The spirit lives on - Interview with Guadalupe Rodriguez

Rodriguez runs the Coordinadora Simón Bolivar (CSB), a community organisation in Venezuela's capital city, Caracas, that has since spread to six states across the country.

When Guadalupe Rodriguez walked into the police station in the tough 23 de Enero barrio of Caracas last summer and demanded that the police leave, she was facing down four generations of brutal repression. These were the people who had tortured local revolutionaries in the Sixties and Seventies, fired into crowds during the nationwide 'Caracazo' protests of 1989, and shot dead Rodriguez's friend Alexis Gonzales after the demonstrations that returned President Hugo Chávez to power in 2002.

'There was a lot of tension but there were 31 police officers and hundreds of us from the community. Eventually they just left,' she recalls with satisfaction.

With sporadic running water and electricity and scant services, the barrio would often erupt into violent protests. 'It has always been a revolutionary neighbourhood,' Rodriquez says. 'I became an activist because I didn't want my two kids growing up in the same situation.'

When Chávez came to power in 1998 it was largely through the campaigning of community organisations like the CSB. Living conditions began to improve. Then came the failed right-wing coup of 2002, during which Chávez was kidnapped. The CSB asked residents of 23 de Enero to head to the presidential palace. With two million protesters in the streets, the conspirators decided the game was up. 'People power,' says Rodriguez, 'along with certain soldiers, rescued the government.'

The old police station now houses a radio station, exercise clubs and IT courses for the whole community.

Tom Templeton

Sunday January 20, 2008
The spirit lives on - The Observer