Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current (CRBZ)

Venezuela’s new National Assembly has been sworn in, ending five years of right-wing control of parliament. Socialist MP Melitza Orellana speaks about her key priorities and the challenges facing the new assembly.

As the United States ratchets up its sanctions on Venezuela, organisations in Australia are stepping up efforts to promote people-to-people solidarity, writes Federico Fuentes.

Six members of the Bolívar and Zamora Revolutionary Current were murdered on July 27 by an as yet unidentified armed group, presumably mercenaries paid by sections of the local right-wing landowners.

While the voices of Venezuela's right-wing opposition are continuously amplified by the corporate media, rarely are the voices of grassroots activists heard. Green Left Weekly’s Federico Fuentes spoke to Pacha Catalina Guzman, a leading activist with Venezuela’s largest peasant-based organisation, the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front (FNCEZ), to get her view on the current economic crisis and how rural communities are organising to deal with the situation.

“What is happening in Venezuela is a revolution, not a dictatorship,” Pacha Catalina Guzman, an activist with Venezuela’s largest peasant-based organisation, the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front (FNCEZ) and the Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current (CRBZ), told a public meeting of more than 40 people on March 29.

The meeting was the last in Guzman’s Australian tour coordinated by Latin America Solidarity Network (LASNET) that took her to Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney.

With the National Electoral Council setting April 22 as the date for the country’s presidential election and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) confirming current president Nicolas Maduro as their candidate, leftist organisations in Venezuela have been debating what position to take.