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In Defense of Humanity
Artists, Intellectuals, and activists from 40 countries convene in Venezuela
By Bernardine Dohrn

President Hugo Chavez spoke to a potpourri gathering of 400 artists and intellectuals from 40 countries in Caracas on December 1, 2004, to wildly enthusiastic acclaim. Chavez had just returned from an international trip that took him to Russia, Iran, Libya, Qatar and Spain, and his speech was broadcast live on Venezuelan public TV. It was a pedagogic tour de force delivered without use of notes, a gigantic teach-in to both us in the audience and to the Venezuelans who tuned in. The Presidente referred to the Jewish writer Susan George, Abel Prieto (artist and Cuban Minister of Culture), Garcia Lorca (“I will sing to Spain”), Cervantes, Al Jazeera, Gorbachev, Jose Saramago, Nelson Mandela (“The African nature that came to America, that embraced this land.”) and the “organic intellectual, connected to his reality,” Jose Marti (“Let us be free, the rest does not matter at all”)—in just the first thirty minutes.

It continued, heady, for five days of intensive meetings in “Tables” organized around the economy, culture, peace and the militarization of Latin America (my “Table”), law, the environment, and popular political participation. Friday was a remarkable day out during which conference attendees were divided into groups and flown or driven to another province to see the poorest neighborhoods of Venezuela first hand and to talk to people about the social justice initiatives of this Bolivarian revolution. I was assigned to a bus that drove to Miranda, the 2nd largest state, southwest of Caracas. There we visited Mayor Raul Cerderon and were taken by a magnificent young interpreter, Sabino, to a health clinic staffed by two young Cuban doctors (while these two were young, most are in their mid-40s and have years of experience).

There are nearly 20,000 Cuban doctors in Venezuela in similar hexagon, two-storied clinic buildings that contain a tiny reception area, examining rooms with lab and x-ray, and sleeping quarters upstairs. The clinics are open 24/7 since the doctors live there. Each delegate group that day reported being overwhelmed to find two cheerful and energetic Cuban doctors in every single precinct of Venezuela’s poorest populations. We toured dental clinics and ophthalmology clinics, spoke to youngsters and parents, and witnessed concrete and free health care in the heart of the sprawling shanties surrounding Caracas. We toured the state-owned grocery stores where basic food goods are marketed at affordable prices. Venezuela imported 60% of its food when Chavez was first elected, and a major campaign is “endogenous development,” the redevelopment of an agricultural sector that can produce food for the population without being utterly dependant on imports.

Amiri Baraka, notable wordsmith and poet laureate of New Jersey, was flown with another group of delegates to the state of Maracaibo, where they saw a similar Cuban-staffed health clinic and a literacy center operated by the Guajiro indigenous Indian nationality. The mayor there, the youngest in Latin America (25), is the first Guarijo to hold public office in the region, where the language, Wayuua, was just voted an official language along with Spanish. This was a showcase day, thoroughly concrete and dazzlingly impressive.
The conference delegates appeared to represent no one. We were an odd assortment of the acclaimed and prominent: Danny Glover, courageous Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney from Georgia, Jose Saramago, Amiri and Amina Baraka, Ben Bella (yes! Alive and looking elegant), James Early (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage), Tariq Ali, Ricardo Alarcon (President of the Cuban Parliament), Leonard Weinglass (attorney now for the Cuba 5 in the U.S.), Elizabeth Betita Martinez, Daniel Ortega, Ramsey Clark, James Petras, Michael Pareti, Jane Franklin, Julie Belefonte. There was Migual Bonasso, Argentinian Minister of Culture, and Adolfo Perez Ezquivel, Argentinian Nobel Prize winner.

There were European intellectuals, neo-Marxists, economists, Indian and Philipino activists from Focus on the Global South, and a gaggle of young U.S. activists from the anti-globalization movement. We struggled to write a document of unity and concrete purpose, to express solidarity with the peoples resisting U.S. aggression and with the impoverished, marginalized and exploited of the continent, and to forge institutions, campaigns and networks that could express the practical purposes of Defending Humanity. We spoke of campaigns to end U.S. militarization of Latin America, of international solidarity against the war in Iraq, for massive education and health care campaigns, for empowering people to transform themselves to live in dignity, for alternatives to U.S. neo-liberal trade agreements, for human rights, and for independent media alternatives.

