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| Ambassador Horacio Arteaga |
On Saturday the 10th
of November, Hands off Venezuela Sweden had its first national meeting. During
the year the campaign has started to develop into a national campaign. The
reason for this meeting was to gather those that are already active or want to
become active in the campaign and other people in Sweden that are active in the
solidarity movement for Venezuela and to make the campaign to function more
effectively. One of the reasons for the meeting was to work as a stepping-stone
towards a bigger conference next year were more people from the Swedish labour
movement can participate.
During the day more than 50 people from 4 different cities attended the meeting
and more arrived for the fundraising party for the Venezuelan Revolutionary
Front of Occupied Factories (FRETECO) in the evening. Several visitors
commented that a large part of the audience were youth.
That this was an important meeting could be seen in the guests that decided to
participate. Among the delegates were Francisco Contreras, from the national
leadership of the Left Party and Jose "Cheo" Sanchez, leading representative
for Resolver (Venezuelan solidarity network) which has played an import part in
the solidarity movement for Venezuela in Sweden. We want to express our special
gratitude to the Venezuelan Ambassador in Sweden, Horacio Arteaga. As soon as
he heard about the event he decided to participate. He travelled over the day
from Stockholm to Gothenburg (478 kilometres) to talk about the proposed
constitutional reform and to express his gratitude to the work that the Hands
Off Venezuela campaign has done.
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HOV internationals ecretary Jorge Martín
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Ylva Vinberg, branch secretary of Young Left Angered opened the meeting and
spoke about how the revolution in Venezuela has meant the return of socialism.
It is important for us in Sweden were socialism and revolution have been off
the agenda in the labour movement for a long time.
After that Jorge Martin, the international secretary of the HOV campaign, made
a speech to explain what is happening in Venezuela today. He said that is
important to have a solidarity campaign to counter the lies from the mainstream
media. For example now you can read that opposition students have been attacked
by armed chavistas. The reality is that opposition students have attacked
students that support the revolution. This shows the "democratic" character of
the opposition, whose leaders all supported the coup in 2002. A crushing of the
revolution would be a bloody affair similar to what happened in Chile 1973.
oligarchy
who uses them to sabotage the revolution. The people have started to organise
in a revolutionary way in community councils (consejos comunales), workers
council in the factories and in the new party PSUV (Venezuela's United
Socialist Party) with more than 5 million having registered to join. The
solution is to put the state and the economy under the democratic control of
the people and to bring the revolution to its goal - a socialist Venezuela. The meeting continued
with discussions and questions.
Jorge Martin explained that he believes that the main challenges for the
revolution in the fields of the state, the economy and the revolutionary
organisation. The old bourgeois state is still intact and all the time tries to
sabotage and put a brake on the revolution. Key parts of the economy are still
in the hands of the old
After a lunch break there were three commissions - the role of women in the
revolution, the new constitution and the new party PSUV. After the discussion there
was a short report from each commission. Martin Lööf spoke about how the new
party is born out of struggle and that there is a need for an organisation the
can be a tool for the revolution. Erik Andersson spoke about the constitution,
earlier there has been a contradiction between the development of the
revolution and the old constitution but now with the new proposal the is an
attempt to solve this contradiction.
Catherine Holt spoke about how women play an important role in the revolution.
One of the reasons why women in Venezuela are enthusiastic about the
revolutions is because of the gains that have been made, that you cannot find
in any other Latin American country except Cuba. But there are still many
problems, at a grassroots level women are a majority but you need an active
struggle on behalf of the women so that this will be reflected in the
leadership of the movement.
After this Egil Karlow
spoke about the future for the HOV campaign and the political significance of
our work. The struggle in Venezuela is an inspiration to us in Sweden, if its
possible to have a 36-hour working week in relatively poor country as Venezuela
why should it not be possible to have 30 hours in Sweden. After the discussion
there was a vote for the proposals. Some of the resolutions that were passed
were -
- Next year HOV will organize a conference
together with organisations in the labour movement and other solidarity
movements.
- To build up the campaign and the interest
for the conference we shall organise a speaking tour with someone from
Venezuela (preferably someone from Inveval).
- Each HOV-group should have meetings and
activity on the day of the referendum for the new constitution, the 2th of
December.
 The meeting ended with
an enthusiastic singing of the international.
In the evening there was a fundraising party for FRETECO. The troubadour Johan Andersson warmed
up the audience before the main act, the socialist dance band Lazze Ohlys who
played there own songs as well as radical classics as Bella Ciao and
Warsawjanka. We want to give special gratitude to the band that not only played
but also donated several of their records to the HOV-campaign.
The great enthusiasm of the meeting can be seen in the financial results. After
all expenses had been paid for we had collected over 2000 Swedish crowns (215
Euros) and sold HOV-material for over 1000 (107 Euros), which can be used to
produce more material. Hands off Venezuela wants to express you gratitude to
all delegates and all those who made the meeting possible.
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Solidarity activities