Athens: Successful HOV meeting on Latin America with the participation of the Cuban and Venezuelan embassies

On Monday, July 10, the Greek committee of the "Hands Off Venezuela!" campaign organised an open meeting on the subject of "Radicalisation in Latin America". The speakers at the open meeting were Lydia Gonzalez, the consul of the Cuban embassy in Athens, Maria Ines Fonceca, the consul of the Venezuelan embassy, Kostas Athanasiou from the Greek Social Forum and Evi Tounda, a representative of the Greek committee of HOV and of the Marxist Tendency and paper "Marxistiki Foni".

The meeting was held in the area of Nea Philadelfia, in the northwest of Athens. One hundred people attended the meeting. Among them were members and political cadres of PASOK and Synaspismos, young militants of the KKE and other left workers and young people that are keen to know what is happening in Latin America.

In her speech Evi Tounda emphasized at the role of the working class in the turn to the left throughout the whole of Latin America and also underlined the key role of the Bolivarian revolution in this turn. She also analysed the situation in Bolivia and in Ecuador, and she explained that the only way of building a firm and solid unity of Latin America is through the struggle for a socialist Federation.

Lindia Gonzalez explained the details of how ALBA [Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas] was created and also outlined the effect that the Cuban revolution has in the struggle of the Latin-American masses against imperialism.

Maria Ines Fonseca underlined the important steps that the Bolivarian revolution has taken against poverty and social inequalities in Venezuela, and also congratulated the members of the Greek HOV campaign for their systematic work of spreading the revolutionary Bolivarian spirit among the Greek workers and youth.

The last speaker Kostas Athanasiou stressed the developments in Mexico by explaining how the Mexican ruling elite had "cooked" the results of the presidential elections and he also explained that the movement of the masses is the real cause of the electoral victories of the Left all over Latin America.

After the speeches the people watched "The revolution will not be televised", a film about the dramatic events around the 2002 coup against Chavez when the masses stopped the reactionaries through immediate spontaneous action.

At the end of the meeting many people left their addresses expressing the wish to participate actively in HOV and they bought material and the DVDs of HOV.

This successful open meeting was further proof that the HOV Campaign is now established and well known in Greece.