Conference organizers report that 1,187 delegates from 26 countries attended the event. They included representatives of student organizations, as well as many unaffiliated youth, from across the continent. The largest group, 281 people, was from Mexico. The second largest delegation came from Cuba, with 162 youth. Among them were students from 25 countries--including African nations--studying at the Latin American School of Medicine and the Latin American Sports School. More than 40 from the United States and several from Canada participated in the congress.

The youth gathering in Guadalajara took place immediately after the Second International Meeting Against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, held in Havana, Cuba, November 25-28. A number of youth participating in the Havana conference flew to Mexico to take part in the OCLAE congress, where some of the same political themes were discussed.

The student conference opened with a panel discussion on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). First proposed in 1994, the FTAA is a U.S.-dominated trade bloc that, if the imperialist powers realize their plans, will eventually include 32 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean plus Washington and Ottawa.

Cuba’s revolutionary leadership has waged an international campaign to oppose and educate around the FTAA, explaining that U.S. imperialism’s goal is to plunder more freely Latin America’s natural resources and labor and reinforce the existing trade relations between imperialist and semicolonial nations. Washington is seeking to use the trade bloc to strengthen its edge over its European imperialist rivals.

Panelists touched on various aspects of the FTAA and how it is intertwined with growing U.S. military intervention in South American countries, such as Colombia and Ecuador. They reported that Washington has also set up or is seeking to set up a number of military bases in the Southern Cone, from Eastern Paraguay to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina.

Delegates from Puerto Rico highlighted the fight against U.S. colonial rule in that Latin American nation, including the movement to stop the U.S. Navy’s use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for bombing practice.

In the course of the conference, students from Uruguay and El Salvador described struggles in their respective countries to oppose moves to put the public health-care system increasingly into private hands. In El Salvador, thousands of working people and youth are continuing to organize large protests against the privatization measures there.

Members of the Colombian delegation spoke about opposition to the repressive measures that the U.S.-backed regime of Alvaro Uribe is taking against workers and farmers under the guise of "fighting terrorism."

Delegates belonging to Cuba’s University Student Federation (FEU) and Union of Young Communists (UJC) explained the political campaigns that revolutionary youth on the island are carrying out to deepen involvement of other Cuban youth in the revolution.

Another topic of discussion was the recent electoral victories of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil and former colonel Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador, as well as efforts to oppose a pro-imperialist coup in Venezuela against the government of President Hugo Chávez.

The OCLAE congress overlapped with the Guadalajara International Book Fair, where Cuba was this year’s country of honor (see front-page article). An afternoon was set aside for delegates to visit the book fair, and hundreds took advantage of that opportunity.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home