Vol. 71/No. 36      October 1, 2007

This year the largest delegation of Cuban academics and writers ever to attend a LASA congress spoke on panels, gave workshops, read poetry, and showed Cuban films.

Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba’s National Assembly, was a featured speaker. He appealed to the academics, writers, and researchers present to support efforts to win the release of five Cuban revolutionaries being held unjustly in U.S. jails.

“We want to especially welcome our Cuban colleagues who are attending this congress in unprecedented numbers,” said outgoing LASA president Charles Hale at the opening session. Hale reported that 120 Cuban academics and writers were in attendance. He also said that of the 5,000 participants in the congress, 1,200 were from Latin America.

“We are meeting here because of the U.S. government’s action last year in denying visas to the entire Cuban delegation to our last congress,” Hale said. Participants in the congress applauded as he reported that in response to that exclusion, LASA’s board had approved a resolution not to meet in the United States again until the policy of refusing to grant visas to Cuban academics is changed.

Just weeks before LASA’s 2006 congress in Puerto Rico the U.S. government denied visas to all 55 Cuban scholars who had planned to attend. In 2004 all 65 Cubans planning to attend that year’s LASA meeting were informed just 10 days before that they would be barred from entering the United States. In 2003 only 60 of the 105 Cuban academics scheduled to attend LASA’s congress were given visas.

The main speaker at the opening session was Canada’s Governor General Michaëlle Jean. She spoke about the Canadian government’s “collaboration” with governments in Latin America in “reestablishing democracy” in Haiti. Canada has some 100 cops in Haiti as part of an international “peacekeeping” mission.

Jean never mentioned Cuba, with which Canada has diplomatic and trade relations. In one of the workshops Elena Diaz from the University of Havana explained that while Canada has normal relations with Cuba it joins with the United States and the European Union to pressure Cuba.

Alarcón spoke to a packed room of more than 800. It was the largest session of the congress and had to be moved from its original location. He called for an end to the decades-long aggression by Washington against Cuba, which has cost thousands of Cuban lives and countless economic hardships.

He explained that the five Cubans framed up on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and murder committed no crimes. They were in the United States to gather information about the activities of organizations that have carried out attacks against Cuba from Florida, Alarcón said.

The four-day meeting included more than 1,000 workshops and panels. Scholars from across the United States and Latin America, including from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Brazil, made presentations. The next LASA congress is schedule to take place in June 2009 in Rio de Janeiro.
 
 
Related articles:
Campus meeting on Cuban 5 draws students, others in D.C.
U.S. hostility toward Cuba marks Florida custody case
U.S. denies visas to wives of Cuban 5  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home