Toronto Activists Celebrate Venezuela Election Win

by Barry Weisleder / December 2006

Over 120 people crowded the Concord Cafe in downtown Toronto on December 5 for an evening of music, drinks and speeches to celebrate the Dec. 3 election victory of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution (Chavez won 63% of the votes cast) in Venezuela. The event was broadly co-sponsored, including by the Venezuela We are with you Coalition, the Hands Off Venezuela campaign, the Latin American Solidarity Coalition, and the Manuelita Saenz and Louis Riel Bolivarian Circles. The gathering was addressed by representatives of the sponsoring groups, by official emissaries of the Venezuelan and Cuban consulates in Toronto, the president of the Canadian Arab Federation, and spokespersons for the Toronto Haiti Action Committee, a Chilean-Mapuche peoples' solidarity group, and some political organizations.

The following is the statement I was privileged to make on behalf of Toronto Socialist Action: “Sisters and brothers, comrades and friends, what a fine gathering this is. Welcome to my neighbourhood bar. I'm so glad we have something great to celebrate and that we've held this event tonight to mark the occasion. Socialist Action is thrilled by the resounding election victory of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. The victory is a vindication of wealth re-distribution in favour of the poor, in favour of health and literacy, in favour of jobs and power for growing numbers of working people. It is victory for an agenda that calls for 21st century socialism and thus an end to the plundering, violent and oppressive rule of global greed (discretely known as world capitalism).

With good reason, Hugo Chavez is the most popular politician, not only in Latin America, but also in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East and possibly amongst the dis-empowered masses of North America as well. While Canadian governments are closing women's centres, homeless shelters, and schools -- while our rulers are feeding the military and the rich at the expense of working people, the poor and visible minorities -- things are clearly moving in the opposite direction in Venezuela. And that's something truly worth celebrating.

But let's not get carried away. There's still a lot of work to be done. We are just approaching the threshold of the final conflict.

First of all, we have a sacred duty to humanity to defend the gains of the Bolivarian Revolution. The vultures of reaction have been dealt a series of blows, but they grow hungry for revenge. I refer not just to Manuel Rosales and the stunted, self-centred, bourgeoisie he represents. I refer to Washington and its global partners in crime, including the junior imperialist government in Ottawa, which aim to turn back the clock.

History may be on our side, but time is not. Delay can be a fatal enemy of revolution if it allows reaction to regroup and strike again. It will be increasingly apparent to the workers and farmers of Venezuela that their precious gains cannot be fully extended, and can never be consolidated, unless they take power into their own hands. The future depends on replacing the capitalist state with the organized, independent power of the working class and oppressed social layers, who must become the new masters of a democratically planned, collectively owned economy.

What is our task here? It is to give them the maximum time and space to secure victory. That means we have a duty to educate and to mobilize public opinion, starting in the unions and the NDP, to demand that Ottawa break with Washington's policy, that Ottawa foster fair bi-lateral trade, increase cultural and political relations with Caracas. We should demand that the federal government turn a new leaf in its relations with Latin America. Support ALBA. Demand freedom for the Cuba Five. Demand that the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles be extradited to Venezuela to face his accusers. Insist that the Chilean butcher Augusto Pinochet go to trial for his crimes against humanity. Cancel the perfidious Third World debt. Get the Canadian cops and troops the hell out of Haiti, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf now! Money for healthcare, not for warfare!

It's time to take our stand with the rising tide of revolt across Latin America. A victory for the Venezuelan workers is a victory for workers in this country and all around the world.

Long live the Bolivarian Revolution. Viva Chavez. Hasta la victoria siempre. Venceremos.