Venezuela

The `First Socialist International of the 21st Century'
`Make socialism fly', street art in Caracas. Photo from http://www.nosabemosdisparar.blogspot.com/.

April 26, 2010 -- Venezuelanalysis.com -- During the recently concluded five-month extraordinary congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes had the opportunity to discuss President Hugo Chavez’s proposal to form a Fifth Socialist International with Julio Chavez, a delegate to the PSUV congress and a member of the congress’s international committee, which is charged with drafting a specific plan of action to form a new socialist international.

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Venezuela: `This what democracy looks like'; Alan Woods: The people in arms
Venezuelan students organised in the Bolivarian militia.

Introduction to Alan Woods' article (below) by Stuart Munckton, photos by Kiraz Janicke 

April 22, 2010 -- The Future on Fire -- A common chant around the world when people take to the streets against the crimes of the global capitalist system is: "This is what democracy looks like!"

It is a statement that real democracy is on the streets, in the united action of ordinary people. It is a statement that democracy is more than passive voting once every few years, it is popular power and direct participation.

Raúl Castro at Venezuela's bicentenary of independence: `We have only one alternative: unite, fight and overcome'
Bicentenary of Venezuela independence celebrations. Photo from Correo del Orinoco.

Speech by Raúl Castro Ruz, president of Cuba's Councils of State and Ministers, delivered at the 9th ALBA-TCP Summit, Venezuela

April 19, 2010 -- It is very moving for us to be in Venezuelan today, April 19, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the independence struggle, which represented the battles for independence in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

It was the embryo of a first integration process in Latin America, as Simón Bolívar understood the destiny of the peoples of our region very early on. Everything that we do now for the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean began precisely here, on a day like today, two centuries ago.

Venezuela: `For every April 11th, may there be an April 13th' -- solidarity messages on anniversary of defeated coup

Celebrating the 8th anniversary of the Venezuelan people’s defeat of the April 11, 2002, coup against Hugo Chavez, and solidarity with the Venezuelan Revolution

By the Socialist Party of Malaysia

Marta Harnecker: `Socialism is a search for a fully democratic society'
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

[Click HERE for more articles by Marta Harnecker.]

After Copenhagen: Can we save the world? Video: Is the climate sick of us?
Ian Angus interviewed by Esquerda.net during the conference O Clima Farto de Nos? (Is the climate sick of us?), held in Lisbon, March 26-27. The three questions, shown in text in Portuguese, are: Is the climate sick of us? What must be done internationally about this situation? What message would you like to give to the Portuguese people?The video, which is in English with Portuguese subtitles, has also been posted on the website of Portugal's Left Bloc, and on the Esquerda.net channel on YouTube.

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Fourth International's response to Chavez’s call to found a Fifth Socialist International

[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.

Conference: `Bolivar, Lincoln and Marti in the ‘ALMA’ of our America', Caracas, Venezuela, November 17-20, 2010

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

Venezuela: New moves to build workers' power; Revolution in the electricity industry

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.

Venezuela: neue Schritte für den Aufbau der Volksmacht

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.

`For Venezuela, there is no going back’: A discussion with Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke
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.

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Tour builds Venezuela solidarity in Canada

By John Riddell