States and revolution in Latin America
Sunday, November 28, 2010
By Federico Fuentes
It should come as no surprise that Latin America, a region converted into a laboratory for ongoing experiments in social change, has increasingly become the topic of discussion and debate among the broader left.
Latin America has not only dealt blows to imperialism but also raised the banner of socialism on a global scale. It is of strategic importance for those fighting for a better world, especially at a time when capitalism is in systemic crisis.
Latin America’s landscape of powerful social movements, left governments of various shades, revolutionary insurrections, and growing expressions of indigenous resistance and worker control, provides a perfect scenario for leftists to learn about, and debate, revolutionary strategy and tactics.
This should not simply be an academic debate. It should look at how to best build solidarity with these movements for change and gain insight for struggles at home.
Of late, burning dispute has opened up, mostly among those writing from an anti-capitalist orientation: a debate over the complex relationship, or “dance” as Ben Dangl calls it, between social movements and states in Latin America.
Dancing with Dynamite: States and Social Movements in Latin America is Dangl’s second book.
Like his first book, The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia, (reviewed GLW issue 714 http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/37786), Dangl’s latest offering provides an opportunity for the subjects of the social changes underway in Latin America to speak for themselves and tell their own story.
However, this time he expands his focus beyond Bolivia and the wars between communities and corporations, to look at how an intriguing dance between states, governments and social movements is playing out in seven different countries. All the countries have varying characteristics but similar challenges.
Moreover, Dancing with Dynamite is a much more explicit polemic, developing some of the ideas first outlined in The Price of Fire.
Dangl’s introduction to Dancing with Dynamite says: “The discussion surrounding the question of changing the world through taking state power or remaining autonomous has been going on for centuries.
“The vitality of South America’s new social movements, and the recent shift to the left in the halls of government power, make the region a timely subject of study within this ongoing debate.”
As the title suggests, Dangl comes out strongly for “remaining autonomous” from state power.
Whatever one might think of this thesis, Dangl’s book is an important contribution to the debate that should be read for at least two reasons.
First, it is written by the founder of Upsidedownworld.org, one of the most influential English-language websites on the left for information and analysis about Latin America.
Anyone who follows this website (such as me), will have some sense of the politics put forward in the book.
The focus here, as in Upsidedownworld.org, is very much on the social movements and struggles unfolding within each national context.
Second, Dangl not only sets out to analyse the movements in Latin America, but also to examine what lessons activists in the United States can extract from the struggles south of the border.
In essence, while his views on the various governments and their character differ, each chapter tends to portray a similar picture.
Citing Emma Goldman, Noam Chomsky and John Holloway, author of the polemical book Change the World Without Taking Power, Dangl argues that in each country he studied, while social movements are constantly on a “tightrope walk between cooptation and genuine collaboration,” more often than not, cooperation with the state leads to demobilisation.
The dance between state and social movements can be deadly, because “the state and governing parties is, by its nature, a hegemonic force that generally aims to subsume, weaken or eliminate other movements and political forces”.
Faced with this dangerous dance, Dangl reaches the same conclusion as Raul Zibechi, Uruguayan activist and author of Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces.
“If the state is in danger of falling into the hands of fascist groups”, Zibechi says, “we should do all we can to prevent that from happening, including participating in the elections, in a direct form or in support of other connected groups.
“But we know that there, in this field, in this space, what is central to our future is not being fought over. We will not put our best forces in this terrain because we know that what is fought over there, usually, is not decisive in terms of changing the system.”
This is why, according to Dangl, Venezuelan Presiden Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “demonstrate important parallels”.
It’s just that “populist rhetoric, constitutional changes, and funds from nationalised industries cushion the setbacks in Venezuela and Bolivia”.
If we want to look for a real alternative, Dangl says we won’t find them in Venezuela or Bolivia, where many of the movements “bow down to politicians and parties during campaign seasons, and then prostrate themselves for government handouts or positions”.
Instead, he says we need to look at the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST), which “doesn’t wait for the state — it acts according to its own logic and needs”.
The MST best encapsulates the correct approach of both “pressuring the state and empowering their own territories from below.”
Using an approach of expanding — or “dispersing” — power “can mean working to become a sustainable movement that can weather political climates”, says Dangl.
Leaving to one side whether this accurately reflects the goals of the MST or not, a number of problems arise in such an analysis.
For a start, Dangl uses the terms government and state interchangeably, confusing two different things. Second, his ideal of “dispersing power” (while pressuring the existing state), as opposed to creating an alternate state power, leads to some contradictory conclusions.
On the one hand he argues that by their nature, states coopt and ultimately destroy social movements.
Yet, Dangl also argues that while “working for a better world without a state” a “viable strategy” could be “supporting state-based programs, if they indeed help people achieve their long and short term goals”.
The chapter on Venezuela best highlights what Dangl means.
Correctly pointing out that the old, existing state “replicates the inequalities and challenges found in many other nations”, Dangl also notes that this state is attempting to, in the words of Sara Motta “create a new set of state institutions that bypass the traditional state, and distribute power in a democratic and participatory manner”.
The explanation for this seeming contradiction is simple.
First, Dangl confuses the difference between a movement — in this case the Bolivarian movement — winning government and controlling the state.
When Chavez was first elected in 1998, he was elected as the head of a capitalist state. However, he and the movement very quickly realised that this state had not been created to benefit the majority, and that instead it was necessary to “give power to the people” to tackle poverty.
To shift the rules of the game more in its favour, the Bolivarian movement convoked a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.
But to make this, and the government’s social and economic programs, a reality, it was necessary to gain real control over the state, and in particular PDVSA, the state oil company.
It was the attempt by the Chavez government to move forward on this front that triggered an intense reaction by Venezuela’s elites, who saw it as a direct attack on them.
The intense class battles of 2002 — the struggle to defeat the April military coup and then the December-January 2003 bosses’ lockout of the oil industry — led to the emergence of a number of important social movements (particularly the workers movement) and a break of capital’s control over the armed forces.
These forces were crucial to the survival of the government, but also shifted the balance of class forces in favour of the poor majority and their government, which only now had the power to move forward on a number of its social programs.
And more importantly, they helped in the creation on the new state institutions that Dangl and Motta refer to.
Since then, the Bolivarian movement has worked to stimulate the self-activity of the masses to create new organs of popular power — worker councils, communes and peoples militias — as the bedrock of the new communal state.
By operating within the old state to destroy it, and working to build a new state from below at the same time, the Bolivarian movement has been able to advance.
Michael Lebowitz argues in his new book The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development, that while tensions between the “top-down orientation” of the old state and the “bottom-up emphasis” of the new communal state will exist in Venezuela, this “tension is not the principle contradiction”.
Rather, just as we find revolutionaries working within and against the old state in order to build a new society, so do we find old ideas and vices present within social movements that have emerged in the old society.
The challenge is how to best link these two forces through the revolutionary struggle to destroy the old state and build the new communal state.
Essential to this is the construction of a political instrument — a mass revolutionary party — that can bring together these activists to share experiences and provide political leadership in the battle to capture power, destroy the old state and build a new socialist society.
This is the struggle unfolding today in Venezuela, both in the developing worker and communal councils, and in the construction of a mass revolutionary party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
In all these areas we will find evidence of the old state bureaucracy and its allies working to undermine self-organisation of the masses. Just as we will find rank and file militants who drag with them the vices inherit in a capitalist society.
Bringing together revolutionaries to build an independent movement of workers and oppressed sectors and confront and destroy the old state helps to overcome these obstacles.
The alternative, that focuses solely on building local power, but refusing to destroy the capitalist state, can only lead on the one hand to support for pro-capitalist forces and the demoralisation of social movements on the other.
By downplaying the political struggle, reducing it to electoral terms, Dangl ends up lending support to the idea of voting for politicians like Obama. If the political struggle is not important, then why not just support the “lesser evil” rather than build a political independent movement of the working class?
Similarly, by refusing to create an independent working class party to help cohere and orientate local struggles not only to resist, but take power, the struggle can be led down the path of demoralisation and defeat.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46272
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA)
Cuba and Venezuela Commemorate 10th Anniversary of Bilateral Cooperation
by James Suggett
Mérida, November 8th 2010 – The Cuban and Venezuelan governments commemorated the 10th anniversary of the beginning of their bilateral cooperation during a working visit by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to the Caribbean island over the weekend.
