The delegates, who crowded into the Karl Marx Theater for the opening session, were welcomed by Sergio Corrieri, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples. Corrieri recalled how in 1996, when the First World Meeting of Friendship and Solidarity with Cuba took place, the economic crisis precipitated by the abrupt cutoff of trade and aid from the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries was at its worst. That conference was unforgettable, Corrieri said, because of the support for and confidence in Cuba that was demonstrated at a time of great difficulties, when many people were predicting and preparing for the revolution’s demise.

When history is written, he said, "they will point out that these were not the last years of the Cuban revolution, nor the end of history, but the prologue to vast changes that will have to happen in the world if we want it to continue to exist."

He added that this second conference is also timely in its own way since it comes as the Cuban people are intensifying their resistance to U.S. economic and political attacks with marches, rallies, roundtable discussions, and an expansion of popular education.  
 
Political highlights
Speeches by three leaders of the Cuban revolutionary government were the feature of the first two days of the conference. Each one was followed by an extended question-and-answer period. Greetings from numerous delegations have also been heard.

Carlos Lage, secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers, took up questions that have been discussed informally by many delegates concerning the economic measures taken in the l990s to confront the economic crisis.

He pointed to gains made in the six years since the 1994 conference. Unemployment dropped last year from 8 percent to 6 percent. Productivity and job conditions have improved, with production nationwide growing an average of 4.4 percent a year since l995. Food supplies are more ample and nutrition is noticeably better. Instead of extended, daily interruptions in electric power, such blackouts are now only infrequent.

Foreign capital has been used to improve the productivity of some important Cuban export industries such as nickel. But this and other measures, such as setting up farmers’ markets and legalizing the private holding of dollars, Lage explained, are not aimed at restoring some kind of capitalism.

"These are unavoidable measures taken in new circumstances to make it possible to continue defending the revolution, to continue defending socialism," he said. "Ours is not and never has been a privatization process.

"We are not trying to establish a market economy, and we will never subordinate our revolution to the market."

Lage pointed to many difficulties impeding production. In addition to the economic war being waged by Washington, including the obstacles to getting long-term low-interest loans, the price of the oil Cuba imports has tripled since l998, while the price of Cuba’s chief export, sugar, has dropped below 5 cents a pound, substantially less than production costs. "That correlation could not be worse."

Daily life remains hard, Lage insisted. While food shortages have eased, thanks to the enormous efforts made to encourage production and improve distribution, prices are high and very damaging shortages remain in such vital areas as transportation and medicine.

During the discussion, when a delegate observed that Cuba is paying a "high political price" for the inequalities brought about by the legalization of dollar holdings in l994, Lage said he agreed.

Many Cubans with family members living abroad receive dollars, as do those working in the tourist sector and a number of other jobs. This has brought in much-needed hard currency, which has been used by the state as foreign exchange to purchase imported goods essential to such basic necessities as education and health care. At the same time the great variations in the access Cubans have to dollars--if any--has greatly increased economic and social inequalities, which are much larger now than in the decades before l990. Legalization of holding dollars has also brought income--rents, profits, interest--that, as Lage put it, is not "the fruit of work."

He pointed to measures taken to lessen the inequalities--a recent 40 percent pay increase for workers in education and health care and the continued investment in programs that benefit everyone. Part of the social wage in Cuba includes medical care for all, government-financed education--including university and postgraduate study--and a food ration made available to every Cuban at a cost well below the market prices.

Even in the most difficult period of the economic crisis of the last years, Lage said, the revolution always shared what was available as equitably as possible. The bedrock policy of the revolutionary Cuban government has been and remains that "no one is left to fend for themselves," he said. Not a single hospital or school has been closed, despite the shortages of medicines and school supplies.

He emphasized that Cuba’s ability to survive, and now to slowly move forward again, has been the result of the mobilization and spirit of resistance of the Cuban people. He pointed to the importance of the workers parliaments in the factories, and discussions in the trade unions and in every workplace, which have enabled workers to participate in making decisions about the measures to be taken.

"What our people are showing, and what I would tell you, is that our revolution today is stronger, not only because we are doing better economically, but because we have been reaffirming the basic principles of the revolution," Lage concluded.  
 
40 years of Yankee aggression
Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, outlined for conference participants the 40 years of economic, political, and military aggression waged by the U.S. government against the revolution.

He underlined the consistency of the policies implemented by successive administrations aimed at getting rid of the Cuban revolution and its example. From the first military attacks organized and financed by Washington in response to Cuba’s sweeping land reform of l959, to the most recent U.S. economic measures contained as riders in the agricultural appropriations bill signed into law a few weeks ago, U.S. policy has had only one goal--to overthrow the Cuban revolution.

During the discussion a British delegate raised the possibility that the U.S. government would soon end the prohibitions on trade and investment "because the policy has failed" and public opinion has turned against it. Alarcón replied that the economic warfare is being intensified. He cited the Torricelli act passed in l992 and the Helms-Burton law in l996 to illustrate the continuity and consistency of Washington’s policy toward Cuba, including the 40-year policy of helping to organize and finance counterrevolutionary Cuban organizations inside and outside Cuba.

Referring to the agricultural bill recently signed into law by U.S. president Clinton, which some claim eases restrictions on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba, Alarcón noted that part of the war is to sow confusion. "In order to hide their crimes, they try to make us think they are changing their policy, when in fact they are not."

Alarcón stressed that the revolution itself is the target: "Most important is that a revolutionary power is in place, in the hands of the proletariat, a fighting proletariat."

Responding to a delegate asking how the U.S. presidential elections will affect Cuba, Alarcón said that regardless of who wins, the economic warfare on Cuba will continue. The identity of the new administration "will not make the slightest difference."

Giving the example of how African-Americans and their supporters won political and social rights through struggle, he said, "The ones who can force the U.S. government to change things are the people of the United States."

In answer to a question by a supporter of Puerto Rican independence, Alarcón reminded the delegates that in the l980s the U.S. government demanded that Cuba cease championing Puerto Rican independence in the United Nations, making that a condition for lifting the economic embargo. "As long as there is a single Puerto Rican who fights for independence, we will support them," he declared, to a standing ovation.

"Anyone who is struggling anywhere in the world to secure a better future can count on Cuba’s solidarity," he added.  
 
UN vote
The day the conference opened, the Cuban newspaper Granma headlined the November 9 vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favor of a resolution demanding an end to Washington’s economic embargo against Cuba, with 167 votes in favor, 3 votes against (United States, Israel, and the Marshall Islands) and 4 abstentions (El Salvador, Latvia, Morocco, and Nicaragua).

Felipe Pérez Roque, Cuba’s foreign minister, reported to the conference on this resolution, as well as on a resolution in favor of Puerto Rico’s independence, introduced by Cuba, which was also adopted.

"I have lived under a blockade all my life," Pérez Roque noted. "Decades have gone by, and none of the attacks have ever brought us to heel," he said. "The attempt to isolate Cuba has failed." Cuba will never surrender, he said.  
 
Workshops
Following the opening sessions, delegates began a day and a half of workshop discussions on three topics--the economic blockade, exchanging experiences in solidarity work, and spreading information on Cuba. Participants will also visit a number of places of interest, including a psychiatric hospital and the medical school where students from Latin America are studying free of charge.

In the opening days of discussion, delegates from the Bahamas, Honduras, Ecuador, South Africa, and other countries to which Cuba has sent doctors have emphasized the impact of this aspect of the internationalism of the Cuban revolution.

Approximately 600 delegates to the conference are from the United States. Other countries with large delegations include Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Italy, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and India.

Jacob Perasso contributed to this article.  
 
 
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