Press Report Europe WSF 2009 - OpenFSM!

Press Report Europe WSF 2009
Andre Perrot, with French human rights group Peuples Solidaires, rejected criticism that the forum was merely a talking
shop with no mechanisms for taking binding decisions.
"When you go back to your country you have to have a great number of proposals to identify the problem. The really
good thing is that these proposals come from the base."
But for Heitor Cesar, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party's national council, the crisis was more likely to end up
helping the "bourgeois" class in their war against the workers.
"This kind of crisis ends up strengthening the offensive of the right because workers lose their jobs and unions and other
movements are weakened," the red-clad, bearded 28-year-old said.
"We don't see this crisis as the final fall of capitalism. Capitalism isn't stupid, it is much stronger and better prepared than
in previous crises," he said, adding that the only solution was greater working class consciousness and a revolution.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Bailing out the planet (The Guardian)
S. American leaders join anti-Davos social forum
Thursday January 29, 2009 8:31 PM
By BRADLEY BROOKS
Associated Press Writer= BELEM, Brazil (AP) — South America's most adamantly leftist leaders joined 100,000
activists Thursday in this city at the mouth of the Amazon River, receiving a hero's welcome as they demanded what they
called a long-needed overhaul of capitalism.
The presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela mingled with activists of all stripes at the World Social
Forum, an annual protest against the World Economic Forum held for the planet's rich and powerful at the Swiss ski
resort of Davos.
Arriving Thursday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the forum should be transformed from an event that
traditionally debates global problems into one that proposes solutions.
"We must leave the trenches while maintaining the flags, fortifying the ideas, and launch a political ideological offensive
everywhere," he said. "This forum can accomplish that."
About 500 advocates for landless Brazilians packed a sweltering gymnasium and roared in approval as Ecuadorean
President Rafael Correa belted out the Cuban classic "Comandante Che Guevara," accompanied by a lone guitarist.
But the loudest cheers were for Chavez, who frequently criticizes the U.S. and capitalism. He was joined on stage by
Bolivia's Evo Morales, the Andean nation's first Indian president, and Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, a former Roman
Catholic bishop influenced by liberation theology.
"Chavez is fighting for people like me and his presence validates our movement," said 34-year-old Brazilian activist and
singer Nicinha Durans, who sported a bright red shirt reading "Hip Hop Militant."
On stage in the gymnasium, Morales saluted activists before him from around the world.
"Before you are four presidents — four presidents who could not be here were it not for your fight," he said. "I see so
many brothers and sisters here, from Latin America's social movements to European figures."
Correa blasted the international capitalist system and said the social forum was desperately needed to find alternatives.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva decided to make his first social forum appearance in three years instead of
going to Switzerland.
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