BY BOB AIKEN

SYDNEY, Australia - The Cuba Lives International Youth Festival set for August 1-7 is "a symbol of how strong and firm we are in Cuba," Alejandro Herrera Agete told a public meeting of 100 people May 30 at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). "We are opening ourselves up to the youth of the world so they can see the realities of Cuba with their own eyes."

Herrera, 27, is a leader of the Union of Young Communists in Havana province. His 11-day visit to Australia concluded June 2. The youth leader has traveled to New Zealand for the second leg of his Pacific speaking tour; he has also been invited to visit the Philippines.

Promoting the international festival was at the center of Herrera's visit here. "You will have a chance to exchange ideas with Cuban young people, to see not only Havana but other cities, and at last touch with your own hands what people have only heard about through the mass media, which presents a picture of Cuba as hell, a despotic country, drowning," he said.

Herrera's trip was coordinated by the Cuban Youth Tour Committee, which included student organizations, academics, and supporters of the Cuban revolution. For many of the 300 people who attended the tour meetings, including students who helped organize speaking engagements at five universities, this was their first opportunity to hear someone representing the Cuban revolution.

80 sign up for information on tour
By the end of the tour, 80 people had signed up for more information on the August festival and ongoing activities in support of the Cuban revolution.

Herrera set the tone at all the meetings he addressed here by stressing, after brief introductory remarks, that he was open to answering any questions or doubts that people might have about Cuba. "The Cuban revolution exists, firm, solid, and ready to talk with anyone who approaches it," was how he put it at the UTS meeting, which was chaired by Juan Miranda, the Non-English-Speaking Students Officer of the Students Association there.

"Cuba has two basic weapons," Herrera said, in response to a question at the UTS meeting on how Cuba was surviving the deep economic crisis brought about by the collapse in trade with the former Soviet Union, and the tightening of the economic and trade embargo organized by the U.S. government. "The first is the confidence that the people have in the revolution, and the other is what people are doing every day in order to save the revolution.

"A normal day for a Cuban may not be a very happy day," he continued. "Very little transport to get to work, several hours without electric power in the house, a reduced shopping basket of basic goods, and fewer recreational and leisure activities.

"You have to have a very great trust in the revolution to continue to defend it in such circumstances, as it is being defended today," he said. "A spirit of working for the revolution exists," among the working people of Cuba.

Another participant at the UTS meeting asked if the Cuban government, by opening the country to tourism and joint ventures with foreign capital, was following a "pseudocapitalist" policy like the Chinese government. "This is not the Cuba we want, nor is it the kind of measures we have taken," Herrera said. "In Cuba we still talk about voluntary work, sacrifice and commitment to a cause, the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is social ownership of the means of production."

The Cuban government "sits down very calmly with those who want to invest in the country," he said, "and lays out its socialist conditions."

Another questioner asked about Herrera's view of developments in Nicaragua. "Cuba has taken on what happened in Nicaragua with great pain," the youth leader said. "What is true is that the Nicaraguan revolution no longer exists," he continued. "This makes the transformations for social justice for that country and the Caribbean area more distant, and this is a cause for sorrow for true Marxists."

Revolution rests on its supporters
Herrera fielded a range of questions on democratic rights and toleration of dissent in Cuba at all of the meetings.

"The revolution does not rest on attacking those who do not support it," he said at a meeting of 65 sponsored by the Hispania Society at the University of New South Wales May 30. "It rests with those who support it, and when they are a minority the revolution will fall. There are people in Cuba who oppose the revolution, who want capitalism, private property, a chance to get rich," Herrera continued. "The revolution was made to take power from these people."

Asked about events that took place in Cuba last August when anti-government riots occurred in Havana, he responded that it was important that this had been answered, not by sending in the army and the police, but by supporters of the revolution mobilizing to confront the anti-government rioters. "There is a more powerful force than the army, police, and government, and that is the people who made the revolution," he said.

Herrera's tour received some national media. A meeting to report on the whole Pacific tour is planned in Sydney, June 29.

Bob Aiken is a member of the Australian Workers Union - Federation of Industrial, Manufacturing and Engineering Employees in Sydney.  
 
 
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