BY SETH GALINSKY AND AARON RUBY
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Political parties from across Latin America and the Caribbean met here July 26-29 for the sixth meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum. This year's event was hosted by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

The first such gathering was held in 1990 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the initiative of the Workers Party (PT) in that country. Subsequent conferences took place in Mexico City; Managua, Nicaragua; Havana, Cuba; and Montevideo, Uruguay.

About 500 people participated in the conference, including 187 delegates representing 52 member groups in Latin America and the Caribbean and 289 invited guests from 144 organizations. In addition, 44 observers representing 35 organizations in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa attended.

The two largest delegations were from the FMLN of El Salvador and the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) of Mexico. José Ramón Balaguer, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba, headed the delegation from that country. Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva, former presidential candidate of Brazil's PT, attended. There were also delegations from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union, the Broad Front of Uruguay, and the New Independence Movement of Puerto Rico. Retired colonel Hugo Chávez, who led an unsuccessful revolt by a section of the military in Venezuela in 1992, came for the first time.

No delegates came from the English speaking Caribbean.

Some 60 observers from the United States attended, organized mostly by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). It was the largest U.S. delegation to any of these gatherings. The political organizations represented were the Committees of Correspondence, Democratic Socialists of America, Freedom Road Socialist, and Socialist Workers Party.

Other observers included the governing parties of China, Korea, Vietnam, and Laos; the Communist Party of Japan; and the Pan African Movement of Uganda. Representatives of the Basque nationalist party, Herri Batasuna, attended despite opposition by the Communist Party of Spain.

As during previous gatherings two distinct political courses were represented in the discussion. One was advocated by procapitalist forces such as the PRD of Mexico that orient to electoral contests in the hopes of taking over the reins of capitalist government. The other was a socialist perspective most clearly presented by delegates of the Communist Party of Cuba.

About 4,000 people, mostly FMLN supporters, attended the inaugural event, held in the National Gymnasium here. While the event welcomed the delegates and guests to the Sao Paulo Forum it also had the atmosphere of an election campaign rally. Participants waved FMLN flags, and many sported hats that said "FMLN ready for 1997," referring to next year's municipal elections in this country.

The opening speaker was FMLN general coordinator Salvador Sánchez Cerén who stated that "The fight against the [U.S.] blockade of Cuba is the struggle for the sovereignty of our peoples."

Sánchez Cerén also put forward his view that the road to progress in El Salvador was to reach out to all social classes. He particularly emphasized a recent call by the National Association of Private Enterprise in El Salvador for concertación, that is a pact of collaboration between the employers and organizations that claim to speak for the workers.

A similar view was expressed by other speakers at the event. "In Mexico the first step towards democratization has been taken," said Porfirio Muńoz Ledo, speaking for the PRD. "We're heading toward a true equilibrium of power.

"We need to look at the spectrum of alliances that will allow us to go to the voting booth and have the votes to defeat the oligarchs of the continent" and to fight against neoliberalism, he stated, referring to capitalist government policies that remove protectionist measures and open up semicolonial economies to freer imperialist investment.

A different view on how to face the economic catastrophe facing working people in Latin America and the Caribbean was put forward by José Ramón Balaguer, who addressed the rally on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. He began by noting the Cubans' "deep emotion" at being able to greet the Salvadoran fighters and their supporters who fought the U.S.-backed regimes there to a standstill for more than a decade.

Thousands of wounded FMLN fighters received medical treatment in Cuba during El Salvador's civil war. The Cubans also played an important role in helping to unite guerrilla groups that led to the formation of the FMLN in the early 1980s. The FMLN is now a legal political party. It won a large number of seats in El Salvador's parliament, after the signing of a peace agreement with the government in 1991.

Balaguer pointed out that the "gap between the rich and poor countries and the chasm between a small super-privileged elite and the great majority of the world population" is growing.

"North American imperialism has not ceased being imperialist," he said.

Balaguer noted that the opening of the sixth gathering of the Forum was being held on the 43rd anniversary of the attack on the Moncada army barracks in Cuba by fighters of the July 26 movement in 1953. That battle initiated the revolutionary war that led to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista six years later. "With the victory on Jan. 1, 1959, for the first time in our homeland, political power was taken by and for the people and with it sovereignty, independence and social justice," Balaguer said.

In face of the deepening world economic crisis, which hit Cuba particularly hard after the collapse of aid and trade in favorable terms with the Soviet Union, Balaguer said that "only socialism and the decisive participation of the people in its construction and defense has permitted us to resist and dodge the difficulties."

"Not one school or hospital has been closed, no children or senior citizens have been abandoned," the Cuban leader noted. This stands in a sharp contrast to the growing economic and social calamity facing workers and farmers in the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Balaguer reported on the recent accomplishments in the fight to reverse the post-1989 decline of agricultural and industrial production in Cuba. The country's gross national product grew by 9.6 percent in the first half of 1996, he said, and sugar production rose by 35 percent over the previous year's harvest. Cuba is also on course to attain a historic high for both nickel and oil production this year, aiming for 50,000 and 1.5 million tons, respectively.

