The largest delegations came from Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. Large groups also came from the United States, Canada, and Cuba. The Cuban delegation included internationalist doctors and teachers currently volunteering in Venezuela on missions to upgrade the country’s medical system and in literacy campaigns.

Conference speakers hailed the recent electoral victories of candidates of the left in South America as the dawn of “socialism in the 21st century.” A prominent sign at many forum events read, “Another America is on the march” and featured photos of presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Ignacio “Lula” da Silva in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Michelle Bachelet in Chile. The outcome of these elections reflects a changing mood among working people in the region toward more determined resistance to imperialist domination and increased expectations for better living and working conditions, a number of delegates said.

The six days of activities opened with a march and rally of tens of thousands. Speakers opposed unequal trade relations imposed by imperialists powers on semicolonial countries under “free trade” agreements. They also denounced the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and the devastation of the environment. Most speakers blamed U.S. president George Bush for today’s social ills. Signs, banners, and buttons with Bush’s name or image crossed out expressed the widespread view that his ouster is a solution to these problems.

Chávez spoke at a plenary session January 27. Others on the platform included U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan; Aleida Guevara March, daughter of Ernesto Che Guevara, a central leader of the Cuban Revolution; Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba’s national assembly; and Danielle Mitterrand, widow of former French president François Mitterrand.

Elma Beatriz Rosado, widow of Puerto Rican independence fighter Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, who was killed by FBI agents in Puerto Rico last fall, also spoke, accusing the U.S. government of murdering her husband.

A continental gathering to promote the need for government-guaranteed free health care for all was held prior to the main event. Participants included trade unionists at Provegran, a plant in Tejeria in the Venezuelan state of Araguá. This is a meat by-product factory where workers have been building their union as they fight against unsafe working conditions and for better wages and benefits.

Rafael González, one of the leaders of the struggle, told the Militant, that the fight for the union was precipitated by the death of nine workers due to a deadly gas leak in August 2003. Union-minded workers had attempted to organize the plant on several occasions leading up to this disaster.

José López, representing the Regional Coordinator of Workers Health, which provides job safety training, said during a workshop that some 276,000 accidents take place on the job every year in Venezuela. “Only the workers, organized and mobilized, can guarantee safety on the job,” López said.

Another feature of the forum were women’s organizations and individuals from across South America exchanging experiences on efforts to decriminalize abortion.

Several hundred people attended meetings hosted by the Cuba-Venezuela Association for Friendship and Solidarity. The events were held to aid the campaign to free five Cuban revolutionaries imprisoned in the United States on frame-up charges brought by Washington, which include conspiracy to commit espionage for Havana. Participants also protested Washington’s refusal to extradite to Venezuela Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA-trained mass murderer. Born in Cuba and later becoming a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, Carriles masterminded the bombing of a Cuban airliner in the 1970s that killed 73 people.
 
 
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