[Marxism] Milwaukee signs sister city agreement with Carora, Venezuela

[Fred Fuentes <fred.fuentes@xxxxxxxxx>]

[Carora is home to one of the most radical experiments with popular
power in Venezuela]

Milwaukee signs sister city agreement with Carora, Venezuela

Georgia Pabst. Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. March 24, 2009
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/41761622.html

Relations between the U.S. and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may be
heated, but that doesn't mean local citizens and local governments
can't get to know each other and work together, the mayors of
Milwaukee and Carora, Venezuela, said Tuesday morning.

With music, handshakes, smiles and gestures of goodwill, Milwaukee
Mayor Tom Barrett and Carora Mayor Edgar Carrasco gathered in the
ornate Common Council chambers to sign a sister city agreement
designed to advance cultural, economic and educational exchanges
between the two cities.

It's the first time in 10 years that Venezuela has entered into a
sister city agreement in the U.S., said Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza,
Consul General for Venezuela in Chicago.

"President Chavez always values relations with other countries and
people getting to know each other," said Carrasco, who was elected in
December 2008. "Our governments may have differences, but that doesn't
offset our countries' abilities to know each other," he said.

Barrett said, "Our leaders of our representative countries have not
had the warmest relations and that makes what we are doing today more
important. If leaders don't see eye to eye that doesn't keep
individuals from working together. Political leaders come and go, but
at the local, grass-roots level there's still the ability as human
beings for us to make the world better."

Visitors welcome

Carrasco said Carora is developing Casa El Alba, a place where
visitors from Milwaukee will be able to go to learn about the city and
country and develop cultural and economic exchanges.

The Venezuelan delegation included Rafael Enrique Colmenarez, who is
with a coffee cooperative in the area.

He's here for a meeting with a cooperative in Madison that's buying
some coffee from the area as a demonstration project.

Carora, which has a population of about 83,000, was founded in 1572
and is in the state of Lara in the northwestern part of Venezuela.

Venezuela, the Western hemisphere's largest oil exporter, has been led
since 1999 by the leftist Chavez, since 1999 who has clashed with the
U.S through the years.

He's an outspoken supporter of socialism as a means to help the poor.

He recently called President Barack Obama "ignorant," saying he has a
lot to learn about Latin America. According to a New York Times
report, Chavez added: "If Obama respects us, we'll respect him."

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