For the builder Jesus Ortega the victory in the U.N. represents a KO of US president George W. Bush in the world boxing ring.

According to Natacha Bustamante, restaurant worker, "we are showing imperialism the justice of our cause."

Several cars hooted their horns along the main avenues of the capital to celebrate the new defeat of the United States, while the news erupted in joy among delegates at the V World Meeting of War Correspondents.

School children in Old Havana joined in the popular festivities when the teacher wrote on the blackboard: Victory. She later explained to the school children that the world demands that the United States end the economic blockade against Cuba.

Cuban media report the resounding result of the vote in the United Nations, headquartered in New York, in which 183 countries gave their yes vote to Cuba while only three submitted to United States pressure.

Many local radio stations interrupted their programs and announced the Cuban victory while pedestrians spoke over microphones of the repeated acknowledgement of the right to construct its future freely.

In his tours of neighborhoods and cities, the former president (1984-1979) gave details of his government program, explaining with a clear language and astonishing figures that the neoliberalism imposed by the previous governments over the last 16 years is the only one responsible for Nicaragua being the continent s second poorest country.

"The FSLN is the only party able to end with poverty in Nicaragua," he affirms, while calling on followers and adversaries to give him a new chance to prove it.

Now that he has been finally elected president, Ortega is faced with the challenge of meeting all his promises, in "peace and reconciliation." Aware of that and loyal to his commitment, the president elect has already "extended his hands" to his adversaries to work together for the good of the country.

"We cannot speak of winners and losers, because in this process all of us should work together for the good of Nicaragua", Ortega stated in his first statement after being confirmed as winner.

He also encouraged all citizens to "give Nicaragua a sign of stability, placing our commitment to overcome poverty above our political stances."

Approximately 500 spokespersons attended the meeting from around the country, representing their local CTUs. The spokespersons were chosen during nearly 200 local and regional meetings which took place throughout the country in which over half of Venezuela's 6,000 CTUs participated.

The local meetings where held in order to begin the dialogue for the national meeting on the local level, so that spokespersons would have already elaborated ideas and "proposals" for the national event.

"I would say that this is the first [meeting] that begins to construct itself from the base," said Hernan Peralta, a CTU member and Chilean who has been living and working in communities in Venezuela for the last 30 years. "They held 200 local meetings, the products of these local meetings helped to feed the process of preparation for the national meeting, and the idea of the national meeting was to try to jump from the local meeting and to build a more profound discussion in terms of the mission, and expectations, and construction."

Although the meeting was partially funded by the Venezuelan government, Peralta said that it "very much respected the autonomy of the CTUs."

"I feel that this is an important step and perhaps one of the meaningful elements in the insipient process of construction of socialism of the 21st century," declared Peralta who said that plans for the organization of this meeting began in September of last year during the 2005 national CTU meeting which did not have the "depth of debate" or "previous preparation" that they were able to achieve this year.

This year's meeting was additionally attended by representatives from housing and renter's movements from Colombia and Argentina.

The CTUs and Government Institutions

The three day event was loaded with a rigorous schedule as participants split up in to three large working groups, which then broke in to smaller discussion groups composed of just over15 people, in order to further elaborate proposals, experiences, and comments on the three topics of debate: The CTU's relationship with government institutions; with the local community; and with each other and other organizations.

Marlixa Milano, a CTU spokesperson from Miranda state, participated in the working group focusing on the relationship of the CTUs with the government institutions. She said that this was the most conflictive of the three groups, and that they were up until 3am on Saturday night attempting to resolve differences.

"It was the most problematic because that's exactly where the most people have their problems, with the relations with the institutions. Institutions like the mayor's office, government offices, ministries," said Milano, who stated that often times, the communities will organize everything that is needed to be able to legal acquire the title to land only to see it wrapped up in red tape for years.

"We do all of this work in the community and then when we get to the institutions with all of this work done... it turns out that they don't take us in to account or that there's a problem with the land and the property doesn't work out," said Milano.

