VHeadline.com en Español news chief, Jesus Nery Barrios writes: University of The Andes (ULA) Political Sciences Professor, Dr. Franz J. T. Lee has played a key role in the "Strategy of the US for Latin America" international symposium organized by the newly-founded Jorge Rodriguez university in the main auditorium of the Mucumbarila convention center in Merida at the weekend.

Professor Lee also presented his latest Spanish-language book: "Venezuela: from the Bolivarian Revolution to Human Emancipation" presented by Merida Printing House (IMMECA) director Humberto Martinez.

Dr. Lee was accompanied by a panel of experts ... Professor Luis Antonio Bigott (member of the Andean Parliament), Amilcar Figueroa (member of the Latin American Parliament), Albert Reveron (Ministry of External Relations-MRE International Affairs Commissioner), Jairo Enrique Rivas (Merida State Parliament president), Pedro Rafael Alvarez (INCE-Merida director) and Silvio Villegas (Merida's Culture, Science & Technological Free Trade Zone-Zolccyt director) who acted as moderator.

The event, attended by numerous members of Mision Vuelvan Caras, Mision Robinson, Mision Ribas, university students and teachers as well as members of the regional parliament, artists, intellectuals and the local press, was organized by the Venezuelan government in cooperation with the Andean Parliament, Latin American Parliament, National Institute for Cooperative Education (INCE), Zolccyt and the Merida State government.

Interviewed by the local media before the symposium, Dr. Franz Lee was asked about the current international situation and its implications for Latin America within the context of the US strategies in the region. He said that to speak about US strategies, it must be taken into account that the US is in a grave crisis ... not just an energy crisis but an economic crisis that is worse than the Great Depression at the beginning of the 20th Century.

"Economically, the United States is bankrupt, and what is at stake is that Bush (as the representative of American corporativism and the military-industrial complex) actually needs world wars very badly.

Up until now, the USA has always tried to resolve its problems by means of international confrontations ... which actually means that war is world business, a business that means world war."

He continued: "Within the context of the global situation, the integration of Latin America ... as an alternative in the face of Big Brother's fondest scheme of things ... the Venezuelan proposal to establish a Bolivarian Alternative for American (ALBA) as an alternative to the USA-hyped Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA), is a turn of events that Washington D.C. doesn't very much like."

"What all this is about is that the metropolitan countries are engaged in an economic world war in which the United States is losing its world hegemony in the face of competitors such as the European Union, China ... even India and Pakistan ... and that's a situation that is forcing the United States to try to control oil and energy resources with the aim to debilitate its competition. This was stated just a few days ago by George Bush himself, when he said that it is not a matter of months, but of weeks ... and today, we can verify it for ourselves in the launching of a Middle East War with Israel attacking Lebanon."

Dr. Franz Lee gave an extensive lecture, explaining the difference between revolutionary and reformist logic, between scientific praxis and repetitive reactionary acts, philosophic theory and counter-revolutionary ideology, bourgeois revolution and proletarian emancipation.

He illustrated his contentions with real examples from colonial and neocolonial history, social developments in Latin America and Venezuela, from the discovery to Christianization, military conquest to total capitalist and imperialist occupation and subjugation.

He explained that globalization is the realization of the bourgeois capitalist French Revolution, and that we currently have a real chance for global emancipation ... the revolutionary integration of Latin America is an important step towards global victory for the workers and downtrodden of this world ... "who really knows capitalism, logically also knows what is socialism, namely, the NO!, the negation of capitalism, its exact opposite."

* He identified the Bolivarian Revolution as the "tip of a global, emancipatory iceberg" and declared his critical "love for the revolution."

The mainly young audience was electrified by Professor Lee's presentation and, when challenged about the planned North American military invasions of Latin America, he stated categorically that to stop Latin America's integrationist revolutionary endeavors, the United States would have to massacre all the men, women and children of the Americas.

"Even if they ever could succeed in this bloody holocaust, even to the point of assassinating Venezuela's President ...then, apart from annihilating themselves, they would still experience "the galactic winds, the golden star dust, will howl: 'Uh, Ah! Chavez will not go!'"

Jesus Nery Barrios
noti...@vheadline.com