PORTO ALEGRE.— Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez described the World Social Forum as the most important political event of its kind in the world, at the end of its fifth edition in Porto Alegre, Brazil, reported Prensa Latina.

Before more than 20,000 people who packed the Gigantinho stadium or who watched and listened to his speech on a giant screen outside the venue, Chávez was first described as a new kind of revolutionary and liberator by Ignacio Ramonet, eminent thinker and editor of Le Monde Diplomatique.

The president said that, in spite of that, he was inspired by revolutionaries of yesterday and today, including Simón Bolívar, Che Guevara, Artigas, San Martín, Augusto César Sandino and Fidel Castro, extensively connecting the most important individuals.

In a statement that was at times a conversation with those present and at others a vibrant speech, he remarked that all imperialism is aberrant, bestial and evil.

"The only road along which we can smash the hegemony of imperialism and the oligarchies of this earth is the road of Revolution," he specified.

He remarked that many people agree that capitalism must be transcended, adding that it is necessary to do that through socialism, the true socialism of equality and justice and it is possible to do that in a democracy, but not the one that Superman wishes to impose on us from Washington.

Chavéz specified that the US rulers know that they have no force within Venezuela and that if they dare to invade the country, they will bite the dust after being defeated in the Caribbean, on the Orinoco, and on the plains where Bolivar’s centaurs ride.

He indicated that the vast majority of those who are excluded come to the Forum, those who have no voice, and that he came to learn and to thank them for their solidarity with Bolivarian Venezuela, under attack from imperialism for so many years.

He said that he didn’t feel like a president - that that is a circumstantial task - because he is a campesino, a soldier, a man committed to the struggle for a better world, one that is necessary in order to save the Earth.

In that respect, he added that the planet must be saved by the South, where there is greater awareness of the need to do this, but if this objective fails and Bush’s doctrine is imposed, global warming and the subsequent thawing would provoke a disaster far worse than the tsunami that recently devastated Asia.