BY RÓGER CALERO
SANTA CLARA, Cuba - Pathfinder volunteers who participated in the Seventh International Book Fair in Havana were invited to bring their book exhibit to a computer fair and national youth conference on computer science, held here February 16-19. The event was organized by the Joven Club (Youth Club), a project that promotes computer use among youth in Cuba.
The Joven Club was initiated in 1993 by the Union of Young Communists (UJC) of Cuba and today has 156 local centers throughout the country. It has organized a computer network connecting these centers that can also be accessed from abroad. Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper of the UJC, is one of the resources available through the network. "This network is used primarily by youth, but some workers, of all ages, are now using it to get computer training too," said Rafael Tamayo, one of the national leaders of the Joven Club.
Members of the Joven Club, like others in Cuba, are using computers to limit the impact of the acute paper shortage in the country. Accelerating computer training and use is part of Cuba's response to the economic crisis - commonly referred to as the special period - precipitated in that country by the collapse of trade and aid from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 1990s. It also reflects the efforts by Cuban youth, with full government support, to exchange ideas and information with others around the world.
The youth conference, held here at the Central University of Las Villas, was attended by 150 delegates from Joven Clubs around the country. Students presented computer projects with a variety of scientific applications, and awards were given for a dozen categories. Many, such as an egg incubator one youth had designed, were aimed at increasing efficiency and production. Tamayo said the winners of the contest will participate in the 1996 Computer Science Convention and Fair to be held in March in Havana.
Twelve organizations representing computer software and hardware manufacturers from Cuba and abroad had stands at the computer fair, which was held at the city's cultural center downtown. At least 2,000 people visited the fair.
Many expressed great interest in Pathfinder's book exhibit there. Giovani Guardado, a 24-year-old computer student, was glad to see Pathfinder books in Santa Clara. He had read about the publishing house in the daily newspaper Granma, which interviewed Pathfinder president Mary-Alice Waters at the Havana book fair. "Book exhibits like this one are usually done in Havana," he said. "You will find a great appreciation for revolutionary literature in the provinces and in the countryside."
The Pathfinder volunteers had brought a photo display showing communist workers selling revolutionary literature in a number of places and events around the world, from Los Angeles to Tehran. This sparked considerable interest. Raú l Marchena, who was studying English, was particularly impressed to see the pictures of demonstrations against the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in California, of the strike by workers at Boeing, and of a rally in defense of Mumia Abu- Jamal. "It is good to know that other workers around the world are also fighting back," he said. He then browsed through a copy of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics.
Two Nicaraguan youths studying at the University of Santa Clara stayed around to discuss the situation in Nicaragua and to look through an issue of the Marxist magazine Nueva Internacional titled "The Rise and Fall of the Nicaraguan Revolution." They have been in Cuba for eight years. On a visit to Nicaragua last year, they said, they were shocked by the social conditions facing working people there today. "We need to go back to the roots of the Nicaraguan revolution and the mistakes that were made there," one of the students said.
About 150 Pathfinder titles - more than 200 copies - that were on display, were donated to the three campuses of the Central University of Las Villas.
A philosophy professor at the university who had seen Pathfinder books at a U.S.-Cuban philosophers conference last year asked which of the campus libraries would receive George Novack's Polemics in Marxist Philosophy, which he was especially interested in reading.
Rafael Soriano from the Municipal Book Council said this was a timely donation. "Before the special period we used to look at the world through the prism of the Soviet Union," he said. "Today there is a need for these books in order to look at the whole world and the changes that have taken place."
The new Pathfinder English-language edition of Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Ernesto Che Guevara drew special attention at the fair. Many of the visitors said they had relatives or knew somebody who had joined the Rebel Army in Santa Clara in battles - recounted by Guevara in this book - that were decisive in the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship. Some of the older visitors vividly remembered the atrocities inflicted by the dictatorship.
One young man quickly recognized the picture of a Rebel Army combatant nicknamed Vaquerito, the leader of the "Suicide Squad" in Guevara's Column 8 of the Rebel Army, from one of the photo sections of Episodes. "Vaquerito is someone we admire a lot," he said.
At the end of the computer fair and conference, the donation of the Pathfinder books - made possible by the Books for Cuba Fund organized by the Militant - was accepted on behalf of the university center by leaders of the UJC and the Federation of University Students. UJC leader Bolivia Tamara thanked the workers and students in the U.S. and elsewhere whose generous contributions to the fund had made the donation possible, noting that "these books will help us deepen our knowledge about the workers movement around the world." She added that they would organize an exhibit of these titles at each of the university's campuses here.