On October 30, 2000, during Chavez’s second year in office, the two countries signed the “Integral Agreement for Collaboration” in Caracas. It marked the beginning of an anti-imperialist alliance and a form of exchange that was presented as an alternative to the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Through the accord, Venezuela began shipping 53,000 barrels per day of its principal export, oil, to fuel-starved Cuba in exchange for human services worth the approximate market value of the oil.
In subsequent years, tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, dentists, optometrists, physical therapists, nurses, and other health care workers staffed free clinics in thousands of Venezuela’s poorest neighborhoods. Cuba also provided vaccines, treatment for illnesses such as heart disease, anemia, asthma, HIV and AIDS, and began training Venezuelan doctors in a program called “Integral Community Medicine.”
Also through the accord, Cuban agronomists worked with Venezuelan officials to modernize Venezuela’s sugar industry, and Cuban specialists provided on-site training in agroecology, organic fertilizer production, irrigation, sustainable forestry, and the promotion of agricultural cooperatives. Cuban literacy trainers assisted Venezuela’s national drive to eradicate illiteracy, a goal that was achieved in 2005 according to the United Nations. In addition, Cuban physical education experts worked to integrate athletics into Venezuela’s public health and public education systems.
Bilateral relations between Cuba and Venezuela have expanded over the years to include state-controlled economic development projects in the areas of oil refining, electricity production, tourism, mining, light and heavy industries, and railway systems.
In 2004, Venezuela and Cuba created a bloc called the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) that is based on the Cuba-Venezuela model of cooperation and now also includes Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
In an interview broadcast on Venezuelan and Cuban television on Sunday, President Chavez said this system of integration was “unprecedented in Latin America and the world.”
He said bilateral cooperation with Cuba has helped his oil-dependent nation boost its long-neglected agricultural sector, diversify its industry, and strengthen its anti-poverty programs.
“The Cuban people have made a great contribution to the Bolivarian Revolution,” said Chavez, referring to his government’s program, which is named after Simon Bolivar, a Latin American independence hero. “Both nations have benefitted from this relationship, respecting the particularities of our respective systems... both revolutions will continue to be consolidated and to mutually support each other,” said Chavez.
The president boasted about Venezuela’s reduction of poverty, malnutrition, infant mortality, and economic inequality, and its increase in educational enrollment from primary school through the university under his ten-year administration. He noted that these achievements are recognized by the United Nations and said they are steps toward “21st Century Socialism.”
“We have become the cradle of a new world,” said the president.
Chavez emphasized the role of the US government in impeding this process by supporting a military coup organized by the Venezuelan opposition in April 2002 and by maintaining its blockade against Cuba despite repeated unanimous votes in the United Nations to end the blockade.
“Cuba and Venezuela have united to break the chains of backwardness, and we have helped Cuba to minimize the impact of the blockade imposed by the United States,” Chavez said. “That is why the [US] empire attacked and continues to attack Cuba so much, they are trying to put out the flame,” said the Venezuelan president.
The Venezuelan opposition has strongly criticized the Chavez administration’s cooperation with Cuba. In September, opposition candidates for the Venezuelan National Assembly centered their campaign platforms on ominous warnings that Venezuela was on the road toward a “Castro-communist dictatorship.” Large opposition media outlets regularly state that the increased role of the Venezuelan state in industries such as oil, food, construction, and electricity stifles economic growth and violates the constitutional right to own private property.
The government has responded by asserting that the government is defending the right of Venezuela’s poor to participation in private property ownership by guaranteeing access to basic goods and services.
by James Suggett
Mérida, November 8th 2010 – The Cuban and Venezuelan governments commemorated the 10th anniversary of the beginning of their bilateral cooperation during a working visit by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to the Caribbean island over the weekend.
On October 30, 2000, during Chavez’s second year in office, the two countries signed the “Integral Agreement for Collaboration” in Caracas. It marked the beginning of an anti-imperialist alliance and a form of exchange that was presented as an alternative to the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Through the accord, Venezuela began shipping 53,000 barrels per day of its principal export, oil, to fuel-starved Cuba in exchange for human services worth the approximate market value of the oil.
In subsequent years, tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, dentists, optometrists, physical therapists, nurses, and other health care workers staffed free clinics in thousands of Venezuela’s poorest neighborhoods. Cuba also provided vaccines, treatment for illnesses such as heart disease, anemia, asthma, HIV and AIDS, and began training Venezuelan doctors in a program called “Integral Community Medicine.”
