BY JACK WILLEY AND BRIAN TAYLOR

SANTIAGO DE CUBA - "We will continue fighting each time with more efficiency, with more consciousness, with more responsibility.... We don't forget for a second the moment in which we live, the epoch in which we live, the world in which we live," said Cuban president Fidel Castro in his speech on July 26 in Holguín. Thousands gathered there to celebrate the 43rd anniversary of the 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks, which initiated the revolutionary war to overthrow the U.S.-backed tyranny of Fulgencio Batista.

"The capitalist system is creating a world where there is increasing poverty," Castro stated. "It's a world with growing illiteracy, where people have less security, a world with more drugs and more violence.... This is the world the U.S. empire is offering us -a world with less and less independence, where a whole number of countries have less sovereignty."

At the same time, despite an escalating economic war by Washington, the Cuban people are succeeding through tremendous efforts to reverse the country's economic decline, Castro said, proving it's worth it to fight imperialist enslavement. "The country is recovering slowly," Castro said. "I say we are on a good path.... I say we can resist."

Cuba's gross domestic product grew 9.6 percent in the first half of this year, the Cuban president pointed out, following on the heels of a 2.7 percent growth rate in 1995. "The 9.6 is a salute, is a message to Mr. Helms and Mr. Burton," Castro said. He was referring to the original sponsors of the so-called Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which U.S. president William Clinton signed into law March 12, significantly tightening Washington's economic and trade embargo on Cuba.

The 144 young people from 26 states across the United States who are here as part of the U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange had the opportunity to hear Castro's speech on TV in Santiago while staying with Cuban families. We also had a chance to talk about it with dozens of Cuban youth and workers while visiting factories, schools, farms, taking part in demonstrations, or simply walking down the street.

"I support the Cuban revolution because I support autonomy for the oppressed," commented Ramón Harris, a student from Los Angeles who is a member of the Chicano rights group MEChA, one of many Latino and Chicano youth on the trip. "It's becoming clear to me that the masses here are one with the revolution and their government."

In his talk the Cuban president explained that Holguín was chosen as the national site of the July 26 celebration because working people there set an outstanding example in the battle to meet the goal of 4.5 million tons of sugar -the country's main export crop and the major source of hard currency. As rains prevented combines from entering the fields at the end of the harvest in May and June, tens of thousands of factory workers, teachers, students, and others mobilized and cut the cane in the fields with machetes - often immersed in water to their knees. Holguín reached 510,000 tons, one of the highest amounts in the country. Miners also made big advances, Castro said, reaching 27,000 tons in nickel production thus far, putting the country well on the way to making a historic record in annual production this year.

This working-class determination and self-confidence to reverse the economic decline set off by the termination of favorable trade and aid from the former Soviet Union has spread in factory after factory and farm after farm around the island. "In bestowing this recognition to Holguín," Castro said, "we must also extend it to the entire country, because the entire country worked and fought hard."  
 
 
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