January 30, 2006
Visitors look to Chávez' example

(Associated Press, reproduced by The Daily Journal) - "A group of American activists climbed into the slums above Caracas to send a message back home - that Venezuela can offer the United States some lessons on how to deal with poverty.

'The U.S. is about privilege. A lot of people in the U.S. are born into privilege and don't realize the difficulties of the poor,' said Jennifer Jewell, 29, a single mother from Louisville, Kentucky, who has spent much of her adult life on welfare and sometimes homeless.

Jewell and about 100 other advocates from the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign were among the thousands of international visitors in Caracas for this year's World Social Forum, which ended January 29.

Some said they were leaving with new admiration for the many social programs President Hugo Chávez has funded with the country's booming oil profits.

Traveling with two U.S. children up a steep, winding drive into the gritty slums above the capital, some from the group got free medical treatment from a Cuban doctor working at a clinic funded by Chávez' government.

Three-year-old Guillermo Santos was given inhalers for his chronic asthma - treatment they couldn't afford back in Philadelphia, claimed his mother, Cheri Honkala, the group's national coordinator.

World Social Forum organizers arranged free lodging for the Americans at a former juvenile detention center, and the group's airfare was paid for by the Convergence of Movements of the Peoples of the Americas , an international organization of social movements, Honkala said.

Gathering in the simple brick home of María Torres, an immigrant from Colombia, the Americans shared stories about troubles faced by the U.S. poor: cuts in state medical insurance and welfare, high unemployment in inner cities, illiteracy and drugs.

The Americans said their visit was not a political statement about the socialist Venezuelan president.

'This isn't a defense of Chávez; this is a defense of poor people,' and their rights to housing, education, medical care and food, said Luis Rodríguez, 51, a former gang member who got involved in drugs as a poor Mexican immigrant boy in Los Angeles. 'There's nothing like this in the U.S.'

The visitors said they saw hopeful signs in Chávez' social programs even though Venezuela has plenty of other problems - battling rampant crime, corruption and unemployment. More than one-third of Venezuelans live without basics like running water or sewers.

The Americans' visit came as Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp. is supplying thousands of low-income U.S. families this winter with discounted heating oil after Chávez accused President George W. Bush's administration of neglecting the poor.

Critics argue Chávez is accumulating power domestically and using his country's oil wealth for populist programs to buy political support. Chávez denies it, saying his government is fully democratic and his cooperative programs are aimed at building solidarity.

Though Chávez appeared only sporadically with activists during the six-day forum, he was a dominant personality, with people in rows of tents handing out brochures praising his government's achievements.

Some activists said they were un-comfortable with Chávez' influence on the forum, while others said they found his views fitting for a gathering focused on opposition to war, globalization and U.S. dominance.

Organizers said the World Social Forum drew some 70,000 people, a majority of them Venezuelans.

The event, held annually to counter the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, was split in three countries this year, including a smaller gathering in Mali earlier in January and another two months from now in Pakistan ".