Proposals

On Sunday morning, the working groups presented their conclusions before the general assembly and in the afternoon met with their fellow regional spokespersons to analyze next steps in their separate regions.

Among the many proposals which came out of the working groups on Sunday morning which could be eventually promoted by the bulk of the CTUs, were the reform of decree 1666, the creation of a comprehensive school for youth and community work, the creation of more CTU community media (radio and newspaper), direct "CTU support for the indigenous communities", "the creation of a land bank," and the "strengthening of community assemblies in order to offset party-aligned sectors that are not interested in grassroots power."

The entire assembly loudly applauded the proposal that "the results of the meeting be handed over to the President of the Republic in a massive act of the CTU."

"Everyone here is in support of the President," said Milano on Sunday. "Did you see the cheers?"

However, Milano explained, that does not mean that it has been easy "to arrive to a consensus."

"It has been a huge challenge to bring together so many people from all over the country, with different issues," said Milano, "because the people from Zulia have different issues than the people from Caracas. The people from Caracas have a different issues than the people from Ciudad Bolivar, and the people from Ciudad Bolivar have different issues than the eastern part of the country."

One of the most universal hopes from participants is that with this meeting they will be able to "accelerate the massive turn-over of land titles." Milano couldn't agree more.

Her Struggle and Perseverance Pioneer's Encampment (a proposal coordinated under the CTUs, which organizes at-risk communities in to groups that actively pursue unused urban land to acquire, on which to build their community) is currently waiting for an answer from the government regarding land that they have requested from the Venezuelan National Land Institute (INTI). Milano stated that they have documentation that the land belongs to INTI, and is therefore hypothetically legally available to be turned over to the "Pioneers." Local landowners, however, say it is theirs, have blocked it off and surrounded it with private property signs.

Victor Urdaneta is an indigenous from the Guajiro tribe in the oil-rich city of Maracaibo in Zulia state. Urdaneta belongs to one of over 500 CTUs in Zulia state and is just one of a number of indigenous representatives who attended the meeting from their local community, many of whose committees have been affected by the coal exploration of the Venezuelan government in Zulia state. Urdaneta's CTU- which he says was one of the first in Venezuela -is pushing "for a better programming of handing over of land titles." Urdaneta hopes that the government will turn over 100,000 land titles to the Maracaibo community over the next year. So far, according to Urdaneta, 27,000 have been turned over.

Next Steps

Twelve spokespersons were chosen from those in attendance late on Sunday afternoon, in order to carry on the work from the weekend, to help "synthesize" the various proposals from the three working groups and elaborate a final document with the results of the event. This final report is expected to be ready by late January 2007.

A joint march between the CTU, ANMCLA (the autonomous community media association), the FNCEZ (the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front), and the indigenous communities fighting against coal exploration in the Zulia state, has been scheduled to be held on November 20 in Caracas, in which members of the CTU hope they will be able to officially deliver some results from this weekend to President Chavez.

Already one trillion bolivares ($ 465 million) have been allocated towards the construction of these new universities.

The second new program, Mission Smile, will provide dental prostheses for poor Venezuelans who need these. It is estimated that as many as 10 million parts and complete pieces need to be manufactured. Also, new dental laboratories will be launched for this program.

In other plans, yesterday Chavez announced that soon he will unveil a new 14-year plan. "We are preparing ourselves for the launch of the National Simon Bolivar Project," said Chavez, naming the plan after Venezuela's 19th century independence hero and namesake of his government's movement. According to Chavez, this project would begin on February 2, 2007, when he would be inaugurated for a second full term, if he wins the December 3 presidential election. This date would "initiate a phase of 14 years of work for the consolidation of the new period" in Venezuelan history.

This would mean that this phase would end in 2021, a year Chavez has often referred to as the year by which the "Bolivarian revolution" would be complete.