BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
LOS ANGELES - More than 200 students and others filled
Haines Hall at the University of California Los Angeles
(UCLA) on the evening of October 22 to mark the 30th
anniversary of the combat in Bolivia of Ernesto Che Guevara
and his comrades. The meeting, titled "Ernesto Che Guevara
and Cuba: Past, Present and Future," was sponsored by an
array of student organizations, including African Student
Union, La Gente de Aztlán, Latin American Students
Association (LASA), MEChA, the Cultural Affairs and Academic
Affairs commissions of the Undergraduate Students
Association, and the Young Socialists.
David Kunzle, professor of art history at UCLA, opened the meeting. He informed participants that the U.S. State Department had just denied a visa to Harry Villegas, also known by his nom-de-guerre Pombo, who had been invited as the main speaker. Villegas, today a brigadier general of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, fought with Che Guevara during Cuba's 1956-58 revolutionary war in the Sierra Maestra and as part of internationalist missions in the Congo in 1965 and Bolivia.
Kunzle and other professors at UCLA and other campuses here had invited Villegas to speak at their classes. "The State Department considers him a threat to the interests of the government of this country, and they said they don't give members of the Cuban government a platform to speak in the U.S.," Kunzle said. He called on students and others to protest "this undemocratic decision."
Kunzle urged everyone to take part in the symposium "Thirty years later: A retrospective on Che Guevara, Twentieth-Century Utopias and Dystopias," scheduled for October 24-25 on the same campus. Villegas had been invited to address that conference.
Participants approved a letter to the State Department by the sponsoring organizations demanding that it reverse its decision and grant Villegas a visa "so we can organize another event to hear him at a later date."
Kendya Mosley, president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, the UCLA's student government, chaired the program along with Gale Shangold, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). To loud applause, Mosley read a message Villegas had just sent to the event. "Che's example is more and more relevant because there are more evils that afflict the societies of the third world: more poverty, more hunger, more illiteracy," Villegas said.
Doug Williams, president of the African Student Union, presented greetings to the meeting on behalf of his organization. Hugo Maldonado, chair of the campus MEChA, presented a 14-minute video interview with Villegas shown on Cuban TV last year.
Sandra Escalante, chairperson of LASA, introduced the featured speakers: Félix Wilson, deputy chief of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., and Emilio Pérez, another officer of the Interests Section. "Che's life represents what Cuba is today and what it has been for 38 years: An example to the struggles of the dispossessed and exploited around the world," