BY SETH GALINSKY
MIAMI - In a victory for free speech and for defense of the Cuban revolution, Cuban youth leader Kenia Serrano addressed a widely publicized public forum at Florida International University (FIU) April 20.

The FIU administration tried to prevent Serrano from speaking on campus-and after that failed, tried to sabotage the event. Students and other activists publicized the forum through mass distribution of flyers for eight days leading up to the meeting. The campus press and other major news media also publicized the forum. In response the College Republicans took to the airwaves on Spanish-language radio stations for several days to condemn her visit and build an "anti-Castro" demonstration. And right-wing hecklers tried to shout Serrano down.

But, the Miami Herald was forced to admit, Serrano "kept her cool-even in the midst of heated Cuban rancor."

Serrano, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Youth in Havana, is international relations director of the Federation of University Students in Cuba and a member of the Union of Young Communists.

She spoke on "Cuba and Youth Today," at the meeting of 200 people, which was co-sponsored by a broad range of student groups including Amigas Latinas, Raices Latinas, the National Organization for Women, the Comparative Sociology Graduate Students Association, and the Young Socialists Club. Five professors also endorsed the meeting in the interest of free speech.

Astrid González-Bello, secretary of the Student Organizations Council, chaired the meeting. González-Bello gave special thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped force the university administration to allow the event, and the FIU Faculty Senate, which passed a resolution calling on the university not to restrict free-speech.

"Ms. Serrano's presence here reinforces the university's laudable tradition of upholding freedom of speech and assembly," political science professor Cheryl Rubenberg said. "I expect this audience to behave with tolerance and respect."

Bernard Johnson, outgoing president of the Black Student Union, also welcomed Serrano. "I am for free-speech," he said. "And that is why I am here tonight."

While the overwhelming majority of students in the audience-including many Cuban-Americans-wanted to hear Serrano's presentation and have a serious discussion about the Cuban revolution, about 70 right-wingers from Miami's Cuban-American community, joined by some students, came with the intention of preventing it.

`A free and sovereign Cuba'
"In 1959 Cuba became free and sovereign for the first time in its history," Serrano stated. El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish- language edition of the Miami Herald, used this opening statement as a display quote in an article the next day to highlight one of the main points the Cuban youth leader made in her presentation.

Immediately, the right-wing hecklers started shouting and tried to drown Serrano out. "Cuba sí, Castro no!" they shouted. Many students shouted back, "Let her speak." When the disrupters quieted down, Serrano continued.

"In 1989 Cuba entered a new stage," Serrano explained. "With the fall of the Soviet Union, we lost 85 percent of our foreign trade. We began a new era of development where we had to find Cuban solutions to Cuban problems. We have had to insert ourselves into the unjust world economy."

Through the course of her talk, a tug of war continued between the rightists who yelled and jeered and many in the audience who tried to quiet them. At one point the rightists sang the Cuban national anthem. Serrano sang along with them.

Frank Peña, president of the College Republicans, asked the first question. "Can I go to Cuba and speak at a meeting like you have been able to do here?" Peña asked. "And speak about the Republican Party?" Peña was one of the organizer's of the demonstration against the meeting.

"Yes, of course," Serrano said. "Anyone can come." She explained that it is the U.S. government that has blocked travel to Cuba. Serrano gave Peña her card. "I invite you to come to Cuba and to the University of Havana," she said.

University police escorted Dade County Commissioner Pedro Reboredo to the front of the room and insisted that the chairpersons give him the microphone.

Reboredo asked Serrano if she would condemn the sinking of a tugboat July 13, 1994, and state that Castro is responsible. The tugboat, hijacked by Cubans seeking to come to the United States sank off the coast of Cuba. Forty-one people died. Many more were rescued by Cuban ships. The U. S. press has charged that the Cuban government deliberately sank the boat.

Serrano explained that the sequence of events leading to the sinking of the boat are "well-known by the people of Cuba. It has been reported in detail in the press and an investigation of the incident is being carried out."

`I invite you to have a dialogue'
The chair recognized Vaughn Nelson, a 21-year-old Black student. He was standing in the middle of a group of right- wingers who had crowded an aisle and were among the most vociferous hecklers. University police, who did little to get the hecklers to take their seats, tried to pull Nelson away from the microphone.

But Nelson finally managed to speak. "I am disturbed by what is going on here," he said. "There is no dialogue here. I invite you to have a dialogue." Nelson explained, "My grandparents on one side are from Jamaica. My other grandparents are Cuban. I have the intelligence to listen and decide for myself without these interruptions."

One questioner told Serrano, "I hope that when you go back to Cuba you tell people about American democracy and how the police were here to defend your right to speak." While the rightists applauded this comment, many students laughed.

"In Cuba," Serrano responded, "We don't need police at our meetings because we have a civil discussion."

