BY JAMES HARRIS
ATLANTA - The National Network on Cuba (NNOC), a coalition of some 70 local and national groups that organize activities in opposition to U.S. policy toward Cuba, held the second regional meeting of its affiliates in the Southeast here August 20.
The main decision participants made at the meeting was to shift gears and put at the center of their activities over the next two months building a march in New York City on October 21. The demonstration will demand an end to Washington's economic embargo of Cuba, normalizing relations between the two countries, lifting the U.S. travel ban on the Caribbean island, and respect for Cuba's self-determination.
The New York action was originally one of four regional demonstrations called by the National Network for October 14. The date was shifted to take into account that U.S. president Bill Clinton and Cuban president Fidel Castro are scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly October 22.
Some 30 people from throughout the South attended the regional NNOC gathering here. They represented local coalitions and organizations involved in defense of Cuba in Atlanta, Georgia; Miami and Sarasota, Florida; Durham and Greensboro, North Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; and Houston, Texas.
Andrés Gómez, one of the four national coordinators of the Network, chaired the meeting and gave the opening report. The night before, Gómez spoke at a public forum sponsored by the Atlanta Network on Cuba, which 80 people attended. He described the reality in Cuba today and talked about the situation in the Cuban community in Miami, where he lives. Gómez is also the national coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, a Miami-based group of Cuban- Americans who support the Cuban revolution.
Discussion at the August 20 conference centered on whether NNOC affiliates in the South should continue to build the regional demonstration in Atlanta or concentrate their efforts on mobilizing people for the march in New York City.
Many participants at the meeting pointed out that the New York demonstration is now seen by numerous local coalitions and national political organizations involved in Cuba solidarity work as a national action for which forces from around the country are being mobilized. Several groups in Miami, such as the Association of Workers in the Cuban Community (ATC), are already planning to organize members and supporters to go to New York on October 21, not to build an action in Atlanta the weekend before.
Most participants agreed that it would be impossible to successfully promote participation in demonstrations with the same character two weeks in a row. If local coalitions divided their energies and resources between an October 14 regional demonstration and organizing to get people to New York a week later, many of the activists here said, both would be smaller and weaker as a result. It would cut across building the largest and broadest action possible this fall in defense of the Cuban revolution.
A few people at the meeting argued that maintaining the focus on building the regional mobilization in Atlanta would be the most effective way to do work in the South in opposition to U.S. policy against Cuba.
In the end, the meeting decided that building the regional demonstration in Atlanta was unrealistic at this point and that NNOC affiliates should instead concentrate their work on mobilizing people for the march in New York.
Representatives of the Atlanta Network on Cuba announced that their group will organize a teach-in on Cuba here on October 14, as a local action geared toward promoting participation in the New York march.
Representatives of other coalitions also said they will bring proposals back to their groups to plan similar educational activities on the same date as part of their efforts to build October 21.