023 MTSU PROFESSOR STUDIES AFRICAN AMERICANS, RACE IN VENEZUELA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 14, 2006
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919

Argentina’s President Hugo Chavez “Unfairly Demonized” by the Press, Franklin Says

(MURFREESBORO, Tenn.)—Dr. Sekou M. Franklin, assistant professor of political science, recently traveled to Venezuela as part of his information-gathering efforts for a book chapter that he is authoring.
Franklin said his 10-day sojourn to Argentina yielded an abundance data for the edited book project that will focus African Americans, race and the Venezuelan experience.
“My trip focused specifically on Afro-Venezuelan issues,” explained Franklin, who visited with leaders and activists of the Afro-Venezuelan Network, which is a coalition of 30 community-based groups that are working to introduce a host of civil rights, anti-racism policies and legislation in that country.
In addition to attending the historic San Juan festival, a three-day cultural/religious ceremony that was a product of the slavery period, Franklin said he also spent a considerable amount of time meeting with community leaders in the Barlovento region of Venezuela, including two towns founded by runaway slaves, where most people of African descent are located.
A member of MTSU’s faculty since 2003, Franklin said, “The second component of the trip focused on the social and anti-poverty reforms that are going on in Venezuelan and are being implemented by the Hugo Chavez administration.
“Some of these reforms include the cooperative movement, moving toward a system of universal health care and the development a cooperative movement, and government subsidized supermarkets and higher education. These anti-poverty reforms,” he added, “are being subsidized by profits from the oil industry.”
Aside from his visits with a number of social activists and community
Leaders, Franklin said he also met with an opposition group called SUMATE, the primary group opposed to President Chavez.
According to Franklin, it’s important to note that Chavez has been “unfairly demonized by the American press over the last four or five years and called a ‘dictator.’” However, he added, such portrayals are “factually inaccurate and a distortion of major proportions.”
Instead, he observed, “The real angst about Chavez is that he has taken the oil industry profits, which have historically served the interests of the top 5-10 percent in the country, and is now using it to serve the interests of the poor,” a populous that comprises between 60-80 percent of Venezuela’s citizenry, Franklin said.
“Furthermore,” he continued, “Venezuela is the fifth-largest oil producer in the world and supplies the United States with about 12-15 percent of its oil. Given this backdrop, there is a major campaign to discredit Chavez, as well as fears among the American foreign policy establishment that his political methodology—what Venezuelans call the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’—will spread to other Latin American countries.”

To date, three major attempts to remove Chavez from office already have taken place, said Franklin, who adds that “99 percent of the Venezuelans and
many nonpartisan foreign-policy specialists believe (these removal attempts) were backed by the United States.”
Franklin said his trip to Venezuela was organized by Global Exchange, an 18-year-old international human rights organization dedicated to promoting political, economic, environmental and social justice.
“In recent years, several prominent African Americans have visited the country to observe its social programs, which they believe, if implemented in the United States, could help the poor,” he remarked.
• For more information about Global Exchange or its educational trips abroad, please visit is Web site at www.globalexchange.org.



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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For editorial needs, including interview requests with Dr. Franklin, please contact Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs via e-mail at lrollins@mtsu.edu or by calling 615-898-2919.