Also through the accord, Cuban agronomists worked with Venezuelan officials to modernize Venezuela’s sugar industry, and Cuban specialists provided on-site training in agroecology, organic fertilizer production, irrigation, sustainable forestry, and the promotion of agricultural cooperatives. Cuban literacy trainers assisted Venezuela’s national drive to eradicate illiteracy, a goal that was achieved in 2005 according to the United Nations. In addition, Cuban physical education experts worked to integrate athletics into Venezuela’s public health and public education systems.
Bilateral relations between Cuba and Venezuela have expanded over the years to include state-controlled economic development projects in the areas of oil refining, electricity production, tourism, mining, light and heavy industries, and railway systems.
In 2004, Venezuela and Cuba created a bloc called the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) that is based on the Cuba-Venezuela model of cooperation and now also includes Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
In an interview broadcast on Venezuelan and Cuban television on Sunday, President Chavez said this system of integration was “unprecedented in Latin America and the world.”
He said bilateral cooperation with Cuba has helped his oil-dependent nation boost its long-neglected agricultural sector, diversify its industry, and strengthen its anti-poverty programs.
“The Cuban people have made a great contribution to the Bolivarian Revolution,” said Chavez, referring to his government’s program, which is named after Simon Bolivar, a Latin American independence hero. “Both nations have benefitted from this relationship, respecting the particularities of our respective systems... both revolutions will continue to be consolidated and to mutually support each other,” said Chavez.
The president boasted about Venezuela’s reduction of poverty, malnutrition, infant mortality, and economic inequality, and its increase in educational enrollment from primary school through the university under his ten-year administration. He noted that these achievements are recognized by the United Nations and said they are steps toward “21st Century Socialism.”
“We have become the cradle of a new world,” said the president.
Chavez emphasized the role of the US government in impeding this process by supporting a military coup organized by the Venezuelan opposition in April 2002 and by maintaining its blockade against Cuba despite repeated unanimous votes in the United Nations to end the blockade.
“Cuba and Venezuela have united to break the chains of backwardness, and we have helped Cuba to minimize the impact of the blockade imposed by the United States,” Chavez said. “That is why the [US] empire attacked and continues to attack Cuba so much, they are trying to put out the flame,” said the Venezuelan president.
The Venezuelan opposition has strongly criticized the Chavez administration’s cooperation with Cuba. In September, opposition candidates for the Venezuelan National Assembly centered their campaign platforms on ominous warnings that Venezuela was on the road toward a “Castro-communist dictatorship.” Large opposition media outlets regularly state that the increased role of the Venezuelan state in industries such as oil, food, construction, and electricity stifles economic growth and violates the constitutional right to own private property.
The government has responded by asserting that the government is defending the right of Venezuela’s poor to participation in private property ownership by guaranteeing access to basic goods and services.
www.venezuelanalysis.com
Venezuela Will PRovide All Aid and Support Necessary
Hugo Chavez Demands End of Military Intervention in Haiti www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/november/22/latinamerica10112202.htm
CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday demanded the withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Haiti, where a cholera epidemic has worsened the humanitarian crisis.
"How long would the military occupation continue in Haiti behind the shield of the UN? With what moral authority can the Haitian people be asked to cease their protests against foreign troops?
Haiti does not want to be Puerto Rico, a yankee neocolony, but that does not matter in the least to the United Nations or the Organization of American States," Chavez wrote in his Sunday column, Las Lineas de Chavez (Chavez' Lines).
According to the statesman, the world cannot remain impassive in face of the Haitian situation.
That tragedy continues to strike hearts, said Chavez, who lamented the death of over 1,000 people from cholera, in the nation devastated by a January earthquake.
The president reaffirmed Caracas' support to Haiti in that space.
"Venezuela will continue providing all aid and support necessary to the Haitian people. We will also speak out to increase efforts in solidarity within UNASUR and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America," Chavez stated.
CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday demanded the withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Haiti, where a cholera epidemic has worsened the humanitarian crisis.
"How long would the military occupation continue in Haiti behind the shield of the UN? With what moral authority can the Haitian people be asked to cease their protests against foreign troops?
