Social forum ends in Brazil with vows to fight capitalism, domination by rich nations

Social forum ends with vows to fight capitalism

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — Leftists who converged in Brazil to protest what they view as uncontrolled capitalism ended the World Social Forum on Friday with vows to take advantage of the financial crisis to promote a global socialist agenda.

Activists at the annual countercultural gathering against the World Economic Forum under way at the Swiss ski resort of Davos said the meltdown proves the business titans attending the economic forum shouldn’t be permitted to help reshape the global economy.

About 30,000 people attended the 10th annual social forum over the last five days in this city near the border with Uruguay, some 500 of whom braved a sweltering conference room to close the event Friday.

They railed against unfettered capitalism they claimed is responsible for corporate greed that saps natural resources and destroys the environment while virtually enslaving the poor in developing nations.

The social forum “projects another vision of the world, not the Washington consensus or the Davos view that free markets are the solution,” said Leonardo Dahmer, a member of Brazil’s governing Workers Party and a city councilman in the city of Esteio near Porto Alegre. “Even Davos didn’t predict the crisis, but we have to be careful because the capitalist system can reorganize itself quickly.”

Leftists also said the failure of world leaders to forge a plan to prevent global warming in Copenhagen last month shows they are unable to come up with a solution to save the environment and protect the poor from climate swings that some experts fear could devastate the planet and subsistence farmers.

Instead, they said, the world’s most powerful nations are still subject to too much influence by large companies.

“We’re in the midst of a crisis caused by capitalism,” said Claudia Prates, a Brazilian coordinator for the World March of Women feminist group. “Capitalism treats us like merchandise.”

The forum’s highlight came Tuesday, when Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told an elated crowd of 10,000 that he would head to Davos and again reproach rich nations and bankers for causing the crisis.

But Silva — who gained fame as a radical union leader before becoming Brazil’s first working-class president in 2003 — had an attack of high blood pressure late Wednesday and canceled the trip.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim accepted on Silva’s behalf the economic forum’s first award to a head of state for “Global Statesmanship” — but delivered a blistering speech on behalf of the Brazilian president.

The speech Silva had been scheduled to deliver lambasted wealthy nations for triggering the global financial crisis, for not doing enough to help the globe’s poor and for failing to redress historic wrongs.

Silva has won praise from both the left and right for presiding over an unprecedented economic boom that has boosted corporate profits in Latin America’s largest nation while helping lift millions out of misery.

Next year’s social forum will be held in Dakar, Senegal.