OCLAE is made up of student federations from countries across the Americas. It was founded in 1963 at the fourth continental student congress, held in Havana, Cuba. Taking place four years after the triumph over the Batista dictatorship, it registered the impact of the Cuban Revolution throughout the continent.

This year’s conference was hosted by Mexico’s Federation of University Students (FEU), which had a delegation of 280 at the conference. The Cuban delegation, led by the Federation of University Students (FEU) of that country, brought 162 youth. It included students from 25 countries who are studying at the Latin American School of Medicine or the International School of Physical Education and Sports.

There were also sizable delegations from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.

More than 50 youth from the United States and seven from Canada attended the congress. Although organizations from these two countries are not members, OCLAE president Yanelis Martínez made a point of welcoming their participation at the opening of the congress. At the closing session, Martínez read a statement declaring as "friends of OCLAE" the Canadian Federation of University Students and the participating youth organizations from the United States.

Those present from the United States included members of Latino student groups from Temple University and Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, the Chicano student group MEChA, Comité Zapatista de Los Angeles, Puerto Rican Alliance of Los Angeles, United States Student Association, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Young Socialists.

Attending from Canada were members of a Palestinian rights group in Vancouver, the Young Socialists, the Montreal-based antiglobalization group Alternative, and a representative of the Canadian Federation of University Students from Quebec.

Similarly, the delegates from Latin America reflected a spectrum of political currents. These ranged from various Communist Parties and social-democratic organizations to the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Mexico, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) of El Salvador, and the Maoist Bandera Roja of Venezuela.  
 
Discussion on U.S. military presence
The conference program included eight workshops, which took up topics such as student and youth movements, culture, education, technology, and defense of the environment. Reports from the workshops were presented at the close of the conference.

Two major conference sessions were held. One was a panel on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a trade bloc promoted by Washington. The U.S. rulers seek to use the FTAA to plunder more freely Latin America’s natural resources and labor and reinforce the unequal trade relations between imperialist and semicolonial nations. Washington is also seeking to use it to strengthen its edge over its European imperialist rivals.

The second major session was a panel on "The U.S. Military Presence in Latin America and the Caribbean." The presentations reflected some of the differing political views expressed throughout the OCLAE conference. The speakers included Iraklis Tsavdaridis, president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY); Miguel Ramírez, a leader of the Federation of Pro-Independence University Students in Puerto Rico (FUPI); Olympia Newton, member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Young Socialists in the United States; and Claudia Flores, member of the Colombian Association of University Students. The featured speaker was Daniel Ortega, former president of Nicaragua and leader of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN), one of the main parties in Nicaragua.

Flores opened the panel by reading a statement from her organization condemning the repression in Colombia carried out by the U.S.-backed government of Alvaro Uribe, including the militarization of the universities and victimization of student leaders. She appealed for support to the struggle against repression in Colombia.

"Two thirds of the territory of the island of Vieques is a U.S. military base," explained FUPI leader Rivera, speaking about the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, which the U.S. Navy uses as a bombing range. "More then 1,500 Puerto Ricans have been jailed for their protest activities against the Navy in Vieques." Pointing to Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. colony, he noted the strategic importance U.S. imperialism attaches to its military presence there. The Roosevelt Roads base, in eastern Puerto Rico, is the largest U.S. naval base in the world.

The following day, at the closing session, the OCLAE leadership called for internationally coordinated demonstrations against the U.S. Navy’s presence in Vieques for April 15, two weeks before the date Washington is supposed to cease bombing exercises on the island.

Tsavdaridis described the world as one dominated by Washington’s increasing weight. As the world’s only superpower, he said, "U.S. imperialism is becoming more and more aggressive, and it now dominates everything, including the United Nations."

The WFDY president, who is also a leader of the Communist Youth of Greece, said that with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the justification for NATO no longer exists, yet the U.S. government continues to press for its expansion. What’s more, he said, "NATO no longer acts within its own borders." He argued that despite the mild protests of the powers making up the European Union, Washington flaunts the will of its allies in Europe and around the world. He pointed to the recent large pacifist-led demonstrations in London; Florence, Italy; and Washington, D.C., as a road to preventing the U.S. government from going to war against Iraq.

Newton explained that the growing U.S. military presence in Latin America and Washington’s moves toward war in the Middle East flow from imperialism’s weakness, not its strength. The U.S. rulers have no way out of the deep economic crisis gripping world capitalism today, she said, but to seek to conquer new markets to prop up their declining system. To pursue their aims they have to confront the resistance of working people around the world, including inside the United States.

"Cuba continues to stand as an example in the world of what is possible when working people take political power and begin to organize a new society in the interests of the majority," Newton said. "It is only through making a socialist revolution that workers, farmers, and young people in the United States can finally rid the world of the final empire and the enemy of humanity, U.S. imperialism." (See text of Newton’s remarks on page 6.)

In a theme echoed by many at the conference, Ortega pointed to the election of candidates supported by radical political parties as the way forward throughout Latin America. He cited the recent electoral victories of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador, as well as the government of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, as examples of how to stand up to imperialism.  
 
Visit to Guadalajara Book Fair
Participants in the OCLAE congress also spent one afternoon at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the largest of its kind in Latin America, and their presence had an impact on the event. Many sought out titles by Cuban publishers, which were prominently displayed because of Cuba’s position as the featured country at the book fair this year. Dozens of students stopped by the Pathfinder Press booth, which featured books on revolutionary struggles around the world as well as speeches by leaders of the Cuban Revolution.

At the OCLAE congress itself, Young Socialists staffed a Pathfinder table, where delegates bought more than 100 titles on revolutionary politics. Many of those attending the congress were familiar with Pathfinder books from previous international political gatherings. For others it was the first time they had seen such literature. The Pathfinder titles that sold the most were The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes; The Communist Manifesto, and Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces.

In the hotel where delegates were housed, the Cuban youth set up an exhibit highlighting different aspects of Cuba’s revolution. It illustrated what in Cuba is called "the Battle of Ideas," a political offensive to deepen the participation of working people and youth in Cuba’s socialist revolution, central to which is the broadening educational opportunities available to the Cuban people and expanding access to culture.

The campaign to free five Cuban revolutionaries framed up and imprisoned in the United States was a major feature of the exhibit. Students from Cuba used the OCLAE congress to build support for the campaign. At the final session, conference organizers read a statement demanding that Washington release the five.
 
 
Related articles:
Young Socialists leader speaks on fight against U.S. imperialist intervention in Latin America  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home