Hungarian-Venezuelan Solidarity Association joins Hands Off Venezuela!

The Hungarian-Venezuelan Solidarity Association (HVSA) held its first conference since joining the Hands Off Venezuela campaign last month. It was a big success with a full house attending. The conference took place on 8^th November 2008, during which the members of HVSA formally accepted the proposal to join HOV. At this first, open introduction of HOV Hungary more than 60 people crowded into the Kossuth Klub in Budapest, so much so that we even had to bring in extra chairs to make sure everybody had a seat.

The most important part of the afternoon was the premiere of the Hungarian edition of the film No Volverán which was produced by the activists of HOV, but many people were also interested in the presentation of HVSA as the Hungarian section of HOV. The conference was actively supported by the Chargé d’Affaires in Hungary of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Adriana Gottberg, who offered a few kind words of welcome. She spoke with appreciation about those young people in Hungary who since her accreditation six months ago as ambassador have conducted solidarity work with her country. She also spoke fondly about the work of Hands off Venezuela in more than 40 countries, supporting the Bolivarian revolution and hoped that this work would now be stepped up in Hungary as well. A representative of ATTAC-Hungary also brought fraternal greetings to the meeting and in the audience there were also representatives of our sister Solidarity campaign with Cuba.

The next speaker was Kinga Kalocsai, the recently re-elected president of HVSA who outlined the recent activities and future plans of the organisation. "We can look back on successful months. HVSA has created its own web site, we provide our readers with continuous information on events and processes in Venezuela and in Latin America. We have attracted many new sympathisers, so we will have to intensify this work in the near future," said Kinga in her report.

She offered a hearty welcome to all those present, especially to our foreign visitors, activists of HOV and sympathisers from Slovakia, Serbia and the Czech Republic. After the conference – in a more informal setting – we discussed the possibility of closer co-operation and the setting up of a network of Eastern and Central European pro-Venezuelan Revolution solidarity groups and Trade Union activists and structures and left-wing, socialist and Marxist organisations that support the Bolivarian revolution in the region.

The conference was also addressed by Francesco Merli, representing the HOV campaign who explained the significance of the film No Volverán and how it came about. This film presents a significant feature of the Bolivarian revolution: the day-to-day struggle of the revolutionary activists to achieve Socialism, against all obstacles and the vested interests of the oligarchy. Such interests are reflected by the reformist ideas that the bureaucracy within the Bolivarian movement uses in order to stop the revolution. Ordinary workers, women, youth and community activists have to conquer on the ground whatever they achieve and are willing to fight to defend it. Exemplary are the cases of workers’ struggles to take control over production like at Inveval, Sanitarios Maracay and other factories, a movement for workers’ control and management that is spreading now throughout the country. Here it is not the state that organises the change in capitalist production, but the workers themselves take the factory into their own hands, organise production and distribution, and demand the Bolivarian government nationalises under workers’ control the key sections of the economy in order to address the urgent problems of the masses. This is the essence of those changes that characterise the revolutions in Venezuela and Latin America.

Francesco welcomed HVSA into the HOV international campaign and felt that this will benefit both organisations as HOV is not a top down, rigidly structured organisation. It lets its members develop autonomously, while helping them with materials, political, organisational and other advice, providing information and contacts. Its aim is to assist in the functioning of all HOV sections, so that they can find their own way to achieve their goals.

"We have found that not only the new groups in different countries that join forces with HOV can learn from us, but we who have been active since 2002 can learn from our newly joined comrades. We welcome their ideas on how to widen solidarity action, how we can approach young people, workers and win them for international solidarity action and for the cause of revolution," said Francesco Merli.

The will of the Venezuelan people to take their destiny into their own hands clashes with powerful interests within Venezuela and internationally. This is what led to the April 2002 US-sponsored Coup against Chavez and several plots to assassinate the President and organise a coup, the last being discovered only recently. The Revolution is under a constant mass-media attack aimed at presenting Chavez as a dictator and Venezuela as a “rogue state” and so on. HOV aims to struggle against the reactionary propaganda of the big media with grassroots information and a special orientation towards the labour movement and youth who can mobilise to defend the Bolivarian revolution when it is under threat.

Francesco also made the point that the best way to assist Venezuela in carrying out its own revolution to a successful conclusion is by challenging those forces in Hungary that hinder the freedom and well being of ordinary Hungarians exactly in the same way as the Venezuelan oligarchy and imperialist interests do with the Venezuelan people, and “create the conditions for as many revolutions as possible to develop throughout the world so that they cannot put all of them down at the same time.”

The film was much appreciated by the audience, judging from later discussions. It showed such events and activities that are unknown in Hungary. It revealed such revolutionary potential that this part of Europe has not experienced for a while. However, the conflicts are the same, the conflict between capital and labour is the same. In Venezuela the radical fight against exploitation is currently fought with vigour. Hungary has a lot to learn.

After the showing of the film the Venezuelan Embassy gave a small reception during which the participants had a chance to discuss and get to know each other, the new sympathisers as well as the older members of HVSA.

See also venezuelai-szolidaritas.org