I was there for five days. I did not meet with the Venezuelan opposition to Chavez. Miraculously, our son Chesa Boudin is currently working in Caracas and was my interpreter (and an official conference interpreter) and guide through the city. I know little. But here is the nub of what I learned:
What is underway in Venezuela is a peaceful, democratic, Bolivarian revolution.

Peaceful
because Chavez came to the Presidency in 1998 through the legal (i.e., constitutional/electoral) process. Although he was part of a group of military officers who attempted a coup in 1992, this time it is the opposition who attempted a coup in April 2002—in which they fabricated an incident, seized the palace, dissolved the Constitution, the National Assembly, and the Supreme Court, and flew Hugo Chavez to an isolated nearby island military base for two days against his will and told the world he had resigned. Millions of people poured into the streets of Caracas, surrounding the palace where the coup leaders had proclaimed themselves a new government. This massive, popular demand was peaceful but unyielding, and together with the majority of the military remaining loyal to the lawfully elected government, resulted in the release of Chavez and the restoration of peaceful, political debate throughout society. The Bolivarian government is fully aware of the lessons of Salvadore Allende in Chile. They say, “We are a peaceful revolution... and...we are armed.”

Democratic
because Chavez is a democratic leader who repeatedly won his mandate. Hugo Chavez and his party have won increasing popular, direct, electoral support in eight elections over seven years. Of these 8, two were direct presidential elections and another was a recall referendum on his presidency, while the rest were other national elections/referendums in which the vote he publicly supported won. Political opponents and those involved in the coup have not been suppressed, banned, jailed, or tortured. Human rights and civil rights are required by the Constitution and generally respected. The Constitution was ratified by 71% of the population. Chavez can disagree with his own National Assembly, vetoing (for example) recent legislation reforming the penal code because it was unconstitutional, lacked due process guarantees, and could result in an increase in their imprisoned population.

Bolivarian
meaning that the Venezuelan government’s vision is to construct a continental alliance among the countries of Latin America, to forge multi-polarity, using the oil, resources, and labor of Venezuela and the other nations of the South to become independent of the U.S. Last year, for example, at a meeting of the hemisphere’s defense ministers in Quito, all but Colombia and a few client states resoundingly rejected Bush’s push for a U.S.-backed Latin American mutual security agreement.

Revolution
meaning that the government is committed to fighting entrenched power by giving power to the poor, including redistributing the wealth and the land. In 1998, 80% of the Venezuelan population lived in poverty and 60% lived on less than $2 per day, despite enormous oil wealth. Today, the Zamora mission is distributing fallow public land to peasant cooperatives and the government has already begun forcing private land owners to sell their unused land given certain conditions—amount of land, percentage left unused for x amount of time, etc.—and redistributing it once the state purchases it at fair market value. There is free health care (Barrio Adentro), a literacy campaign (the Robinson mission), college education for the poor (Mission Sucre and the newly founded Bolivarian University of Venezuela), adult education, micro-credit, endogenous development (Mission Mercal and Vuelvan Caras), and worker co-ownership. Chavez sees no contradiction between democracy and revolution.

Venezuela is not perfect. Our solidarity is critical because the Bolivarian revolution is forging a new way, an experiment, and it is opening up opportunities in Latin America, with Brazil, with Argentina, with Chiapas, with Chile, with the new government of Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay, and with Cuba. There are upcoming elections in Mexico. The Venezuelan government is popular among taxi drivers, students, restaurant workers, and the poor because it delivers.

It is our responsibility to assure that the U.S. does not intervene, that the Venezuelan process be decided by the Venezuelans. U.S. attorney Eva Gollinger has obtained hundreds of CIA documents that show that the U.S. was aware of the well-planned coup d’etat plot to overthrow Chavez in 2002 and deeply involved in financing the opposition. Visit venezuelafoia.info for the documents. U.S. dollars were poured into the recall Chavez referendum, which was powerfully rejected by the Venezuelan population—56% voted for him. Did I mention that Venezuela is the 5th largest exporter of oil to the U.S.?

As Chavez said to us, “Even those in the U.S. can join in the hurricane sweeping Latin America by waging the war of ideas, by feeding our thought with the wisdom of the people, by soaking ourselves in humanism.” Take heart. And organize.

Bernardine Dohrn is an antiwar, anti-racist activist. Her teaching, writing, and organizing is focused on juvenile justice, human rights, and international law.