The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.65/No.14            April 9, 2001 
 
 
Build Cuba-U.S. youth exchange
(editorial)
 
The visit to the United States of Yaniles Martínez and Javier Dueñas provides young people, workers, farmers, and others an important opportunity to learn the truth about the Cuban revolution and to in turn explain their struggles and battles with the employers and their government in Washington. Defenders of the Cuban revolution across the Midwest and Northeast, along with those seeking information about Cuba across the U.S.-imposed embargo and travel ban, can make a priority of building and attending the meetings for the two youth leaders scheduled in New England and Minnesota over the next two weeks.

The sizable meetings the first days of the visit by Martínez and Dueñas indicate the interest there is in a dialog and overcoming Washington's decades-long stream of lies and aggression against the popular revolution made and defended since 1959 by workers and peasant of that Caribbean country. Building these meetings and joining the discussion at them is a must for workers and farmers who are engaged in protests, strikes, and demonstrations in defense of their rights, wages, and working conditions. Young people who are repelled by the brutality of U.S. imperialism both at home and abroad will be able to learn about Cuba's socialist revolution--the only alternative course to the dog-eat-dog world that capitalism has to offer.

Among those interested in attending the meetings will be students and youth protesting racist assaults and measures to roll back affirmative action, workers defending their union or marching for immigrant rights, women organizing protests in support of abortion rights, and young farmers fighting to defend their land and livelihoods.

The Union of Young Communists and the Federation of University Students in Cuba, along with other youth organizations, are also promoting a continuation of this dialog and steps to forge a common anti-imperialist struggle in the Americas. The July 22-30 Second Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange they are sponsoring in Cuba is a week of activities and discussion that revolutionary-minded youth in the United States can broadly build over the next four months. The call for the conference invokes anti-imperialist and revolutionary fighter Jose Martí, who spent several years in the United States learning about the rising imperialist power and the struggles of working people from "inside the belly of the beast," he wrote.

The reality of the imperialist monster Martí described is more true and pervasive more than 100 year later than in its infancy at the end of the 1800s. Capitalism has brought into being hundreds of millions of working people, more able to unite across national boundaries and other divisions imposed by class society, who are capable of organizing, fighting, making a revolution, and winning against the final empire on the face of the earth.

The Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange is part of hastening that day. We encourage all our readers to help spread information about the exchange to as many youth people as possible as part of building a broad youth delegation from the United States this coming July.
 
 
Related articles:
'Cuban revolution is the achievement of millions'
Defense at Miami trial exposes anti-Cuba lies
'We knew we were defending the gains of the revolution'
Conference event presents books on Playa Girón
Cuban groups invite U.S. youth to Havana for summer exchange
October Crisis and the U.S. class struggle
 
 
 
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