BY JON HILLSON AND MEGAN ARNEY
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota - Twin Cities activists have gone into high gear here to mobilize the largest, most diverse turnout possible for the October 14 regional protest in Chicago, called by the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), protesting the U.S. embargo and defending Cuba's right to self-determination.
Thousands of leaflets have been distributed here, and Cuba activists used various events to build the action.
On October 4 and 5, three visiting Cuban professors spoke to more than 200 students at the University of Minnesota, St. Cloud University, and St. John's University. "There is one current in U.S. policy to kill Cuba from the outside, and another current which hopes to strangle the revolution from within," Esteban Morales, director of the Center for the Study of the United States in Havana, told students at the University of Minnesota. "The Cuban people are ready to resist both aspects of this policy," he said.
Washington's hatred of the Cuban revolution continues, Cuban academic Graciela Chailloux explained to students at St. John's University in Collegeville, because it was "the first country which took control of its destiny, and is the only country in Latin America not under U.S. control." Students at the meetings got information on transportation to the action in Chicago.
Twin Cities Cuba Network (TCCN) members, along with activists from the Twin Cities Cuba Friendshipment Committee, are building the October 14 demonstration. The groups are organizing a car caravan to Chicago. The convoy will leave here from Todos Los Santos church, headquarters of the Pastors for Peace national office, the day before the protest.
Several participants from the Minnesota delegation to the August Cuba Lives! festival reported on the historic gathering to students in two classes at Normandale Community College. They urged students to get involved in ongoing activities against the embargo, including the Chicago protest.
Activists from both organizations also leafleted the opening of the 1963 Soviet-Cuban film, I am Cuba at the University of Minnesota, and a Friendshipment member addressed the movie audience about the Chicago action.
An October 7 meeting cosponsored by the TCCN and the Resource Center of the Americas served to launch a week- long building effort for the Chicago event. More than 30 students, young people, and political activists turned out for it.
"The most important thing that opponents of the criminal U.S. embargo on Cuba can do is to mobilize to Chicago on the 14," TCCN activist Megan Arney told the meeting. "We need to march, protest, learn, and work with each other in the Midwest region and organize as many people to come with us as possible to strengthen and expand our common activity," she said.
The meeting included a film showing of part of the powerful Cuban documentary Al Combate (To the Fight), which describes the 1994 antigovernment riots in Havana, the "rafters" crisis, and the response of Cuban revolutionaries to them.
The meeting also featured first-hand video footage by TCCN activist Dan Keiser, a cooperative farmer and participant in the Cuba Lives! event.
Shane Bastien, a 15-year-old Minneapolis high school student and TCCN activist, compared life for working people in Cuba and the United States. "Here," Bastien said, "they close hospitals, and in Cuba, they don't. Here, school is free through high school, and in Cuba, it's free through college.... Here, money and weapons are the most important thing for the government. But in Cuba, community is the most important thing; what's good for the people is what counts."
Meeting co-chair Teresa Schweitzer, convenor of the TCCN and a leader of the Guatemala Solidarity Committee, described the agenda of the October 14 march and teach-in. She urged activists to spend the night in Chicago, and stay for a Midwest organizers meeting the next day, "so we can get to know each other better."
Gary Prevost, a St. John's University professor and a member of the Task Force for Scholarly Relations with Cuba of the Latin American Scholars Association, reported on the successful participation of 32 Cuban professors at the recent LASA convention in Washington, D.C.
Building on the success of three previous nationwide tours of Cuban youth organized by the Minnesota-based Student-Faculty Cuban Lectures Tour Committee, Prevost described upcoming plans to tour Cuban youth in the U.S. this spring, which is being initiated by similar student- faculty group in formation in Boston.
An important feature of the event was an extensive discussion of President Clinton's October decision to tighten the U.S. economic embargo, with the cosmetic cover of "relaxing" aspects of stiff restrictions on travel to Cuba.
The Clinton plan, activists agreed, made it more timely than ever to take to the streets to both explain this latest anti-Cuban act, and to protest it as well.
The coming week, activists resolved, will be spent posting flyers, calling political groups and activists to increase participation in the caravan, and making banners and placards for October 14.
The spirit of the meeting was summed up by Adriana Sanchez, spokesperson for the U.S. delegation at the closing ceremony at the Cuba Lives! festival in Havana. Urging people to mobilize for Chicago, Sanchez told the crowd that "defending Cuba is defending what humanity is." Advances in Cuba strengthen every fight "for social justice in the United States," Sanchez said. "Cuba's struggle is our struggle!"
Megan Arney is a member of the Twin Cities Cuba Network. Jon Hillson is a member the TCCN and United Steelworkers of America Local 9198.