A 'Movement on Fire' Plays Well in Caracas

CARACAS, Venezuela -- With just a bicycle and a backpack, Maria Cayena ABello, 25, set off from her home in Bogota, Colombia, about 10 days ago. Each day, the trim, recent college graduate pedaled about 60 miles over hills and through villages, stopping to sleep on buses.

She was pedaling toward the Venezuelan capital, 650 miles northeast, to protest the world's dependence on oil. Her destination here was the World Social Forum, a week-long summit for activists, where she hoped to also share the stories of Colombian farmers and villagers displaced by the U.S.-backed drug eradication campaign.

"To cover Latin America in a bicycle, you get to know people," said ABello, who still looked fresh after navigating through the heavy traffic in Caracas. "I think at the forum you share your ideas with people you don't meet ordinarily, or on the highway."

When she arrived Wednesday at the main forum site, an urban military base, ABello wheeled her bicycle onto a field of white tents. Inside, delegates were debating such topics as "hemispheric security" and "impunity in Latin America." Helicopters zipped overhead, a reminder that the event's host was Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez.

About 60,000 people -- progressives, liberals, communists, socialists, labor unionists, scholars and indigenous rights activists -- have gathered here under the banner "Another World Is Possible." The forum's mission, delegates said, has been to develop alternatives to neo-liberalism, war and unbridled free trade and to denounce the U.S. government as the main sponsor of those policies.

Now in its sixth successive year, the World Social Form, which ends Sunday, has added simultaneous regional summits in Pakistan and Mali. This year, the focus is largely on hemispheric issues. With the politics in Latin America moving left, many activists have seized on the integration of the Americas as a central theme.

Indigenous women from the Andean highlands wearing bowler hats conferred with Central American activists in brightly colored head scarves. Willowy college students bummed cigarettes from South American labor leaders.

The forum spread beyond the base and into the capital. Delegates, academics and members of the alternative media chose from among 200 panel discussions at sites across the city -- in parks, college classrooms and cultural buildings. Outdoor malls offering woven crafts, leather goods and carved woods popped up outside the events, creating the atmosphere of a music festival. But the star performer was Chavez, whose likeness appeared on wristwatches, key chains and posters. Chavez talking dolls were also popular.

Organizers took pains to distance themselves from the socialist president, posting a message on their Web site that promised a forum free of Chavez's influence and denying accusations that the event had become a propaganda tool. They said the social change underway in Venezuela created an ideal environment for a debate.

"As a result of the impact and struggle of social organizations against neo-liberalism, there exist governments that are showing a break with politics of neo-liberalism," said organizer Emilio Taddei, an Argentine. "It doesn't change the principles of the forum."

The Venezuelan government contributed $60,000 to help fund the event, according to Julio Fermin, a forum spokesman. In addition, the Chavez administration donated public spaces for events and provided free shuttle service from the airport after the collapse of the viaduct connecting the capital to the international airport.

Officials offered tours of the slums ringing the city -- areas where the government has organized community clinics staffed by physicians from Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is an ally of Chavez. Chavez-inspired cooperatives sold box lunches, and a number of panels focused on the popular accomplishments of his government.