Home > Chavez adviser to be key speaker at G8 Alternatives Summit in Edinburgh

Chavez adviser to be key speaker at G8 Alternatives Summit in Edinburgh

by Open-Publishing - Friday 17 June 2005
10 comments

Edito Europe G7 - G8... South/Latin America

One of the most senior advisers to the radical President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, will be a keynote speaker at the G8 Alternatives Summit in Edinburgh on Sunday, July 3rd.

Maximilien Arvelaiz, Director of International Relations, is one of President Chavez’s principal advisers in the area of foreign relations and is the main coordinator of his international agenda. He played a key role in coordinating President Chavez’s recent state visit to India and his trips to the last two Porto Allegra World Social Forums (2003 and 2005).

The G8 Alternatives Summit, which will take place in the Usher Hall, the Queens Hall and Edinburgh University, will bring together leading human rights campaigners, political activists and environmental thinkers from all parts of the world to engage in an ideological battle with the policies and practices of the G8 leaders at the Summit in Gleneagles.

More than 5,000 people are expected to attend 8 huge plenaries on topics such as the future of Africa, climate change, and globalisation and privatisation as well as more than 50 workshops and seminars on topics ranging from the Campaign against Coca-Cola and the experience of the Chavez Government in Venezuela to the implications of the ‘No’ vote in the French referendum.

Speaking at the Summit alongside Mr. Arvelaiz will be figures such as Ken Wiwa, son of the murdered Nigerian novelist Ken Saro-Wiwa; Moazzam Begg, former prisoner at Guantanamo Bay; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Willie Madisha, president of COSATU South African trade union federation, Heidi Giuliani, whose son Carlo was murdered at Genoa G8 protests; Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector; Bianca Jagger; and Bob Crow of the RMT union in Britain.

The Summit will show that the anti-G8 movement has coherent alternatives to the policies of Blair, Bush and Berlusconi which have devastated our planet, fueled illegal and unjust wars in Iraq and elsewhere and are directly responsible for the deaths of 30,000 African children every day.

http://www.g8alternatives.org.uk/

Forum posts

  • Viva la Chavez....

  • Who’s "directly responsible" for the deaths of African children? Bush? Blair? the G8? Not every bad thing in the world can be blamed on the US, try as you might. If Saddam was still around, you’d all be blaming the US for not doing anything about it!

    The US gives a full 1/4 of all aid to African nations. Aid and loans in the past have been abused and stolen by ..... Bush? Blair? no AFRICANS! How much aid has Chavez sent to Africa?

    Next time there’s a disaster, or a famine or an epidemic, call your buddy Chavez for the extra billion or so that would help out. Don’t forget Fidel.....he’ll chip in a billion or so.....

    • Nobody is blaming the U.S. for all the misery on earth. But there is one truth: the Anglo/American economy scam accompanied by the invasional forces throughout a never known in history military industrial complex makes the poorest people poorer each day.
      The theft of resources f. e. overfishing in African waters deprives starving people from the protein they need to survive.
      And for what? Some people own 10 or more houses or 25 cars! For what? Ask yourself!

    • "No one is blaming the U.S. for all the misery on earth......." and then he proceeds to blame the U.S. for all the misery on earth."Some people own 10 or more houses or 25 cars!" From reading the reportage in the N.Y. Times it seems that the vast majority of people in the U.S. with that kind of disposable wealth are leftists. [Norman Lear, Sean Penn, Bob Geldof, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Mary Tyler Moore, Barbra Streisand, Harrison Ford, Madonna, Bill and Hillary Clinton, the list is endless] It is not so much that you leftists constantly want to have things both ways, it is just that you are so obvious and shamelessly hypocritical about it

    • Bill and Hilary "leftists". What planet do you live on? Your list is nothiong but a bunch of rich corporate liberals and has nothing what ewver to do with social movements. But this is typical neoconazi crap - adeliberate conmfusing of liberals with the left.

    • True that............

  • Most of the foreign aid is military aid. Any money thats been given was printed out of thin air. Foreign aid is a scam. The only people who benefit are bankers and puppet dictators.

    • "most is military aid" do you have anything to back that up, or is that just something that makes you sound good and the US sound bad?

      any funds from the UN include US funds. i don’t think the funds from the US to fight AIDS is in the form of guns.

      money is not printed out of thin air. if it were, there would be hyperinflation like in the Carter years. The US has a monetary system that has served well for a very long time, and is, in fact, the basis of monetary systems around the world.

    • top foreign aid recipients are:

      Israel
      Columbia
      Turkey

      We help them with military, not health.

      Our monetary system? The one that maintains unemployment? The one that has periodic recessions? The one that punishes saving with inflation?

      And yes, the Federal Reserve (which is not federal and has no reserves and is a private corporation) prints money out of thin air.