May Day solidarity with Venezuela in Ottawa

More than 70 people crowded the lecture hall at the Ottawa public library, Tuesday night, to hear Jorge Martin speak on the Bolivarian Revolution. The event, put on by Hands Off Venezuela and the Marxist magazine "Fightback," had a special significance as it fell on May the 1^st, International Worker's Day. Luis Granados, an activist with both HOV and Fightback, gave an excellent introduction to the situation in Venezuela, recounting his experience there and expressing hope for the revolution. He mentioned his visit to a worker's occupied factory and his talks with the workers there about socialism.

Jorge centred his speech precisely around this point. He explained how socialism of the 21^st century meant a socialism free from the Stalinism of the past. To achieve this, he said, it must be built on a solid revolutionary and participatory democracy. President Chavez's calls to "transfer political, social, economic and administrative power" to the Communal Councils, so that the "old structures of the capitalist bourgeois state" are done away with. Jorge explained that the old state apparatus was designed a build for the purpose of protecting the capitalist status quo and to prevent fundamental change. Fundamental change, however, is precisely what the Venezuelan masses have mobilized to achieve. President Chavez has called for an "explosion of communal power" on the basis of a revolutionary democracy from below. Workers' control can played a key role in this process as workers' councils, in co-operation with the community based Communal Councils, are being formed all over the country and they can be used to wrest political, social and economic control away from the oligarchy and redirect in into the hands of the masses.

Jorge's speech drew large applause and several members of the audience stood to express their solidarity and support for the Bolivarian revolution. One speaker, however, had quite a different opinion. A man dressed in a suit stood to attack socialism and the Cuban revolution saying, "According to the Heritage Foundation (!) Cuba has ranked extremely low on the economic freedom index (!!). Also, there are several dozen political prisoners being held in Cuba."

Jorge responded, "It does not surprise me at all that Cuba ranks low in economic freedom. What kind of freedom is that? Freedom to exploit workers, freedom to rob the poor, freedom for a tiny minority to expropriate the wealth and resources of whole nations for their own gain. And as for the political prisoners, you were too soft on Cuba, there are in fact far more than several dozen; and they face conditions of torture on a daily basis, but they are in fact not prisoners of the Cuba government. Hundreds of people are being held in conditions of torture, completely outside any legal jurisdiction, at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay."

The crowd erupted in applause and cheers. Several Columbian members of the audience explained later that the man in the suit was an agent-provocateur who had the job of disrupting socialist meetings. Clearly he should have been better prepared.

HOV would like to thank the Venezuelan Embassy for their support for this excellent meeting in the nation's capital.