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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
Venezuela Warns Against US Invasion
 The Australian Associated Press
| | Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - a close friendship. |
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has told thousands of visiting students that if US forces are to invade his South American country, they will be soundly defeated.
The US government has strongly denied Chavez's claims that it is considering military action against Cuba's closest ally in the Americas.
But Chavez said the US government, which "won't stop caressing the idea of invading Cuba or invading Venezuela," should be warned of the consequences.
"If some day they get the crazy idea of coming to invade us, we'll make them bite the dust defending the freedom of our land," Chavez said to applause.
He spoke during the opening ceremony of a world youth festival bringing together student delegations from across the world and convened under the slogan "Against Imperialism and War."
Chavez called the United States the "most savage, cruel and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world."
The Venezuelan leader said "socialism is the only path," and told the students the collective goal is to "save a world threatened by the voracity of US imperialism."
Earlier, the students waved flags, danced in traditional dress, and held signs praising socialism, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
More than 300 students from the United States shouted out their disapproval of US President George W Bush, chanting "Get out Bush!" Other students chanted: "Bush, fascist - you're a terrorist!"
Some 15,000 youths from 144 countries traveled to Venezuela for the week-long festival and conference, organizers said.
Chavez wore a red shirt like many of the students, and embraced delegation leaders as their groups marched past.
The ceremony was held in Venezuela's military headquarters in Caracas. Troops looked on while students passed carrying colored flags and shouting: "We will overcome!"
This year's World Festival of Students and Youth is the 16th. The first, in 1947, was held in Czechoslovakia, and during the Cold War most host countries were aligned with the Soviet bloc.
Apart from the former Soviet Union, other host countries have included Romania, Poland, Finland, Cuba, the former East Germany and North Korea.
The week-long gathering will include musical performances, panel discussions and an "Anti-imperialist Court," which in past years has condemned the US government's actions.
While tensions have grown between Chavez and Washington, the Venezuelan leader has built close ties with countries from Iran to China.
Chavez expressed his support for Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying he expected to continue strengthening relations.
He said that like Venezuela, Iran was a country that had been "attacked" for many years by "the hand of imperialism."
Chavez, whose country remains a major supplier of oil to the United States, also is sharply critical of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Venezuela's Chavez Presents Land Titles to Indigenous Groups
Thais Leon - Associated Press
Kari'na La Isla, Venezuela - Six of Venezuela's indigenous communities received title to their ancestral lands on Tuesday in a ceremony that Venezuela's president said reversed centuries of injustice.
President Hugo Chavez said he hoped the government would be able to turn over titles to 15 other indigenous communities by the end of the year.
"What we're recognizing is the original ownership of these lands," Chavez said during the ceremony. "Now no one will be able to come and trample over you in the future."
He was joined by Kari'na Indians wearing traditional dress, face paint and strings of colored beads.
But Chavez warned that the process of granting legal ownership must respect Venezuela's "territorial unity," and he urged other indigenous groups not to ask for "infinite expanses of territory."
"Don't ask me to give you the state's rights to exploit mines, to exploit oil," Chavez said. "Before all else comes national unity."
The documents recognize land ownership by six indigenous communities with some 4,000 people and territory covering 314,000 acres in the eastern states of Anzoategui and Monagas.
One woman from the Kari'na community thanked Chavez, saying: "He has been the first president who has kept his word to a people who have been stripped of their lands."
An estimated 300,000 Venezuelans belong to 28 indigenous groups, many living in the country's sparsely populated southeast.
South American countries have made various efforts to grant indigenous groups legal ownership and control over their traditional territories.
In neighboring Colombia, indigenous groups in officially recognized communities can administer justice, receive state funds and have their own government.
Brazil has set aside more than 12 percent of its territory for indigenous communities, and in Peru various laws declare the rights of indigenous groups to ancestral territory in the Amazon.
But problems have arisen in some countries as miners and loggers have moved onto Indian lands. And in various countries, a key debate has revolved around the state's rights to what lies underground, such as oil and mineral wealth. |
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