BY EMMA MURPHY
Hundreds of people around Australia have attended meetings featuring Alvaro Guzman, the national director of the Venezuelan Bolivarian Student Front. Guzman began a national speaking tour with a meeting in Hobart on September 8, attended by 90 people.
He has since spoken to meetings of a similar, or somewhat larger, size in Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane. Guzman has meetings scheduled in Canberra, Sydney, Perth, Newcastle and Wollongong.
With the tour coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the military coup against President Allende in Chile, on September 11, Guzman has been discussing parallels between Allende's political strategy and that of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In particular, Guzman has used his meetings to highlight Chavez's attempts to offer education and empowerment to the people — largely through a national literacy campaign and the establishment of Bolivarian Circles.
Guzman is also discussing the tradition of struggle in Latin America — struggles for national liberation and against repressive political regimes. Stressing the internationalist element of the Venezuelan situation, he said in the Adelaide meeting, "The 'revolution Venezuela' doesn't just belong to Chavez; it belongs to all Venezuelans. Indeed, it belongs to everybody in the world who is fighting imperialism."
Perhaps the most inspiring aspect of Guzman's presentations has been his description of how, despite the incredible poverty in Venezuela, the Chavez government has been able to guarantee its citizens a basic quality of life. Education is free, for example, as is health care. There is a program to provide free food to children, while military personnel are being dispatched to improve rural infrastructure such as housing and surgeries.
Guzman's talks have indicated that the situation unfolding in Venezuela is an example of people's power in action; a government working with the people. It is an inspiration to people around world fighting for change. [For details of Guzman's remaining meetings, see the ad on this page.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 17, 2003.
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