Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, spearheaded by the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez, has envisioned and implemented an alternate path towards economic and social justice in a highly stratified though resource-rich nation. Our presentation will touch on a number of aspects of this revolution, including economic reforms; advances in health care, education and food production; foreign policy, including the government's opposition to the “Free Trade Area of the Americas” process; the politics around Venezuela's oil reserves; democratic procedural reforms; the current referendum drives being led by a wealthy opposition; and continued US Intervention in the internal affairs of the country, including a failed US-backed military coup in April of 2002, as well as resistance to it.
The Venezuela Solidarity Group, formed in the spring of 2002, is a group of Bay Area community activists committed to building solidarity with the Venezuelan people. The group has sponsored annual visits to Venezuela to observe first-hand the ground realities that the Bolivarian project contends with and effects.
