On the last Thursday and Friday of April 2003, there was a nice event on the World Social Forum process at the oldest university of South America, San Marcos University. Together with the radical democratic collective Raiz, well-known feminist organization Flora Tristan and other groups, NIGD was one of the organizers and conveners of the event. There were some 70-120 people in the audience, and the debate was at times animated. Teivo had the honor to give the inaugural talk, after the words of the dean of social sciences of San Marcos. One of the issues that came up in various interventions was the decision to hold the WSF 2004 in India. Teivo had a friendly public disagreement about the issue with our dear friend Gina Vargas (Teivo's position was that IN THIS CONTEXT it would have been unwise not to hold it in India) and also some groups self-defined as radical left. More debates emerged e.g. on the role of Hugo Chavez, both in the WSF 2003 and more generally. In his issue, Gina was in strong disagreement with the traditionally radical left. The WSF process has been growing stronger here in Peru, and this event was an important step, we think. There will be various WSF-related events in different parts of the country during the coming months.

Roxana Crisologo and Teivo Teivainen