Haiti does not want to be Puerto Rico, a yankee neocolony, but that does not matter in the least to the United Nations or the Organization of American States," Chavez wrote in his Sunday column, Las Lineas de Chavez (Chavez' Lines).
According to the statesman, the world cannot remain impassive in face of the Haitian situation.
That tragedy continues to strike hearts, said Chavez, who lamented the death of over 1,000 people from cholera, in the nation devastated by a January earthquake.
The president reaffirmed Caracas' support to Haiti in that space.
"Venezuela will continue providing all aid and support necessary to the Haitian people. We will also speak out to increase efforts in solidarity within UNASUR and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America," Chavez stated.
Toronto Teach-In Discusses Cochabamba Agenda for Climate Justice
Dear Friends,
The November 13 teach-in on climate justice, endorsed by Venezuela We Are With You Coalition, was a great success. More than 125 participants heard 18 presentations from members of 16 different organizations. The teach-in aimed to bring into focus the Cochabamba agenda for social justice and defense of the "rights of Mother Earth," to draw together community groups working on social issues related to climate justice, and to highlight ongoing campaigns for climate justice both in Canada and internationally. The article below summarizing our successful conference was published today at http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3459
Toronto Teach-In Discusses Cochabamba Agenda for Climate Justice
November 17, 2010
Activists discuss concepts far removed from the usual media babble about cap-and-trade and carbon offsets -- ideas that are unfamiliar to many on the left
by John Riddell
TORONTO -- An all-day conference on climate justice here November 13 indicated broadening support for the global climate justice movement.
Entitled Lessons from Bolivia: Building a Global Movement for Climate Justice, the conference was endorsed by 35 community organizations, ranging from the Toronto & York District Labour Council to the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Council of Canadians, and York University's Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean.
More than 125 participants heard 18 presentations from members of 16 different organizations.
The conference took as its starting point the decisions of the April 2010 People's Assembly on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Assembly's decisions charted a path toward countering climate change through measures based on social justice and respect for the "rights of nature."
The governments of Bolivia and other less-developed countries have secured the integration of many recommendations of the 30,000 Cochabamba conference participants into United Nations recommendations on climate change. However, an almost total media blackout has ensured that few people here -- including on the left -- are aware of the Cochabamba initiative.
The Toronto conference had to explain concepts far removed from the usual media babble about cap-and-trade and carbon offsets -- ideas that are unfamiliar to many on the left.
Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism, noted that "the Cochabamba resolutions, and the discussions here today, include many references to Pachamama, Mother Earth. Many of us feel uncomfortable with that language…. I fully understand that response -- but it is wrong. The Indigenous cosmovision … is completely compatible with the militant struggle for social justice we all support, and we can all learn from it." (See Responding to the Cochabamba Challenge)
It was thus fitting that the congress began with ceremonial singing and drumming by the Spirit Wind aboriginal women's group and an explanation of the concept of our obligations to Mother Earth by Marcelo Saavedra-Vargas, professor of indigenous studies at the University of Ottawa.
The central ideas of the Cochabamba conference were discussed in presentations by Angus, Teresa Turner of the Ecosocialist International Network, and Judy Deutsch of Science for Peace and in four workshop sessions.
The keynote address by Erika Duenas of the Bolivian Embassy in Washington DC explained her country's achievements in carrying the Cochabamba agenda into the arena of inter-governmental negotiations on climate change. (See ALBA Declaration) She called for support of the people's intervention that will press for this agenda at the governmental conference on climate change to be held in Cancun, Mexico, November 29--December 10.
A second session consisted of five workshops on different social movements related to the climate justice movement. Three were on well-established arenas of work for ecological justice: water rights, mining, and tar sands. The other two reflected ways in which climate justice relates to central issues of social struggle: "Environment and the World Working Class" and "Environment, Migration, and Racism."
The final session included a summation by Judy Rebick of Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, plus presentations on three projects posed for action by the nascent climate justice movement as a whole.
Julien Lalonde and Brett Rhyno explained plans to hold a People's Assembly on Climate Justice in Toronto December 4.(link)
Raul Burbano of Toronto Bolivia Solidarity reported on efforts by a coalition of social movements to organize a popular consultation during 2011, based on a proposal of the Cochabamba conference.
Michel Lambert, director of the Quebec-based social justice organization Alternatives, announced plans for a Canada-wide climate justice conference to be hosted by Alternatives in Montreal in the spring of 2011.
