Civil Society

In several slums of this Andean capital, an armed guerrilla group wearing black ski masks teaches arts and crafts to local children, goes door-to-door to get the vote out during elections and protects residents from local criminals.

Now that HRW has blown the lid off the grave human rights abuse of unanswered questions in Venezuela, perhaps they can finally respond to some questions posed to them.

Dry heat fills the lungs of thousands of cultural workers from distant and dispersed nooks of Venezuela. For the 27th consecutive year, they have gathered in the rural village of Arangues in the state of Lara, Venezuela to create a vibrant and diverse space of cultural resistance.

In the creation of a new society based on new ideas and ways of organising, the youth, not yet completely adjusted to the present world, are in a special position. In Venezuela, the organised revolutionary youth have the potential to be an antidote to the old capitalist habits of corruption, bureaucracy, competition, and individualism.

It is a Friday night in Caracas, Venezuela. We are standing in the back of a pickup truck surrounded by dozens of motorcycles, tearing through the streets of Catia, the massive slum area that makes up nearly half the population of the city.

Like many major cities in what North Americans and Europeans like to call the 'Third World', the streets in Caracas, Venezuela are busy and crowded people. However, Venezuela isn't your typical 'Third World' nation. There is a revolution going on and you can see it and feel it when you are there.

When Hugo Chávez struck out in his December referendum aimed at overhauling the Venezuelan political system, a small group of overfed men raised their glasses in triumph: the assorted owners of Major League Baseball.

Since January 12, more than 1,600 delegates to the founding congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — along with thousands of local socialist battalions (branches — have been discussing the new party’s program, principles and statutes, and in large part the future of the Bolivarian revolution.

When the recent accusations of government-sponsored anti-Semitism are thoroughly investigated, it is revealed that in the majority of cases, the strongly anti-imperialist political sentiments of Venezuelan social movements are erroneously conflated with anti-Semitism.

As the struggle to deepen Venezuela's revolution through the framework of the pending constitutional reforms intensifies, so too does the battle to create the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). The simultaneous campaign for constitutional reforms and the formation of the PSUV means the two are intricately connected.