AMAZONIA:
Regional Social Forum a Boost for Chávez

Humberto Márquez


CARACAS, (IPS) - The Pan-Amazon Social Forum, a gathering of thousands of activists from nine South American countries, gets underway Thursday in Ciudad Guayana, in southeast Venezuela, with a component of solidarity for President Hugo Chávez.

This will be the third annual meeting of the Forum, which in the past two years was held in Belém do Pará, in northern Brazil.

"Our Forum is a critical space for convergence and for debate on strategies on sovereignty, peace and biodiversity, and for reaffirmation of democracy as a fundamental value," the mayor of Belém, Edilson Rodrigues, told IPS.

The experience of Venezuela under President Chávez "should be made known and supported," said Rodrigues, explaining the decision to move this year's regional meeting to Ciudad Guayana, where the Caroní and Orinoco rivers meet, 500 km southeast of Caracas.

Ciudad Guayana is a hub of the iron, steel and aluminium industries, and home to one of the world's largest hydroelectric complexes, including the Guri dam.

The Forum is to produce a declaration and a "timeline for work and struggle" for the citizens' groups in the Amazon Basin, but "above all, it is reflection, debate, sharing of experiences and the building of cooperation" amongst the participating organisations, said Rodrigues.

The Pan-Amazon Social Forum encompasses individuals and organisations from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, and is part of the World Social Forum, which met annually in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre from 2001 to 2003, and this year took place in Mumbai, India.

Some of the participating groups are the Brazilian Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST, Landless Rural Workers' Movement), Brazil's main trade union CUT, Bolivia's Movement for Water, Ecuador's Confederation of National Indigenous Organisations, the French Guiana Workers' Union and the Colombian Assembly of Indigenous Councils.

The non-Amazon groups Continental Social Alliance, the Panamanian Peoples Movement and the Assembly of Caribbean Peoples also will be participating in the Forum, says Celia Maracayá, a Brazilian member of the organising committee.

In Venezuela, the hosts of the event are political and labour groups that support Chávez. The president himself is slated to inaugurate the Forum, which lasts until Sunday.

The agenda had originally included an appearance by Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was to take part in a symbolic act in which he and Chávez would mix waters from the tributaries of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. But a source from the Brazilian embassy in Caracas told IPS that Lula will not be in attendance.

Rodrigues, in Caracas ahead of the Ciudad Guayana meet, estimated that attendance would be 5,000 to 7,000 people. The largest foreign delegation, of some 1,200 people, will be arriving by bus from northern Brazil, with 450 coming from Belém do Pará, he said.

Venezuelan Environment Minister Ana Osorio says that in addition to panel discussions, workshops and conferences, also being organised are a caravan of vehicles and a march, "all in support of the 'Bolivarian Revolution'," as Chávez supporters refer to the process of social and political changes promoted by his government.

Venezuela "with Chávez has resisted the U.S. empire and has had the valour to confront Plan Colombia (the anti-drugs programme promoted and financed by Washington), as Lula has done by refusing the installation of U.S. military bases" in the Brazilian Amazon, Rodrigues said.

The mayor of Belém says he is proud to be, like Lula, one of the founders of the leftist governing Workers' Party (PT) and of the CUT trade union.

Plan Colombia, says Rodrigues, "is nothing more than the U.S. attempt to gain control over a part of the Amazon, which is currently in the hands of the Colombian rebels who opposed the oppression of their oligarchy."

Southern Colombia, where there are tributaries that flow into the Amazon, is considered a stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, the country's largest guerrilla group.

Against this backdrop, the debates and the discussions of the Pan-Amazon Social Forum will take place "amongst peoples who for centuries have been marginalised, such as Indians, descendants of Africans, landless peasants, young people and women, who have been denied opportunity," said Rodrigues.