During the course of the meeting, Serrano was able to describe what she learned during her tour of the United States, including her visit to picket lines of the Caterpillar strikers. "The strikers told me that although they have the right to strike," Serrano noted, "the company has fired many workers."

Debate at FIU
Despite repeated heckling, Serrano was able to answer questions for more than an hour.

"The meeting ended without any incident," said the broadcaster on Spanish-language television Channel 23, in concluding the station's coverage of the event for the evening news.

Opinions about the meeting were hotly debated on the FIU campus the next day. But, many showed respect for Serrano.

One Caribbean student remarked, "Those right-wingers could have brought a tank in there and Kenia would have stayed calm. She's amazing."

From the start the university administration tried to block the event. One administrator initially told student organizers the meeting could not take place. Later officials said that students would have to provide a written guarantee that $3,000 would be available for security.

The American Civil Liberties Union joined the fight against the administration's undemocratic move. Many professors, on their own, sent E-mail messages to university president Modesto Maidique protesting the policy. Meeting organizers learned later in the week that the Faculty Senate had passed a unanimous resolution calling on the university to rescind the policy of requiring the security fee.

The university agreed to meet and negotiate with the student groups sponsoring the event after the ACLU threatened to go to court and ask for an emergency injunction against the administration's actions. The student groups and the university reached a compromise. The students would pay $400 under protest and the university would allow the meeting to go on.

The day before the meeting the student newspaper, The Beacon, published an editorial titled "Beyond Khallid: Welcome Kenia."

The editorial referred to an FIU meeting in late March where former Nation of Islam leader Khallid Muhammad spoke.

"Kudos to [Kenia Serrano] Puig for her courage in coming to FIU and for those who may not agree with what she is saying, but who adhere to her right to say it. FIU survived the racially divisive smoke and mirrors display by Khallid Muhammad without incident. Certainly, we can withstand Puig's communist viewpoint."

FIU tries to sabotage meeting
While the meeting was open to the public, FIU required those attending to obtain free tickets or get on a waiting list to attend.

Right-wing protesters, in their big majority non-students, had no problem getting tickets, which were issued the day before the event. Dozens marched in a group to the meeting room and were allowed in. Cops denied at least 50 people, many of them students with tickets, entry into the room, even though there were still empty seats.

While the police prevented protesters from rushing the stage their actions encouraged the heckling. Many students complained after the meeting that the cops were seen joking with the hecklers.

At one point, the police attempted to take control of the audience microphone and require the event organizers to call only on the most vocal group of rightists. The organizers refused.

The fight for free speech and against the university's $3,000 fee, and the meeting itself received widespread publicity. Virtually every television station in the city covered the meeting. Major articles appeared in the Miami Herald and its Spanish-language edition El Nuevo Herald. El Diario Las Ame'ricas published an article title "Castroite fans the flames at FIU."

Divisions among the right-wing
The right-wing came out of the meeting discredited in the eyes of many FIU students and others. The conduct of the hecklers has also widened divisions among opponents of the Cuban revolution.

In a letter to the editor published in the Miami Herald April 24, Antonio Gonzalez writes, "I am thoroughly confused at how a precious opportunity was squandered to challenge peaceably one of Fidel Castro's propaganda ministers with facts and figures.

"Is there any way that a logical, rational, university- educated mind can foster repression and mayhem in the name of liberty and yet keep a straight face?"

Sebastián Acros, spokesperson of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, made a similar point in an interview with Exito, a Spanish-language weekly that published an extensive article on Serrano's visit to Miami.

"It really bothers me," he said, "that the Cubans who have been here so long have not learned, first of all, that what the people associated with the dictatorship are seeking is to make us look bad; and secondly, to sit down, shut up, and ask an intelligent question."

In the rest of her four-day tour of Miami, Serrano was able to speak to airline workers, Haitian refugees, activists in the fight for immigrant rights, and Cuban-Americans who oppose the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Seventy members of the Haitian rights group Veye-Yo greeted Serrano warmly April 21. The meeting was conducted in Spanish and Creole. Serrano was introduced by Veye-Yo leader Lavarice Gaudin. He said that Haitian activists should be proud of Serrano for her firmness at the FIU meeting.

Following a brief presentation, Haitian activists lined up at the microphone to ask questions. Afterwards, Haitian activists competed with each other for the chance to be photographed with Serrano.

At an April 22 citywide meeting sponsored by the Miami Coalition Against the U.S. Embargo of Cuba, the discussion continued. Students from FIU and the University of Miami, Haitian refugees, and others were among the 70 in attendance.

Elizardo Bascoy, a leader of the coalition and the Antonio Maceo Brigade, spoke about the fight to hold the FIU meeting. "In spite of all the pressure applied and all the rudeness of the right wing, Kenia demonstrated a great firmness," Bascoy said.

Serrano also spoke with United Airlines flight kitchen workers in the company lunch room, and spoke to a meeting of the Alliance of Workers in the Cuban Community.  
 
 
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