Participants at the Forum universally condemned the so-called Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, also referred to as Helms-Burton law, which President William Clinton signed March 12 significantly tightening the U.S. embargo. Most speakers focused their remarks on the aspects of the legislation that violate the sovereignty of other nations in Latin America, by threatening sanctions against those who do business with Cuba.

During the plenary session, Balaguer said that his party greatly appreciated the opposition to U.S. attempts to extend its embargo but pointed out that the tightening of the economic squeeze by Washington is aimed above all at weakening and overturning the socialist revolution in Cuba.

"Cuba is the banner of the Forum," read the headline in the July 27 El Diario de Hoy, one of El Salvador's two main daily papers. The article noted the enthusiastic applause that every mention of Cuba and opposition to Helms-Burton law drew at the event.

La Prensa Gráfica, the other main daily here, however, emphasized the views of the majority of delegates. This year's Sao Paulo Forum represents a step forward for those pushing to reform capitalism, the paper said in an editorial. "It's great that they speak of democracy and not of revolution; it's great that they accept that you must generate wealth, instead of going around thinking about distributing it.

"But it's bad that they so viciously attack neoliberalism."

What is road to power?
While much of the discussion over the differing perspectives never reached the floor of the plenary sessions, the debate was heated at times in the workshops.

Two competing written statements were circulated at the workshop on the Forum's main document.

Mario Saucedo Perez, general secretary of the Mexican PRD at the time of the forum, circulated a document titled "Twelve Theses on Democratic Change and Latin American and Caribbean Integration."

"The solution to the economic, political and moral crisis of our countries resides in democratic change that permits the establishment of pluralist and representative governments," his statement said. "The popular movements need to build a broad convergence of the political and social forces that include business sectors that the neoliberal policies have struck."

Most of the political parties at the gathering, led by the PT of Brazil, the PRD of Mexico and the FMLN pointed to bourgeois elections as a vehicle for social change. Victor Tinoco from Nicaragua's FSLN also backed this view, stating that "the challenge for the left is to bring together the different forces of the nation." These parties called for alliances between organizations that function in the workers movement and sections of the capitalist class in order to win elections.

The Cuban delegation circulated a statement with a different view. The key question, it noted, is the question of power. The system of bourgeois democracy, it said, "was not conceived so that the left could participate fairly and equitably in the electoral process, and much less so that it could take power, but to prevent that."

Many parties on the left in Latin America have won mayoral elections, governorships, and sizable number of seats in national parliaments. "Nevertheless," the Cuban statement noted, "they still have not been able to become the government through the electoral road with their own program of profound changes and the conditions to carry it out."

What is needed is a political program "that lays out the foundations for taking power and building socialism."

The statement concluded that the "Communist Party of Cuba is convinced that the only road to achieving democracy, social justice, and sustainable development is the construction of a socialist society."

The final declaration noted that different perspectives were presented and discussed on these questions.

Crisis in Argentina
Little discussion took place in the course of the formal sessions of the Forum on resistance to capitalist austerity in the continent, such as the ongoing struggle for land by peasants in Brazil or strikes by workers in Argentina.

But many forum participants talked about the resignation of Domingo Cavallo, the Argentine Minister of Finances, in informal discussions. Cavallo, viewed by many here as the foremost proponent in Latin America of "neoliberalism," was forced to resign on July 26. "His resignation was ultimately the result of the `Tequila Effect,' " said Patricio Echagaray, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Argentina, referring to the massive flight of imperialist capital from Latin America in the wake of the devaluation of the Mexican peso in December 1994. Mexico's economy subsequently contracted 7 percent, the most since 1932, during the great depression. Argentina's foreign currency reserves, like those of other Latin American nations, were virtually wiped out. The Argentine government of Carlos Menem has been attempting to woo back investors through further belt-tightening.

As the Forum was opening, 30,000 workers in Buenos Aires protested Menem's austerity policies. Two weeks later, hundreds of thousands struck across the country.

The Forum took note of the growing immigration from Latin American to the United States and a recent rise in the struggles for immigrant rights in that country. Angela Sambrano, representing CISPES, gave a special presentation at the Forum on the subject.

"In the United States," she said, "they accuse immigrants of being the cause of the economic crisis and other evils." But the number of Latinos in the United States are growing and could have decisive weight, she added. "We have the capacity to be a political force."

Sambrano co-chaired a workshop on immigration. Participants decided to back the October 12 march in Washington, D.C., for immigrant rights.

Among other activities delegates decided to support and help build is the upcoming World Festival of Students and Youth to be held in Cuba next summer. The delegates also voted to support the struggle for self-determination and independence for Puerto Rico.

The next meeting of the Forum was set for Sao Paulo, Brazil.  
 
 
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