President Chavez commented on a final document supposedly for signature -- which he dubbed 'top secret' because it has not been handed out -- as characteristic of a highly "undemocratic" and "exclusive" conference.
Chavez told delegates that he has taken up two slogans as his own that he saw on his way to the conference. "Don't change the climate! Change the system!" is the first and the second, "if the climate were a bank, they would have saved it!" The President added his voice to those of many young protesters outside the building, stating that they have the "sun in front of them," whereas the majority of delegates had the "sun behind them" because of their age.
Both Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales -- who addressed delegates before Chavez -- condemned Capitalism as the cause of the current crisis and suggested Socialism as the only answer. The specter of Capitalism, Chavez declared, stalks the conference ... Democracy doesn't exist and what we are living once more is powerful evidence of a world imperial dictatorship.
The President has made it clear that Venezuela and countries belonging to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) do not accept any text except what comes from Kyoto Protocol and convention work groups that have been intensely debating climate change over the last couple of years. There are countries, he declared, scheming to stop any document because they don't want a law or a norm because it allows them to continue their exploiting game and steam-roller freedom. Any document, Chavez maintains, must contain a clear commitment from the most powerful countries.
Update: Chavez opens up new battle front to secure equality in fights against climate change
Chavez, along with Evo Morales and representatives from ALBA, have been talking to protesting students and NGOs and the two presidents were allowed to address the conference before it closed shop Friday.
Speaking in the name of ALBA nations, Chavez said that Copenhagen was a beginning and not the end of the battle for climate change. The President has declared climate change a battlefront which Venezuela will pursue.
The USA's pledge to provide $10 billion a year to fight climate change was not enough Chavez chided ... it must agree to the Kyoto Protocol.
Presidents Chavez and Morales have won praise for rejecting Obama's 'behind-closed-doors' meeting with 'friendly countries' as "disrespectful" to other nations attending the conference and "exclusive." At a press conference after the meeting, it would appear that flunkies wanted Chavez and Morales to leave the room. Chavez retorted that they would have to use tear gas to to evict them and journalists from the room.
An ebullient and convert-to-the-cause Chavez has opened a new international front and gained some new allies ... young European protesters and greens.
The Netherlands is angry with remarks made by Chavez that it has collaborated with the USA in allowing it to plot against Venezuela from US bases in Dutch overseas dependencies and former colonies in the Caribbean.