GUATEMALA CITY -- Thousands of Latin America's indigenous, union leaders, peasants' rights organizations and young idealists sporting dreadlocks and Che t-shirts have gathered here this week for a forum to discuss the region's food crisis, fighting international corporations and ``post-neoliberalism.''

''Everyone's goal is to create real socialist alternatives,'' said Blanca Chancosa, a Quechua indigenous woman from Ecuador who attended the Third Social Forum of the Americas.

The forum is a spin-off of the World Social Forum, which was first held in Brazil in 2001 as a counter to the annual meeting of powerful business leaders and economic institutions held in Davos, Switzerland. At the time, right-leaning governments ruled most of Latin America, with the exception of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

Latin America's poor have called for land reform and a more equal distribution of wealth for decades. But many groups that had grown accustomed to protesting on the margins now have strong allies in the region's rising leftist governments.

''In some way, we've left behind the era characterized by resistance,'' Alberto Acosta, former president of the assembly that drew up Ecuador's new constitution, told the forum. ``We're now in the process of looking for alternatives.''

Many at the latest forum said the current U.S. financial crisis is proof that the market-centered, free-trade model-espoused by the United States and accepted by most Latin American governments since the end of the Cold War-has failed.

''Neoliberalism, proposed as the sole hegemonic theory, has demonstrated that it doesn't work,'' said Byron Garoz, one of the forum organizers. Still, he and others worried that the financial crisis could cripple the region's vulnerable economies. ''The problem is that the crisis affects all of us,'' he added.

The political winds in Latin America have blown steadily to the left in recent times. Just in the past year, the left-leaning former bishop Fernando Lugo won presidential elections in Paraguay; Bolivian President Evo Morales was easily reconfirmed in an August recall vote; and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa obtained overwhelming voter approval for a new constitution, one of his main political goals. The constitution -- Ecuador's 20th since it became a nation -- grants increased rights to indigenous groups and, uniquely, to the environment. It increases the state's responsibilities in providing health care and fighting poverty. It also prohibits the presence of foreign troops and allows for a stronger government role in extractive industries, which worries some critics and foreign investors.

At the same time, many Latin American governments are turning away from the U.S. and toward some of its historic foes for cooperation and leadership. Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled the U.S. envoys to those countries last month (in response, the U.S. did the same). Also last month, Venezuela's Chavez and Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedez announced the creation of a bilateral energy consortium, and they're planning joint military exercises for November. Last year, Iran pledged to invest nearly half a million dollars in infrastructure in Nicaragua.

Even some center to right-leaning Latin American leaders, like Honduras's Manuel Zelaya and Costa Rica's Oscar Arias, seem tempted to change track. Honduras recently joined ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), the alternative economic bloc promoted by Cuba and Venezuela, while Costa Rica severed ties last year with U.S. ally, Taiwan, instead setting up diplomatic relations with mainland China.

At the forum, many were quick to note that the new brand of socialism -- dubbed ''21st Century Socialism'' by Chávez and others -- isn't the same model that put up the Berlin Wall and led to massive bloodshed throughout Latin America during the second half of the last century.

Garoz called this new socialism ''one that can be constructed within the framework of bourgeois democracy. It's going to the polls and winning,'' he said.

Chancosa said this new socialism is about putting more political power in the hands of the common people. But she added that the Correa government, even with the new Constitution, has yet to prove it is willing to do this. ''We'll have to see how [the Constitution] translates into political actions,'' she said.

Bolivian president Evo Morales, whose speaking engagement at the forum on Thursday was cancelled at the last minute, sent a letter in which he called for an end to capitalism and adoption of what he's dubbed ``living well.''

''There's a lot of talk about socialism,'' stated the letter, read to hundreds of forum participants at the public University of San Carlos, ``but that 21st Century socialism needs to be improved, constructing a community socialism ... in harmony with Mother Earth, respecting the lifestyles of the community.''

Acosta, speaking at a roundtable discussion on Wednesday, cautioned against falling for old political models and said ''there's no one recipe'' for all of Latin America. ``For us, the market-centered visions have failed ... But simultaneously, we don't believe that the options have to be state-centered. We need to look for a dynamic relationship between state, market and society.''

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