The Militant (logo) 
Vol.64/No.1      January 10, 2000 
 
 
Cuban youth leaders speak in Montreal  
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BY CARLOS CATALAN 
MONTREAL—Two Cuban youth leaders addressed hundreds of students and others in Canada in November.

Irisday Ramírez del Monte, a member of the National Secretariat of the Cuban Federation of University Students (FEU), and Niurka Dumenigo, president of the José Martí Pioneers Organization and a member of the National Bureau of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), visited Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Ottawa during their November 14–28 visit.

Their central goal was to promote the Twelfth Congress of the Latin American Students Continental Organization (OCLAE), scheduled for Havana April 1–4, 2000. More than 20 organizations and student federations in Latin America and the Caribbean re affiliated to OCLAE.

"The congress is open to anyone who wants to participate, with the exception of racists, who will not be welcome," said Ramírez to more than 70 people who participated in a conference at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) November 26. "We want a broad, pluralist, and democratic congress, open to all youth who want to discuss the problems that afflict us," she said. This includes discussing how to confront the attempts at deepening the capitalist exploitiation of the semicolonial world sometimes termed "neoliberalism."

In addition to speaking at several campuses and public conferences, Dumenigo and Ramírez met with a number of organizations to invite them to build and to send delegates to the OCLAE congress.

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) invited them to address their annual convention, held in Ottawa November 24–27, to tell them about the OCLAE congress and about the conquests of the Cuban revolution. The Cuban youth leaders also met with members of the executives of the Quebec Federation of University Students (FEUQ) and the Quebec College Students' Federation (FECQ).

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Toronto and of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees in Montreal also were able to meet Dumenigo and Ramírez. A similar meeting was held in Vancouver with members of the International Association of Machinists.  
 

Democratic rights in Cuba, Canada

At the public meeting at UQAM, some students asked about democratic rights and freedom of the press in Cuba.

"We conquered our press and our media through the revolution. They are wide open for those who want to criticize the revolution in order to improve it. But those who aim to push reactionary ideas and who call for an insurrection have no place in our papers that belong to our people and our revolution," said Dumenigo.

"If journalists are in prison in Cuba it isn't because of their political ideas but because they violated the laws of our criminal code," she added.

Patrick Audy, a student from Maisonneuve College condemned the attacks on the education system by the Quebec government. "It's fine to talk about democratic rights in Cuba but look at what is happening to us here," he said. "The police have again arrested 70 students last week because they demonstrated against the privatization of education and an exclusive contract for Coca-Cola in this university. Since the beginning of the year more than 1,300 students have been arrested in Quebec in demonstrations for the right to education. Is this democracy?"

The discussion in the conference on democratic rights in Cuba reflected the intensified campaign by the government of Canada against the Cuban revolution in the name of supporting "dissidents repressed by the Castro regime."

On June 29 the government of Canada announced that it was suspending all high level contacts with Cuba, professing concern over four opponents of the Cuban revolution who were charged with collaborating with counterrevolutionary forces in the United States.

The big-business media in Canada then waged an open campaign to urge Cuban athletes to defect during the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg earlier this year. The Cuban delegation responded with a declaration that "Cuban athletes would not permit anything or anyone to humiliate them... if their dignity was in question."

This fall the federal government in Canada opposed the opening of a new Cuban consulate in Vancouver. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy wrote to the British Columbia Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs rejecting any initiative that could be interpreted as an easing of the position of Canada vis-à-vis Cuba. Axworthy's letter makes clear that Ottawa's objective is to "promote an economic, political and social change in Cuba."

This campaign had an impact on the young people who met Dumenigo and Ramírez during their tour.

"I believe that our country, as opposed to what happened in the Soviet Union, survived because our revolution, as Fidel says, is a real revolution. A revolution of workers, of peasants and of students," said Ramírez explained during the conference.

In response to a conference participant who asked what kind of solidarity Cuba needs from the world's youth, Ramírez reaffirmed her invitation to the OCLAE congress and added, "Continue to struggle against all forms of injustice in the world and advance towards your own revolution."  
 
 
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