BY AARON RUBY
GUADALAJARA, Mexico - Under the title "Latin America towards the Fin de Siecle" the 20th Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) met in this city April 17-19, attended by more than 3,000 people. The largest delegations were from the United States, Mexico, and Brazil. This was the first LASA congress held in Latin America in a number of years. More than 30 Cuban academics participated - a number comparable with previous years.

Attended by academics, writers, graduate students, a number of political activists, and others, the congress consisted of some 550 sessions addressing topics ranging from literature and the arts to women's issues, the environment, international politics, struggles over land, labor struggles, and more. The event also included a book exhibit, which attracted some 75 publishers from the United States and Latin America.

Many of the presentations addressed the deepening social and economic crisis in Latin America as "the end of the century" approaches - the theme of the congress. In the panel "Sackings and Protests in the Era of Neoliberalism," Margarita López-Maya of the Central University of Venezuela reported that, not including strikes, in the last four years over 4,200 street protests have rocked Venezuela. Another panelist reported that in Peru in 1989 real wages were 25 percent of the 1973 level.

Neoliberalism is a term frequently used to describe the cuts in social spending and other attacks, as well as the privatization of state-owned companies and layoffs, imposed by capitalist governments in Latin America over the last decade, resulting in increased unemployment and worsened living conditions for millions. Forty six percent of the population of Latin America lives in poverty - 40 million people in Mexico alone.

Several dozen University of Guadalajara students helped organize the congress and attended the panels. A number had been active in leading student protests here over transit rate hikes. They were interested in other struggles across Latin America, and welcomed facts about fights being waged by workers and youth in the United States. "One thing I know for sure," said one of the Mexican students who asked not to be identified. Latin America "is going to explode. The thing is, are we going to be ready to meet the challenge when the time comes?"

A number of presentations took up the increasing immigration from Latin America to the United States. One panelist reported that now some 100 U.S. towns have become majority Mexican, most of them in California. Robert Aponte of Michigan State University reported that there are now 27 million persons of Latin American origin in the United States, which ranks it the country with the fifth-largest Latin American population, after Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, respectively.

Women's issues were strongly reflected at the congress including topics on feminism, women's health care, and women in industry. A panel on abortion reported that in all but one Latin American country abortion is illegal. Dinnys Luciano from the Dominican Republic reported that in that country there is one illegal abortion for every three births, resulting in many deaths and illness. In contrast, "Cuba is another world," affirmed Luisa Alvarez Vásquez, who works for the World Health Organization. "There, abortion is a guaranteed right that all women have, and it is free."

Many of the presentations pointed to the deepening crisis facing working people in Latin America. However, many panelists held the view that a "post `Cold War' world" means trying to get at the crisis without stepping out of the bounds of capitalism. A debate took place at a panel entitled, "The future of Revolution in Latin America." Jeff Goodwin of New York University asserted that there would be no further revolutions because most Latin American countries now had elected governments. Eric Selbin of Southwestern University disagreed, "Neoliberalism is failing badly," Selbin said. "As the crisis deepens people will turn to the tool of revolution," he predicted.

Cuba was the topic of a number of panels. Richard Nuccio, former head of Latin American affairs for the Department of State under Clinton, spoke at the LASA congress, repeating U.S. government line blaming Cuba for the U.S. embargo and other hostile acts. "Our [U.S. government] foreign policy towards Cuba is in the hands of the Cuban government," he asserted.

A resolution attacking the Cuban government for alleged "violations of academic freedoms" was initially presented by Wayne Smith, former head of the U. S. Interests Section in Havana during the Carter administration. At a meeting of the Cuba task force of LASA, Cuban academics and others attending the congress refuted the charges, and after some debate the task force voted to oppose the resolution. Smith later withdrew it at the main LASA business meeting.

Due to a lack of a quorum at the meeting, none of the proposed resolutions were adopted, including one condemning the intensification of the U.S. economic aggression against Cuba - the Helms-Burton law.

The draft denounced the U.S. law's violation of international treaties and agreements, its restrictions on "exchanges between Cuban and American academics." Also authored by Smith, it stated that the Helms-Burton law "has resulted in isolating the United States."

Another draft resolution took up human rights abuses in Colombia. LASA congresses are held every 18 months; the next will be in Chicago in 1998.  
 
 
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