Roberto Jorquera, Caracas
Fifty-seven Australians will see the Bolivarian revolution at first hand when they visit Venezuela in July and August this year as part of the first solidarity brigade from Australia. Organised by the Australian Venezuela Solidarity Network, the brigade includes members of trade unions, student unions, the socialist youth organisation Resistance, the Socialist Alliance, the Greens and the ALP.
The brigade's visit to Venezuela is scheduled to coincide with the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, which will be held in Caracas on August 8-15. The festival is being organised under the slogan "For Peace and Solidarity, We Struggle Against Imperialism and War". It is estimated that more than 15,000 young people will participate from all over the world.
The members of the Australian brigade will be able to see first-hand the increasingly socialist direction that the Bolivarian revolution is taking, with President Hugo Chavez encouraging workers to take over the management of businesses his government has nationalised.
There is a lot of discussion and debate about what socialism means and how to construct it. The Venezuelan revolutionaries have learned from past experiences of attempts to create socialism and are developing their own approaches to how to develop it in their country.
An important feature of the struggle to create socialism in Venezuela is strengthening participatory democracy. For instance, local cultural centres have sprung up around Caracas, functioning as organising centres where people meet not only to organise the social missions and cultural activities, but also to debate political issues.
At the state-run aluminum plant there are now regular meetings to discuss what is being produced and how it is being produced. No significant decisions are taken without the involvement of the workers.
There is still a lot of frustration felt by many people at the sometimes slow pace of change, or at change being sabotaged by bureaucratic elements in the state apparatus that the government inherited from the past. For this reason, a massive campaign has been launched by the government entitled "The Evolving Democracy". This campaign is directly taking up the issues of official corruption, bureaucracy and working people's participation in government administration.
The Australian brigade's visit has been organised so that every participant will be able to gain a sense of the revolutionary process. The brigade will be divided into four groups that will be sent to four separate regions throughout Venezuela. Each group will visit local Bolivarian Houses, cultural centres and see the popular health care, education, housing and other missions, as well meet with the representatives of the pro-Chavez National Union of Workers trade-union federation. The "brigadistas" will visit worker-run factories, indigenous communities, peasant organising centres and student organisations.
Caracas participants will be able to discuss with neighbourhood activists how they organise through grassroots organisations such as the Endogenous Battle Units (UBE). Participants will visit workers at Invepal — the first private company that was nationalised by the Chavez government and is now run under workers' control.
In Maracaibo, the brigade participants will be able to discuss with Venezuelan activists how they organise in a state that does not have a pro-Chavez administration. Participants will also be able to visit the giant state-owned PDVSA oil refinery and discuss with workers the key role of the oil industry in the Venezuelan revolution.
Brigadistas who are travelling to Ciudad Bolivar and Puerto Ordaz will be able to visit projects like Provida, an outreach program for street children that provides a mobile school facility. Their visit will include community projects sponsored by the Women's Bank and the Alcasa aluminum processing plant in Puerto Ordaz, now under workers' control.
Beginning on July 27, the brigade will visit the Bolivarian University, recently formed to create a new type of education aimed at the poor, where they can discuss with student representatives and the chancellor the role of the new education system.
The purpose of the brigade is to gain a deeper understanding of the political and social revolution that is unfolding in Venezuela. Brigade participants will then be able to return to Australia to further develop the solidarity movement with the Bolivarian revolution and the struggles that are developing elsewhere in Latin America.
Report-back meetings by the brigadistas will be held throughout Australia and at a national Latin American solidarity conference to be held in Melbourne on October 1. For further information on the brigade, or to arrange meetings with a brigadista, phone Fred Fuentes on (02) 9690 1230 or email <fred@venezuelasolidarity.org>.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, May 25, 2005.
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