The following message from Carolus Wimmer, a member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of Venezuela and director of international relations for Venezuelan parliament, was sent to the Third Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference held in Sydney on March 24-28. Wimmer was invited by the organisers to speak at the conference but was not granted a visa by Australian immigration authorities in time.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Communist Party of Venezuela and the people of Venezuela send warm greetings and wishes of days full of fraternity and successful deliberations.
In the international context of sustainable development, of the people's fight against the policies of hegemonic globalisation and North American imperialist oppression, and of constant provocation and threats against the tendencies towards liberation and sovereignty of the peoples and nations, revolutionary ideas are of fundamental relevance.
This is particularly true in Venezuela, where the murderous, provoking and destabilising glance of Yankee imperialism — and of the continental oligarchy subordinated to its interests — has a focused and active counterrevolutionary strategy; and where the organised and ideologically conscious people — the Communist Party and the Communist Youth specifically — must rise to meet the new exigencies and challenges that the Venezuelan revolutionary process throws up, as much in the national as in the international scene.
Each day, this peaceful revolutionary process presents a picture of greater complexity. At the same time, however, the nature of the changes to the economic base of the capitalist society that are necessary to radically transform society and truly open the way to a society based on social justice are becoming clearer.
The Third Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference demonstrates that we live in an international context of growth in the camp of progressive forces, and in which North American imperialism acts to maintain, consolidate and extend its worldwide domination.
In Venezuela, after the fascist coup in April 2002 that was ended by a great popular victory, the United States of North America mobilised its allies externally — the Colombian oligarchy and government — and internally to block Venezuela's strong tendency towards economic and social recovery — which is projected to grow even further in 2005 — and simultaneously tried to deal a blow to the development of a sovereign continental policy of integration and unity of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In opposition to this aggressive imperialistic policy, the Bolivarian government of President Hugo Chavez is constructing wide international alliances, both tactical and strategic, with governments, political and social movements and personalities. This will contribute to consolidating and fortifying the tendency towards worldwide multipolarity and to raising defensive walls against the criminal blows of imperialism. At the present time, imperialism finds itself limited in its overt operations against the Bolivarian revolution, because of its own internal crisis and the many battle fronts it is bogged down in — the main ones being Afghanistan and Iraq, and more generally the Middle East and Latin America — and the danger that the contradictions that its hegemonic globalisation has unleashed internally will be consolidated.
In Venezuela, one of the important things occurring now is provocation around Venezuela-Colombia border, which is promoted by the government of US President George W. Bush and utilises the Colombian oligarchy and government with the complicity of sections of Venezuelan society, to promote a local war and generate the conditions for an external intervention.
Dear comrades of this conference in Sydney, the Venezuelan revolution is advancing in five directions.
In the political field: Since Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's victory in the presidential referendum with 60% of the vote, and the regional elections which resulted in 22 of the 24 federal states being headed by Bolivarian governments and only two belonging to the opposition, there is total internal political stability, which has allowed for long-term planning. Nevertheless, revolutionary vigilance remains, and we must move forward in the local elections scheduled for August 2005, the parliamentary elections set for December 2005 and the presidential elections in 2006, where we must make sure of an overwhelming victory for President Chavez.
In the economic field: To govern for a just redistribution of wealth, conscious of the fact that in the capitalist system there is no social justice, it is necessary to think and fight for the transition to socialism, and support the formation of cooperatives and worker takeovers of industries whose owners left during the counterrevolutionary sabotage.
In the social field: We are extending health programs, for which we are grateful for the current help of more than 10,000 Cuban doctors who guarantee humane attention to the Venezuelan people. We are advancing totally free education programs, trying to guarantee full employment and a suitable house for each family.
In the territorial scene: We are advancing towards a redistribution of the population, with new cities founded on humanist criteria; and towards incentives for agricultural production to guarantee food for all of the population and to obtain food independence.
In the international scene: We are advancing: multipolar political, economic and cultural relations, especially towards Latin America, Asia and Africa; the democratisation of multilateral organisations like the UN; Venezuelan solidarity with the countries of the South in regards to exporting energy resources; and new military alliances to face up to a possible Yankee invasion of Venezuela.
Dear comrades of the Third Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference, we Venezuelan revolutionaries are conscious of our responsibility in the global anti-imperialist struggle. You can count on us!
At the World Social Forum, Chavez said: "Capitalism must be replaced.
"Every day more I am convinced, without any doubt in my mind and as many intellectuals have said, that it is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism cannot be transcended from within capitalism itself, but through socialism, a true socialism based on equality and justice. But I am also convinced that it is possible to do this under democracy, but not in the type of democracy being imposed from Washington."
Until the total victory against imperialism!
For a just world, for a socialist world!
From Green Left Weekly, April 13, 2005.
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