The teach-in was initiated by Toronto Bolivia Solidarity (link) and co-organized by representatives of Community Solidarity Response--Toronto, Council of Canadians--Toronto, KAIROS, People's Assembly for Climate Justice, Science for Peace, the Toronto Climate Campaign, and others.
The November 13 teach-in on climate justice, endorsed by Venezuela We Are With You Coalition, was a great success. More than 125 participants heard 18 presentations from members of 16 different organizations. The teach-in aimed to bring into focus the Cochabamba agenda for social justice and defense of the "rights of Mother Earth," to draw together community groups working on social issues related to climate justice, and to highlight ongoing campaigns for climate justice both in Canada and internationally. The article below summarizing our successful conference was published today at http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3459
Toronto Teach-In Discusses Cochabamba Agenda for Climate Justice
November 17, 2010
Activists discuss concepts far removed from the usual media babble about cap-and-trade and carbon offsets -- ideas that are unfamiliar to many on the left
by John Riddell
TORONTO -- An all-day conference on climate justice here November 13 indicated broadening support for the global climate justice movement.
Entitled Lessons from Bolivia: Building a Global Movement for Climate Justice, the conference was endorsed by 35 community organizations, ranging from the Toronto & York District Labour Council to the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Council of Canadians, and York University's Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean.
More than 125 participants heard 18 presentations from members of 16 different organizations.
The conference took as its starting point the decisions of the April 2010 People's Assembly on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Assembly's decisions charted a path toward countering climate change through measures based on social justice and respect for the "rights of nature."
The governments of Bolivia and other less-developed countries have secured the integration of many recommendations of the 30,000 Cochabamba conference participants into United Nations recommendations on climate change. However, an almost total media blackout has ensured that few people here -- including on the left -- are aware of the Cochabamba initiative.
The Toronto conference had to explain concepts far removed from the usual media babble about cap-and-trade and carbon offsets -- ideas that are unfamiliar to many on the left.
Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism, noted that "the Cochabamba resolutions, and the discussions here today, include many references to Pachamama, Mother Earth. Many of us feel uncomfortable with that language…. I fully understand that response -- but it is wrong. The Indigenous cosmovision … is completely compatible with the militant struggle for social justice we all support, and we can all learn from it." (See Responding to the Cochabamba Challenge)
It was thus fitting that the congress began with ceremonial singing and drumming by the Spirit Wind aboriginal women's group and an explanation of the concept of our obligations to Mother Earth by Marcelo Saavedra-Vargas, professor of indigenous studies at the University of Ottawa.
The central ideas of the Cochabamba conference were discussed in presentations by Angus, Teresa Turner of the Ecosocialist International Network, and Judy Deutsch of Science for Peace and in four workshop sessions.
The keynote address by Erika Duenas of the Bolivian Embassy in Washington DC explained her country's achievements in carrying the Cochabamba agenda into the arena of inter-governmental negotiations on climate change. (See ALBA Declaration) She called for support of the people's intervention that will press for this agenda at the governmental conference on climate change to be held in Cancun, Mexico, November 29--December 10.
A second session consisted of five workshops on different social movements related to the climate justice movement. Three were on well-established arenas of work for ecological justice: water rights, mining, and tar sands. The other two reflected ways in which climate justice relates to central issues of social struggle: "Environment and the World Working Class" and "Environment, Migration, and Racism."
The final session included a summation by Judy Rebick of Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, plus presentations on three projects posed for action by the nascent climate justice movement as a whole.
Julien Lalonde and Brett Rhyno explained plans to hold a People's Assembly on Climate Justice in Toronto December 4.(link)
Raul Burbano of Toronto Bolivia Solidarity reported on efforts by a coalition of social movements to organize a popular consultation during 2011, based on a proposal of the Cochabamba conference.
Michel Lambert, director of the Quebec-based social justice organization Alternatives, announced plans for a Canada-wide climate justice conference to be hosted by Alternatives in Montreal in the spring of 2011.
The teach-in was initiated by Toronto Bolivia Solidarity (link) and co-organized by representatives of Community Solidarity Response--Toronto, Council of Canadians--Toronto, KAIROS, People's Assembly for Climate Justice, Science for Peace, the Toronto Climate Campaign, and others.
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