Thread: VENEZUELA: ‘Imperialism will be defeated!’

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/639/639p12.htm

VENEZUELA: ‘Imperialism will be defeated!’

Stuart Munckton, Caracas

The system of imperialism was put in the dock during the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students in Caracas. The festival hosted an Anti-Imperialist Tribunal on August 13 and 14 to hear testimonies from representatives of peoples around the world on the havoc wreaked by the imperialist system, and especially by US imperialism.

The hearing was presided over by Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Vincent Rangel and featured a jury made up of lawyers, economists and intellectuals from Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, Britain, Syria, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Mexico and Spain. The chief prosecutor was Eva Golinger, a high-profile attorney and author of The Chavez Code, which documents how the US government has intervened illegally in Venezuela to attempt to bring down the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez.

There was no defence for imperialism present, despite Rangel explaining that the tribunal was open to anyone who wished to speak before it to offer a defence, including the US ambassador to Venezuela, William Browning. Rangel explained that although imperialism had “defence attorneys� throughout the world, none had the courage to appear.

More than 10,000 young delegates to the festival, from 144 countries, heard often moving testimonies from dozens of witnesses about the crimes of imperialism, including torture, murder, denial of national independence, genocide, suppression of freedom of speech, economic sabotage, the overthrow of popular governments and brutal military invasions.

On the first day, witnesses testified from countries including Vietnam, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Colombia, Korea, Greece and Cyprus. A documentary detailing the overthrow of the Aristide government and the imperialist occupation of Haiti was shown. Especially moving was the testimony from Fernando Suarez del Solar, the father of a young unemployed Hispanic man from the US who was killed in Iraq. He provided accounts of how the US military trawled the ghettoes to find desperate poor youths to be their cannon fodder in Iraq.

The second day focused on the crimes of imperialism against Cuba and Venezuela, and culminated in special testimony presented by Chavez. Repeatedly interrupted by applause, revolutionary chants and standing ovations, a series of representatives of the Cuban people gave profoundly emotional testimonies, providing detailed evidence of the ongoing campaign of sabotage and terror waged against them by the US government since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

The tribunal heard first from Percy Albarado, a Guatemalan who spent 22 years working for Cuba’s security service, infiltrating the right-wing CIA-backed Cuban-American terrorist organisations that operate out of Miami. Albarado detailed his experiences in being trained as a terrorist, and outlined the direct involvement of the US government. He demanded the terrorists who murder civilians and are protected by the US be brought to justice, that the US leaders who “hypocritically talk of a war on terror while spreading it around the world� likewise pay for their crimes.

In response to a question from a juror, Albarado explained that he believed that the terrorist methods used against Cuba were certain to be employed against Venezuela, given the repeated failure of the US to overthrow Chavez’s revolutionary government. He explained that there already existed an alliance between Cuban terrorist groups in Miami and the right-wing Venezuelan opposition.

The tribunal also heard moving testimony from a daughter and a mother of two of the five Cubans imprisoned in the US for their anti-terrorist activity, as well as from the son of one of the victims of the bombing of a 1976 civilian Cuban flight by a Cuban CIA operative that killed all its passengers.

A sight-impaired Cuban university student provided evidence of the impact of the over-four-decade-long US economic blockade of Cuba, explaining how the blockade had denied the blind in Cuba tools such as braille and walking canes. She explained that when as a child her eye sight deteriorated, the blockade denied her medicines, causing her to lose even more of her sight. She explained, “Imperialism took away my sight, but I still see the colours of hope�. She said that following the example of Che Guevara, “I swear that I will struggle against imperialism until victory!�

Also appearing before the tribunal was the president of Cuba’s National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, who explained that US aggression against Cuba dated back to the beginning of the 19th century when US leaders aimed to annex Cuba as a colony.

Testimony was also heard from two Venezuelans about events surrounding the US-backed military coup that overthrew the Chavez government on April 11, 2002, before a popular uprising restored the government two days later. Both witnesses were shot in the lead-up to the coup. They provided evidence that, contrary to claims from the opposition who carried out the coup that the shootings were ordered by Chavez, they were in fact carried out by members of the metropolitan police under opposition control.

The second witness, a housewife who still has a bullet lodged in her cheek, explained how, still bleeding from her face wound, she took to the streets on April 11 to fight for Chavez’s restoration and didn’t return home until victorious. Both insisted that, in the face of a similar threat to the revolution, they would be on the frontlines again.
Chavez’s testimony

The highlight of the tribunal was without any doubt the “special testimony� of Chavez himself. The stadium was packed to capacity as excitement at the prospect of hearing from a great modern revolutionary hero grew.

The singing and chanting grew louder and more forceful by the minute. A singer performing revolutionary songs brought the crowd to its feet and the continuous applause, flag and banner waving and chanting grew and grew.

Just when it appeared the revolutionary fervour had reached an insurmountable pinnacle, Chavez finally appeared. Such was the overflow of enthusiasm that it took nearly half an hour before Chavez could start his speech. Whenever it seemed as though the chanting was dying down from one section of the crowd, it would start up with double the enthusiasm from another.

When one section of the crowd, shaking the stadium, bounced up and down shouting “If you don’t jump you are a yankee!�, Chavez obliged and danced a jig in front of the podium. The stadium threatened to collapse as tens of thousands of revolutionary youth jumped up and down in the stands in unison. When a Mexican wave started, Chavez obliged again, participating from the stage. Eventually, Chavez spontaneously started singing Venezuela’s national anthem, forcing the crowd to stand and sing together. It proved an effective tactic and at the end, Chavez asked “May I speak now?�. The crowd responded, “Yes!�

In a profoundly revolutionary talk with a deep humanism and determination that repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet, Chavez spoke for over three hours without ever losing his audience. It was no ordinary speech, but a dialogue. Chavez was inspired by the youthful revolutionary energy of the crowd, which in turn raised the fervour of the stadium to a previously unthinkable level.

“The world is in perilâ€?, Chavez insisted. The very survival of humanity is at stake and “either we dismantle imperialism or imperialism destroys the planet â€â€

Chavez imbued his speech with optimism, pointing to the growing anti-imperialist revolt in Latin America and the advance of the Venezuelan revolution. He declared that the US “will never be victorious in Venezuela� and that it is “doomed to failure� because the revolutionary consciousness of the people is too high. He pointed out that peoples’ resistance killed the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, and that the alternative promoted by Venezuela and Cuba, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, based on cooperation and solidarity, continued to advance. “I want you to go back and bring the good news: imperialism is not invincible!�

The very people that FTAA, CAFTA, The day AFTA, is supposed to "help" are against it. What kind of morons in congress, and you know which particluar moron I am talking about, would vote for this stuff without finding out how the people that are on the other end feel about it? Give up? Greedy corporate boot lickers. The U.S. BETTER keep it's hands off Venezuela. And lest you think I am a leftist, think again. I am, or was, a Republican. As a black man I was raised a Democrat.
Hey, I had no choice . Now, I am an independent. I can't support either party that would give us bush or richardson. mccain or clinton. These are all power hungry stooges, and that is the nicest thing I can say about them. We do not own the world as Iraq has pointed out. But bush will find a way to make these people mad too. Hey, that must be his job, since that is all he does.