HOV meetings in Paris: Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution

More than 50 people gathered in Paris on Thursday, November 30 at a meeting called by the French Marxist Tendency La Riposte to discuss the revolutionary process in Latin America. The main speaker was Jorge Martin who dealt mainly with the revolutionary processes going on in Venezuela and Mexico. Jorge spent quite a lot of time on the Venezuelan presidential elections of this coming Sunday, December 3. He explained how these are not just normal presidential elections, as the opposition is certain that they cannot win. The main thing is to see what the opposition, that is, the oligarchy and imperialism will do faced with defeat. It is clear that they have prepared a plan of destabilisation centred around the claim that the election results will be fraudulent. Jorge insisted on the need to be vigilant and to mobilise our forces on Sunday and Monday to defeat any attempts of the counter-revolution. But he added that after defeating the oligarchy on December 3rd, the revolution must be completed and this meant to put the fundamental sectors of the economy in the hands of the state and the state in the hands of the working class.

Also present at the meeting was Iris Garcia, Minister Counsellor at the Venezuelan Embassy in Paris. She explained the importance of the process of the Bolivarian revolution but she insisted that after December 3rd what was needed was a "revolution within the revolution" in order to take the revolution forward. She backed up Jorge's explanation about the un-democratic nature of the Venezuelan opposition and how Manuel Rosales, the united candidate of the opposition, had been an important part of the coup plot in April 2002. Iris Garcia made an impassionate defence of the Bolivarian Revolution and thanked La Riposte for organising and promoting the Hands Off Venezuela campaign in France.

A lively debate opened covering a whole range of questions, including the election of Correa in Ecuador, the mistaken position of the EZLN leadership of abstaining in the Mexican elections, and the experiences of workers control in Venezuela including the occupation of Sanitarios Maracay.

The day after, on Friday, December 1st another meeting on the Venezuelan elections took place in Paris. Called by a number of solidarity organisations, including Hands Off Veneazuela, about 100 people gathered around an appeal to "defend democracy in Venezuela". There were a number of speakers from different organisations of the French left and the solidarity movement, and there were representatives from the Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian embassies present.

Jorge Martin, from the Hands Off Venezuela campaign also spoke. He stressed that democracy was under threat in Venezuela on the part of the oligarchy, the owners of banks, industry and land, and imperialism, and that the reason for this was that in Venezuela there was a revolution which they wanted to put an end to. He explained how a debate has been opened in the Venezuelan Bolivarian movement about socialism and workers control and management. He said that as a socialist he thought that socialism was the democratic planning of the economy on the part of the working class, but that obviously in Venezuela there were different opinions about it. This was a crucial debate for the future of the Venezuelan revolution, he said, but for that to be able to take place we need to mobilise to defeat the counter-revolution on Sunday.

These were important meetings for the solidarity movement in France which is ready to respond to any counter-revolutionary provocations of the Venezuelan oligarchs.