Friday, November 28th, 2008 (Prensa Web YVKE, ABN) -- Beneficiaries, teachers, adults, disabled people, students and workers came out on Friday to defend the social missions and programs of the national government in the face of threats to close them down by the new governor-elect of the state of Miranda, Henrique Capriles Radonski.

The action involved a concentration in the entrance of the offices of Invetep, the technological arm of the [state oil company] PDVSA, from which they marched through Avenida Bicentenario de Los Teques to the Plaza Bolivar of the capital in Miranda.

The march was lead by Mayor-Elect of Guaicaipuro Municipality Alirio Mendoza, who joined with the people demanding respect for the spaces won by the revolution. “We are here today supporting the people in defense of their constitucional rights. We can not allow the representative of capitalism, of fascism to violently sieze the spaces that we have won with struggle and revolutionary committment,” the local oficial said.

Mendoza commented, as President Chavez said, that we’ll have to watch Capriles Radonski: “From the mayor’s office we will be guarantors that in Guaicaipuro all the missions will continue to benefit the people. We will work directly with the national government and we will be alert to attacks that could come from the opposition.”

He pointed out that Miranda is not only the metropolitan area, there are also 15 municipalities and six seats in the Legislative Council that belong to the Bolivarian Revolution: “We will continue fighting, Miranda continues to be rojo rojito (really red), as the thousands of people that are here supporting the government and its proposals show.”

Among those present were the municipal coordinator in Guaicaipuro of Misión Ribas, Miriam Castellanos, who denounced that the violent closure of public spaces where students receive classes had begun since last Tuesday. “In the auditorium of the Miranda Police, where classes were given to different students, including police functionaries, groups from Justice First [Primero Justicia - Radonski’s political party], who identified themselves as members of the new government, forced our students and participants to abandon the classrooms.”

Enrique Briceño, a student in his seventh semester of Social Communication in the Misión Sucre, said, “We can not allow the spaces won by the revolution to be snatched away. We respect your victory (of the opposition), as winner of the elections, but you cannot threaten our missions of the people.”

During the march hundreds of people joined from different parts of Miranda to support the initiative of the participants Misión Ribas and Sucre.

Elena Istúriz, a spokesperson for the community council of Cartanal, in Independencia de los Valles del Tuy Municipality, said that they would remain in the streets until the new governor understands that the missions belong to the people. “President Chavez created these missions for the people, but the capitalists don’t understand this, they don’t know the people or their needs. But we will continue here struggling because we deserve respect and because we will not allow them to take away something that is beneficial for the poor,” she stressed.

The march culminated with a massive concentration in Boulevard Danilo Anderson in Los Teques, where community spokespeople and political leaders invited people to remain in the streets, in a peaceful but firm manner, in defense of the revolution.

Translated by Kiraz Janicke