Members of the organizing committee were very active at the event in promoting the festival, a gathering of thousands of youth from countries around the world that will take place in Caracas, Venezuela, in August. Its theme is: “For peace and solidarity we struggle against war and imperialism.”

The featured speaker at the event was Jesús “Chucho” Garcia, the founder of the AfroVenezuelan Network, and a founder of the Network of AfroVenezuelan organizations. Garcia spoke on the theme of the long history of the resistance of Afro-Venezuelans to their oppression and subjugation. He explained first how the Spanish colonialists ripped them away from their native Africa and made them slaves. Since their liberation from slavery, he added, the native Venezuelan ruling class, with the aid of the imperialist powers, has relegated them to second-class status in their country. Garcia stressed the interests of Afro-Venezuelans in defending the gains they have made during the presidency of Hugo Chávez.

A number of university student organizations participated in the event, including the La Raza Student Cultural Center, Black Student Union, and Anti-War League. City-wide organizations involved included the Venezuela Committee, Ambazonian Liberation Party, Minnesota Cuba Committee, Community Campaign to Prosecute the Police, and Young Socialists.

“What can I learn from the struggle in Venezuela in recent years about what we can do in my country?” asked an activist with the Ambazonian Liberation Party. “I intend to go to Venezuela to find out.”

Ambazonia, formerly the British Southern Cameroons, is a province in the western part of Cameroon where a movement has been pressing for independence since the former British colony merged with the former French colony to form a single country in 1961. She said her country has been dominated for 43 years by the predominately French-speaking Cameroon government and by French imperialism.

“I’m going to the festival most importantly because I’m a student in the U.S. and feel like I’m in the belly of the beast and have to fight it,” said Tsione Michael, 18, an Ethiopian-American student at Macalester College in St. Paul who helped build the event and is part of the local delegation preparing to attend the festival.

Michael is arranging to show the video, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” at her campus. “The video will help to show people what’s been going on and to show them the political process going on in Venezuela, which includes mobilizations of peasants and oppressed peoples,” she said.

“I want to be able, with that knowledge, to expand my scope of the world and to use that to do solidarity work,” she added. “For people who don’t know what’s happening, I want them to learn what is taking place in Venezuela and the role U.S. imperialism is playing in supporting the oppression of poor and working people there. For the people who do know what’s happening in Venezuela, I want them to try to connect what is happening there with struggles here in the U.S. and Minnesota.”

Michael and others built the festival at the Chucho Garcia event, passing out flyers and talking to many of the young people who came and encouraging them to sign up to get involved in the local committee. Jacob Perasso, from the Local Organizing Committee, was invited by the organizers of the event to speak about the gathering.

The organizing committee has had several successful meetings to organize its work. According to Joe Kapsner, a University of Minnesota student and one of the activists, they have been meeting on Sunday afternoons at the offices of La Raza Student Cultural Center. He said that about 20 students and others have attended each of three meetings.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home