VENEZUELA: World Social Forum activists vowed to preserve national cultures and unite the Americas to effect social change, writes Michelle Garcia in Caracas
With just a bicycle and a backpack, Maria Cayena ABello (25) set off from her home in Bogota, Colombia, about 10 days ago. Every day the college graduate pedalled about 96km (60 miles) over hills and through villages, stopping to sleep on buses.
She was going to the Venezuelan capital, 1,046km (650 miles) northeast, to protest the world's dependence on oil. Her destination 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 US-backed drug eradication campaign.
"To cover Latin America on 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 last Wednesday at the main forum site, an urban military base, ABello wheeled her bicycle on to 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, communists, socialists, trade unionists, scholars and indigenous rights activists - had gathered under the banner "Another World Is Possible". The forum's mission, delegates said, had been to develop alternatives to neo-liberalism, war and unbridled free trade and to denounce the US government as the main sponsor of those policies.
Now in its sixth successive year, the World Social Form, which ended on Sunday, had simultaneous regional summits in Pakistan and Mali.
This year the focus was largely on hemispheric issues. With the politics in Latin America moving left, many activists had 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 coloured headscarves. Willowy college students bummed cigarettes from South American labour 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 wood carvings popped up outside the events, creating the atmosphere of a music festival.
But the star performer was Hugo Chavez, whose likeness appeared on wristwatches, key chains and posters. Chavez talking dolls were also popular.
Organisers took pains to distance themselves from the socialist president, posting a message on their website that promised a forum free of Chavez's influence and denying accusations that the event had become a propaganda tool.
"As a result of the impact and struggle of social organisations against neo-liberalism, there exist governments that are showing a break with politics of neo-liberalism," said organiser Emilio Taddei, an Argentinian. "It doesn't change the principles of the forum."
The Venezuelan government contributed $60,000 to help fund the event, donated public spaces for events, and provided free shuttle service from the airport.
Officials offered tours of the slums ringing the city - areas where the government has organised community clinics staffed by doctors from Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is an ally of Chavez.
The mainstream Caracas press, no fan of the president and his policies, labelled delegates as "dangerous". The main city-centre boulevard was closed off for the forum, causing traffic snarl-ups for miles.
Still, delegates arrived in Caracas emboldened by the popular movements and electoral gains that have sent Latin American politics to the left recently. Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales, has vowed to shield the country from US 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 privatise the land." Delegates said their agenda now was 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 US military build-up in Colombia should concern activists in Venezuela, whose president is considered a destabilising force by the Bush administration.
Efrain Jimenez (31), a first-time participant, 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 had also addressed development issues on the Mexican side and immigration policy in the US.
"It's not like we are going to transform the government overnight," he said. "We have become a push factor." - (LA Times-Washington Post service)