January 10, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 9, 1426

CARACAS: Venezuela, under the leftist government of President Hugo Chávez, has placed itself squarely in the centre of the political debate in Latin America, which the World Social Forum (WSF) has recognised by moving one portion of its annual meeting to this South American nation. Up to now, the annual global civil society gathering was held three times in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre and once in Mumbai.

While counting on the host government’s strong interest and solidarity, the Jan 24-29 WSF in Venezuela is also determined not to be overly coloured by “Chavismo”, and to safeguard its identity as a pluralistic alternative global event that serves as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum (WEF) held annually in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

The central themes of the Venezuelan WSF will be: power, politics and the fight for social emancipation; imperialist strategies and resistance by the people; alternatives to the predatory model of civilisation; diversities, identities and cosmo visions in movement; labour, exploitation and reproduction of life; and communication, culture and education: democratising dynamics and alternatives.

The WSF in Caracas is also expected to take up the ongoing debate on whether the Forum should be simply an open space for discussion, debate, the sharing of proposals and the showcasing of successful initiatives, or should also focus on action in favour of political and social change.

The WSF will open just two days after Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, takes office. Morales is another expression of the growing leftist political and social movements that have given rise to a shift towards the left in the region, where allies of the movements taking part in the WSF and other events opposed to free-market, neo-liberal policies are now in power in a number of countries.

In Brazil, powerful social movements helped place President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former trade unionist, and his leftist Workers Party, in the government in 2003. And in Venezuela, Chávez, in office since 1999, regularly expresses sentiments similar to those heard at the WSF, and has personally taken part in international anti-globalisation events.

The WSF is coming to Venezuela in solidarity with its anti-imperialist position and its opposition to the FTAA (the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas), trade unionist Jacobo Torres, a member of the organising committee, told IPS.

“The big attraction of Venezuela is that many people want to come and find out firsthand what is happening. We want those who are already convinced and who want a revolution to come, as well as those who don’t, and those who have doubts,” said Torres, who belongs to the Bolivarian Workers Force, a labour movement aligned with the Chávez administration.

The Venezuelan government has provided nine million dollars to help finance the WSF, and is playing an important role in organising the gathering, “but we are committed to playing by the rules, and this will not be a Chavista meeting,” added Torres, who is also a Caracas city government employee.

“Even Chávez’s participation is being carefully studied, in order to ensure that it does not clash with the rest of the activities. If we schedule him to take part in events, the rest of the conference rooms and other venues could be left half empty,” he said. The tens of thousands of activists who will visit this city of four million in the last week of January will make the WSF the biggest concentration of visitors in Venezuelan history.

—Dawn/IPS News Service