Socialist Venezuela to Host Maori Radicals

Like the Soviet Union, China and Cuba before it, Venezuela is becoming a training ground for indigenous revolutionaries.

Now it looks like they will be training a guiding Maori activists.

From the latest Green Left Weekly

Planning is well underway for the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network’s sixth brigade to Venezuela, to be held from November 23 to December 3, and registrations are open to everyone interested in this unique opportunity to witness firsthand a revolution in the making.

The Venezuelan people, led by George Bush’s arch-enemy, President Hugo Chavez, have this year taken over more workplaces, set up more cooperatives, established hundreds of free public education and health programs, organised their neighbourhoods and taken big steps towards exercising “popular power” at every level of their society. Brigade participants will visit occupied factories and public educational and health institutions, see participatory democracy at work in the communal councils and people’s banks, and speak to government and grassroots organisations about their struggle to create “socialism for the 21st century”.

This brigade will also include a special focus on indigenous issues. Indigenous activists from Australia, Aotearoa (NZ) and possibly North America will be joining the brigade, and the itinerary will include visits to indigenous communities, and meetings with indigenous people’s organisations.