Representatives of countries that make up the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP), social movements and intellectuals attended the start of the Meeting for a World Social Alternative on Thursday in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
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00:00 Welcome back to Tell Us Your English and join us live as we go to Venezuela where the ALBA
00:07 TCP World Gathering for a Social Alternative is currently taking place.
00:12 Let's listen to the Executive Secretary of ALBA TCP, Jorge Arreaza.
00:17 Our homeland and humanity is gathered here today on behalf of the Executive Secretary
00:24 of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Vivos de America, ALBA TCP, from the Simon Bolivar
00:30 Institute.
00:34 We send greetings, revolutionary greetings, on behalf of Nicolás Maduro Moros.
00:53 Faced together in Caracas under the leadership of the peoples, the leadership of social movements,
01:02 of grassroots organizations, and under the inspiration of ALBA, together those who could
01:16 present to this world, faced with so many difficulties, faced with this serious juncture,
01:24 an alternative to the peoples, only us will be able to do so.
01:32 The three continentals has developed a concept, hyperimperialism, premised on the idea that
01:40 imperialism, the superior face of capitalism, is losing control of its pillars, the productive
01:50 pillar, who produces more in the world today.
01:54 The financial pillar is just tumbling.
02:00 The dollar is weakening.
02:02 And then they have the military pillar, the technological pillar, and communicational
02:09 pillar.
02:12 So an imperialism declining that, as an injured animal, is attacking in order to prolong what
02:23 is destined to disappear.
02:28 And this situation, as Gramsci would say, it is there where monsters could appear, monsters
02:36 like those bombarding the Palestinian people.
02:40 It is the monster of imperialism which is behind these atrocities.
02:46 And only us, the peoples in the streets with the revolutionary governments expressing the
02:54 will of those peoples, could contain these monsters and offer the world an alternative
03:01 path.
03:02 There is no time for misguinery.
03:10 The left sometimes have plunged into division, for personal divisions, for confrontations
03:23 in different currents, as President Maduro says.
03:26 However, we need to offer the world today a path to unite all those who wanted to be
03:32 united in order to confront our main enemy, as paraphrasing Khachemin.
03:41 This is the time to unite.
03:44 Therefore, you have a document in your hands, the alternative, social world alternative.
03:53 And one of the goals of this encounter is precisely that we can't improve this document.
04:02 We need to adopt this document so we have a minimum agenda of action, first in the diagnostic
04:11 of the monster and the decline and the dangers of imperialism at this juncture.
04:18 What else can we do regarding education, health, housing, culture, food?
04:31 What peoples can do in order to make decisions to reach political power?
04:37 Here we have a proposal.
04:40 President Maduro has also adopted this proposal to be submitted to the peoples of the world.
04:48 And if it is adopted in this meeting, well, in next week, the ALBA countries and governments
04:58 can also adopt this document.
05:01 In that fashion, we are going to have not only a tool and a few pages with some words,
05:08 but rather a powerful weapon of massive destruction of capitalism and imperialism at this current
05:17 historical moment.
05:23 Feel at home.
05:26 Feel in your homeland.
05:29 As Carlos Ron said, here we have delegates from more than 60 countries.
05:41 So, some people could not attend even though they had their ticket.
05:50 Some people were taken out of the planes because they were coming to Venezuela.
05:57 However, nothing is going to stop us.
05:59 This is the time for unity.
06:02 We were discussing with the ALBA movement people.
06:06 If you can stand up and raise your hands.
06:13 As ALBA movement, other platforms present here, the International Peoples Platform and
06:22 others who have come, and it is our duty today to reach an agreement, but not only on the
06:32 abstract ideological positions, but rather on the concrete actions.
06:39 What are we going to do in Argentina, for instance?
06:42 What are we going to do in Palestine, dear brother Fadi, Ambassador and diplomatic corps
06:50 of Ambassadors of ALBA-TCP, dear President Evo Morales Saima, present here today.
06:59 Thank you so much.
07:06 How can we put a halt to Zionism?
07:10 This cannot be done through the UN.
07:13 This is not going to happen.
07:15 We need to do it on the streets, mobilized, putting pressure with commercial boycott.
07:23 We need to have decisive measures to make sure that the decline of the empire will speed
07:32 up.
07:33 So, brothers and sisters of the world, this meeting, as we've seen already in the hotel,
07:48 we have used this opportunity to embrace, to hug, and to join in our struggles, because
07:55 as 200 years ago, the armies of Bolivar, these armies were made up by professionals and armed
08:04 soldiers, with fully ready for the battle.
08:10 No, no, no, those armies were made up of peasants, workers, artisans, who took up arms and chose
08:22 the arms to battle, led by a man and an idea.
08:27 Simon Bolivar made those people, those men, when it was impossible to climb the mountains,
08:35 mindful that many would die, mindful that going from here to the Nueva Granada to face
08:47 the various battles in Boyacá, many of them will die, because they were not ready for
08:53 such a struggle.
08:54 I didn't have the weapons to push out the Spaniards at that time.
09:00 However, they still followed Bolivar, and that was a turning point in the history of
09:06 the region.
09:07 So, that's the challenge that we are facing today.
09:13 Commander Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez met on December 14, 1994, and a unity was born
09:26 of zambiosis and complementation, and December 14, 2004, ten years later, they signed what
09:35 was known as the alternative, Bolivarian alternative for the Americas, when the empire was proposing
09:42 the ALCA process.
09:45 And at that time, it was impossible, the FDA, it was impossible to stop it.
09:50 But at that time, out of 34 countries present in the meeting for the ALCA project, the only
10:00 one who raised to protest against that was Chavez.
10:04 But then, we finally rejected this project proposed by the United States.
10:12 So, today, we need to bury for good all the weapons of capitalism.
10:24 There will be also some moments of solidarity with Palestine.
10:29 The Palestinian brothers and sisters of Palestine, with Jorge Glass, who has been kidnapped.
10:46 Yesterday, the imperial forces tried to extort President Maduro and the people of Venezuela.
11:04 Those who came to Venezuela in 2017, '19, '19, and 2022, they see the difference.
11:12 I don't have to explain it to you.
11:13 You see for yourself the evolution and the change in the country.
11:17 However, they're trying to extort the government of Venezuela, the Venezuelan state, to force
11:27 the Venezuelan government to do what Washington wants, to force our government to follow imperial
11:35 orders, as if we were in Patagonia, accepting the establishment of a military base.
11:44 The President, as in the case of FDAA, President Maduro sent them to hell.
11:53 Cuba, our sisterly nation, Cuba, the Sahrawi Republic, and so many others, and so many
12:08 moments of solidarity, the just struggles should be permanent.
12:13 There should be permanent mobilization.
12:16 We might have tools.
12:17 Alba, in the United Nations, with many friends, will be able to move forward in proposals.
12:25 However, we cannot break the veto imposed by the empire there.
12:30 It is on the streets.
12:31 It is with concrete actions, as Chavez said in '94 when he left prison.
12:39 It is through political power and all political spaces that we'll be able to change the world.
12:46 Welcome to Caracas.
12:47 Welcome to Venezuela.
12:48 This is your home.
12:58 And we were live at Venezuela.
13:00 We were listening to the Executive Secretary of ALBA, TCP, Jorge Arreaza, as the gathering
13:05 for a global social alternative begins.
13:08 Arreaza stressed in his opening speech the need for peoples of the world to join in unity
13:13 to confront the challenges of today, such as those faced by Latin American countries
13:19 and also other regions of the world, such as Palestine.
13:22 We'll be back with more information.
13:23 Stay with us.
13:23 Stay with us.
13:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]