheidungen zwischen den Anhängern des sozialistischen Präsidenten Hugo Chavez und der rechten, von der Opposition unterstützten Opposition bringen. Diese Kämpfe sind Teil des Klassenkampfes zwischen der armen Mehrheit in Venezuela und der kapitalistischen Elite. Ausgetragen wird der Kampf aber eher auf der Straße als an den Wahlurnen.
In diesem Jahr kam es bislang zu einer Eskalation der faschistischen Demonstrationen gewalttätiger oppositioneller Studentengruppen. Auch kommt es weiter zu Mordanschlägen gegen Gewerkschafter und Bauernführer - durch rechte paramilitärische Gruppierungen. Die Kampagnen in den Privatmedien, die das Bild einer zerfallenden, krisengebeutelten Regierung zeichnen, die bald weichen werde, nehmen zu.
Am 29. Januar warnte Chavez: "Falls sie eine extrem gewaltsame Offensive einleiten werden, die es zu unserer Pflicht macht, harte Maßnahmen zu ergreifen - was ich ihnen nicht raten möchte - wird unsere Reaktion sie auslöschen".
Pielrroc Montenegro.
By ABN (Venezuelan news agency), translated by Tamara Pearson
Caracas, March 8, 2010 (ABN/Venezuelanalysis.com) – “I’m a woman with a new life since the Bolivarian Revolution knocked on my door”, said Pielrroc Montenegro, Maracaiban[i] by birth and Andean by tradition, with eyes full of nostalgia and gratitude. She described herself as a “dignified mother of the neighbourhood” since the mission of that name[ii] enabled her to realise one of her dreams: enrol in university.
Years ago, Pielrroc didn’t think much of it when, barely aware of its existence, she signed up with Mission Ribas [high school-level education program]. When she was young she had been forced to leave high school just one year before finishing it.
mardi 2 mars 2010, par
Texte publié le 20 février 2010 sur le site
de Green Left Weekly.
Traduction de David Mandel
Press-toi à gauche -- Des batailles décisives entre les forces de la révolution et de la contre-révolution se dessinent à l’horizon au Venezuela. La campagne menant aux élections à l’Assemblée nationale le 26 septembre sera une bataille critique entre les partisans du président socialiste Hugo Chavez et l’opposition de droite, appuyée par les E-U. Mais ces batailles, qui font partie de la lutte de classe entre la majorité pauvre et l’élite capitaliste, vont se dérouler plus dans les rues que dans les urnes.