The Venezuelan government also will host an international Bolivarian Circle meeting in April in Caracas. ''There are circles in Bilbao, Madrid, Denmark -- all over the place. It's really neat,'' said Guillermo García Ponce, Chávez advisory committee coordinator, in an interview with The Herald in Caracas. He acknowledged that South Florida has become an anti-Chávez stronghold. ''I suppose [the Miami circle] will have to keep a low profile,'' García said.
Anti-Chávez activists say they do not oppose the presence of a Bolivarian Circle in Miami as long as it doesn't instigate the violence they allege the circles have caused in Venezuela -- a claim Soto and others deny. ''The government has allowed the Bolivarian Circles to attack the newspapers, attack the reporters,'' said Raúl Leoni, a Venezuelan opposition leader who lives in Weston. ``The fact that you win an election doesn't make you eternal if you're not doing your job correctly.''
……………..The Bolivarian Circles -- along with Chávez's controversial 1999 ''Bolivarian constitution'' -- are part of his overarching ``Bolivarian Revolution.'' Some 70,000 circles exist in Venezuela, made up largely of the working class. Typically, they meet weekly and engage in humanitarian projects such as providing food for the poor -- with military financing -- and building schools. Critics compare the circles to Fidel Castro's Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.***