Human rights issues were central to the debates taking place in the capital of ant globalisation. The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez came to talk of "revolution" and South American unity.

To finish, the World Social Forum (WSF) displayed on 31 January a "wall of proposals" with 352

resolutions issuing from seminars and workshops over the five days. According top the organisers, the number of participants had exceeded 150,000.

From a total of 2000 meetings dealing with eleven themes, Human Rights issues were to the fore with 471 meetings in the programme schedule. Reed Brody from Human Rights Watch participated in a workshop on the war against terrorism, which "has become the main threat to Human Rights".

Juan Carlos Lecompte, who is married to Ingrid Betancourt, currently held by rebels in Colombia, set up a stand at which two petitions were being signed; one addressed to President Alvaro Uribe, the other to the FARC in Colombia.

While Alain Lipietz was condemning the " unspeakable aggression of FARC" some metres away a militant of the Workers Party was applauding "the Colombian revolutionaries".