From the Archives/A ‘Movement on Fire’ Plays Well in Caracas

A ‘Movement on Fire’ Plays Well in Caracas
At World Forum, Foes of U.S. Policies Buoyed by Latin America’s Turn to the Left
By Michelle García
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 29, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela — With just a bicycle and a backpack, Maria Cayena ABello, 25, set off from her home in Bogota, Colombia, about 10 days ago. Each day, the trim, recent college graduate pedaled about 60 miles over hills and through villages, stopping to sleep on buses.

She was pedaling toward the Venezuelan capital, 650 miles northeast, to protest the world’s dependence on oil. Her destination here was the World Social Forum, a week-long summit for activists, where she hoped to also share the stories of Colombian farmers and villagers displaced by the U.S.-backed drug eradication campaign.

“To cover Latin America in a bicycle, you get to know people,” said ABello, who still looked fresh after navigating through the heavy traffic in Caracas. “I think at the forum you share your ideas with people you don’t meet ordinarily, or on the highway.”

When she arrived Wednesday at the main forum site, an urban military base, ABello wheeled her bicycle onto a field of white tents. Inside, delegates were debating such topics as “hemispheric security” and “impunity in Latin America.” Helicopters zipped overhead, a reminder that the event’s host was Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez.

About 60,000 people — progressives, liberals, communists, socialists, labor unionists, scholars and indigenous rights activists — have gathered here under the banner “Another World Is Possible.” The forum’s mission, delegates said, has been to develop alternatives to neo-liberalism, war and unbridled free trade and to denounce the U.S. government as the main sponsor of those policies.

Now in its sixth successive year, the World Social Form, which ends Sunday, has added simultaneous regional summits in Pakistan and Mali. This year, the focus is largely on hemispheric issues. With the politics in Latin America moving left, many activists have seized on the integration of the Americas as a central theme.

Indigenous women from the Andean highlands wearing bowler hats conferred with Central American activists in brightly colored head scarves. Willowy college students bummed cigarettes from South American labor leaders.

The forum spread beyond the base and into the capital. Delegates, academics and members of the alternative media chose from among 200 panel discussions at sites across the city — in parks, college classrooms and cultural buildings. Outdoor malls offering woven crafts, leather goods and carved woods popped up outside the events, creating the atmosphere of a music festival. But the star performer was Chavez, whose likeness appeared on wristwatches, key chains and posters. Chavez talking dolls were also popular.

Organizers took pains to distance themselves from the socialist president, posting a message on their Web site that promised a forum free of Chavez’s influence and denying accusations that the event had become a propaganda tool. They said the social change underway in Venezuela created an ideal environment for a debate.

“As a result of the impact and struggle of social organizations against neo-liberalism, there exist governments that are showing a break with politics of neo-liberalism,” said organizer Emilio Taddei, an Argentine. “It doesn’t change the principles of the forum.”

The Venezuelan government contributed $60,000 to help fund the event, according to Julio Fermin, a forum spokesman. In addition, the Chavez administration donated public spaces for events and provided free shuttle service from the airport after the collapse of the viaduct connecting the capital to the international airport.

Officials offered tours of the slums ringing the city — areas where the government has organized community clinics staffed by physicians from Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is an ally of Chavez. Chavez-inspired cooperatives sold box lunches, and a number of panels focused on the popular accomplishments of his government.

The mainstream Caracas press, no fan of the president and his policies, labeled delegates as “dangerous.” The main downtown boulevard was closed off for the forum, tangling traffic for miles and bringing yet more criticism.

Still, delegates arrived in Caracas, a valley city smothered in pollution, emboldened by the popular movements and electoral gains that have sent Latin American politics to the left recently. This past week, Bolivia inaugurated as its president Evo Morales, who has vowed to shield the country from U.S. influence.

“There’s a movement on fire. It’s a movement that’s alive,” said Franco Manriquez, a Venezuelan housing activist, speaking at a packed workshop on urban development. “We say the politics of individualism allows the forces of capitalism to privatize the land.”

Delegates say their agenda now is to build on their gains in a number of countries and to find ways to preserve national cultures while uniting the Americas to achieve social change.

Rodrigo Acosta, a Colombian delegate, argued that the U.S. military buildup in Colombia should concern activists in Venezuela, whose president is considered a destabilizing force in the region by the Bush administration.

“I don’t feel Colombian — I feel I am a citizen of Latin America,” said Acosta. “I used to think that everything going on in Colombia could be resolved in Colombia, but no.”

Efrain Jimenez, 31, a first-time participant in the forum, sampled Venezuelan cuisine sold by Chavez supporters at the military base. A Mexican immigrant who lives in California, he said he had come to improve collaboration within the Americas.

Jimenez said his federation of immigrant hometown associations invested $5 million toward public projects in the Mexican state of Zacatecas last year. The federation has also learned the art of cross-border activism, he said, addressing development issues on the Mexican side and immigration policy in the United States.

“It’s not like we are going to transform the government overnight,” he said, a sly grin spreading across his ruddy face. “We have become a push factor.”