FRIENDS of Latin America -India(FOLA-India) organised a seminar titled‘no to war, hands off Venezuela’in continuity to the international stand on ‘Venezuela solidarity campaign’  on March 16, 2019 at Surya Sen Manch in Kolkata. The secretary of FOLA-India, Suman Putatunda started the programme by reading of the message sent by the Embassy of Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, New Delhi on the occasion that contained a detailed outline of the present crisis being faced by the Government of Venezuela and the steps adopted hitherto with high sprit and morale under leadership of President Nicolas Maduro to overcome the crisis successfully, sooner or later.

The first speaker was Mihir Bhattacharya, who with his intrinsic quality of excellent vocabulary presented the historical and socio- political background of Venezuela and thus touched upon the fabric of Venezuelan civic society. In his deliverance , Mihir Bhattacharya reminded the audience that even the popular leader like Hugo Chavez never came in to power through a democratic process but after capturing the power; he(Hugo Chavez) made no time wasted to include the mass of the population down to the level of poorest of the poor by giving access to basic needs like education, subsidised food schemes, community help centres and on top of all, relentless stress on domestic agriculture production, the area where output of Venezuela was alarmingly low, traditionally and historically. Bhattacharya also mentioned that it was unfortunate that a leader like Hugo Chavez never got opportunity to run the government for the third time on the strength of popular consent of the people of Venezuela, through amendment of the clause of the country’s constitution that so far allowed a candidate could be in the position of president maximum for two terms. Owing to his sad and untimely demise, forced the current President Nicolas Maduro to pave in.

The key speaker, eminent economist,Prabhat Patnaik described that the ongoing crisis of Venezuela is not only the crisis of Venezuela per se, but all the third world countries must also learn as to how the neo-liberal, imperialist western states under the leadership of US, become supportive of intrusion inside the sovereign countries whenever those countries with socialist framework bid to convert the large domestic entrepreneurships in to the domain of public production system as a part of social welfare policy.Prabhat Patnaik also elaborated the unholy nexus between the bourgeoisie of the affected state and the imperialist powers, wherein through their joint effort, the normal function of the state is brought in to the brink of destabilisation primarily by unleashing various mode of economic sanctions and thereby generating discontent amongst the common people against their own government, being failed to meet their basic needs, obviously owing to high inflation rates as a result of increasing fiscal deficit. 

On one hand the unscrupulous effort designed by the neo-liberal-imperialistic combo propagate economic austerity on the targeted country and by the other, the same group come forward as a savior of democracy by installing a puppet government of their whims and choice, overthrowing the mandate given by the people of the same country to form a government of their will, through a democratic process.According to Patnaik, during 1970s, US solely took the responsibility towardsdestabilisation of democratically elected governments of Latin America forcefully, either by sponsoring the politically rival groups in the form of coup d’état or direct military intervention but in 21st century, post globalisation, a unique feature has been observed in the light of forming collaboration between the neo-liberal, imperialistic western countries choosing US as its leader in order to embark economic severities upon the sovereign countries that pose resistance to limitless spread of neo-liberal policies or against primitive accumulation, in one degree or the other. It holds good in current situation of Venezuela and other Latin American countries and in case of Middle East and African countries as well.

Amiya Bagchi, president of the organisation, chaired the seminar. In his address, he dwelt on the historic political events and eventualities of Left ideology oriented Latin American countries and highlighted continuous fight of their common people against all powerful imperial power like US in order to uphold the ideologies of working class. He also fully endorsed the viewpoint given by eminent scholars like Prabhat Patnaik and Mihir Bhattacharya through their respective speeches.

At the end, an eloquent question and answer session followed. Flow of questions came out from a modest set of audience in which Prabhat Patnaik and Malini Bhattacharya referred the importance of such kind of discussion and requested ‘Friends of Latin America- India’ to organise similar kind of programmes in other metro cities of the country as soon as possible.

The meeting ended with taking vow to convey solidarity to the democratic Government of Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro and thanks to the chair.