[Shef2venez] articles...

[John Smith]

The Militant   Vol. 69/No. 9   March 7, 2005  

from HYPERLINK "http://www.themiltant.com"www.themiltant.com - if you browse this site for 'World Youth Festival' you'll get some intersting articles on the last one in Algeria and the one before that in Cuba...
 
Build the world youth festival in Venezuela   (editorial)

We encourage young people to go to Caracas, Venezuela, on the week of August 7-15 to take part in the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students. We urge you to work with others in your area over the coming months to build the biggest and broadest possible delegation from this country to the international festival. 

Like the preceding world youth festivals in Havana in 1997 and Algiers in 2001, this gathering will bring together thousands of students, workers, and other youth from every continent who are looking for ways to fight imperialist oppression and exploitation everywhere, from the Mideast to the Americas. 

The fact that this festival takes place in Venezuela, a political flashpoint in the world today, provides a special opportunity. It’s a chance to learn firsthand about the intensifying struggles of workers and farmers in Venezuela for land, jobs, literacy, and improved living conditions in face of efforts by Venezuelan capitalists, backed by Washington, to overthrow the government of President Hugo Chávez and push back the gains and self-confidence that working people have won. It’s a chance to learn about the example of internationalist Cuban volunteers working in Venezuela as teachers and medical workers—a glimpse of what workers and farmers can accomplish when they make a revolution and take state power as they have done in Cuba. 

At a recent meeting of the U.S. National Preparatory Committee (NPC), which is organizing the U.S. delegation to the festival, participants heard reports from a dozen newly formed local organizing committees on their initial efforts to build delegations from their areas. Across the country there are opportunities right now to work with others to form local organizing committees in cities where they don’t exist and to expand out from existing coalitions to other campuses and elsewhere in surrounding regions, doing so through the national committee. 

Reaching out to involve students, workers, farmers, and other youth, including a united effort to draw in the broadest range of organizations interested in building the festival, will maximize the number of people who can attend the gathering in Caracas. 

In a number of cities, local organizing committees are holding meetings, giving presentations to student groups, setting up information tables on campuses, distributing the NPC’s festival brochure and local literature, and organizing other activities to promote participation in the world youth festival. These efforts provide opportunities to explain the class struggle unfolding in Venezuela, report on the internationalist work of Cuban volunteers there, and mobilize defense of Venezuela and Cuba in face of Washington’s confrontational course and military build-up in neighboring Colombia. Some have organized showings and discussions of The Revolution Will Not be Televised, a documentary that shows the mass working-class mobilizations in Caracas that were key in defeating the April 2002 U.S.-backed military coup in Venezuela. 

For young workers and students who are potentially attracted to the working-class resistance here and abroad, getting involved in such political work can help draw them closer to an understanding of the class struggle and the need to join a movement to make a revolution of workers and farmers in the United States or wherever we may live. 

One of the first questions young people interested in attending the world youth festival in Venezuela will ask is: how can I get there? In each city, collective efforts to plan travel, raise funds to cover costs, and work out other practical arrangements are needed to ensure the largest possible delegation to the international gathering. 

 

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Spain plans summit to fight Colombia terrorism
By Mark Mulligan, Andy Webb-Vidal and Raymond Colitt 
Financial Times: March 3 2005 

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, plans to host a summit of three South American leaders later this month aimed at fostering closer co-operation in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking in Colombia.

The summit is tentatively scheduled for March 29 and invitations have been sent to Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. A venue has yet to be agreed on.

Government officials in Madrid say Mr Zapatero is expected to hold up the successful Franco-Spanish campaign against Eta, the Basque separatist group, as proof of the effectiveness of cross-border co-operation against terrorism.

Successive Colombian governments have been fighting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), a group considered a terrorist organisation by the US and Europe, for about 40 years.

The Spanish government has also been forced to step up its anti-terrorist operations since last year's train bombings by al-Qaeda cells, which left nearly 200 dead and about 2,000 injured.

However, the Zapatero initiative is also partly aimed at easing tension between Spain and Colombia over Madrid's planned sale of military equipment to Venezuela. 

Mr Chávez in January agreed to buy four naval vessels and possibly six C-295 transport aircraft from Spain in a deal worth as much as $1.2bn (€910m, £630m). That purchase, part of a weapons procurement programme that has stoked fears in Colombia over an arms race, came at the height of a dispute between Venezuela and Colombia over the capture of a Colombian insurgent in Caracas. 

Last year, the Chávez government successfully lobbied Madrid to cancel a symbolic contract, signed by former prime minister José Mar´a Aznar, to supply Colombia with about 40 refurbished AMX-30 battle tanks.

Mr Uribe is likely to use the summit to win backing for his tough domestic security policies from a European government that has also faced a domestic terrorist threat.

Colombia, the third-largest recipient of US military aid, after Israel and Egypt, is keen to counter the view that it is supported exclusively by Washington.

Meanwhile, Mr Chávez wants to cement ties with Mr Zapatero as a European ally in an effort to offset an increasingly hostile stance from Washington. 

The US is concerned about what it this week described as Mr Chávez's “suspect relationship” with radical movements across Latin America, including Colombia's leftwing guerrilla armies. On Wednesday, Roger Noriega, the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, said the US woud begin to “increase awareness among Venezuela's neighbours of Chávez's destabilising acts”.

Mr Zapatero's visit to Colombia could help mend relations with President George W. Bush, who was angered by the Spanish leader's decision last year to withdraw the country's troops from Iraq. However, his role of peace broker may clash with the regional agenda of Mr Lula da Silva. The Brazilian president held individual meetings with Mr Uribe and Mr Chávez to help resolve the recent standoff. 


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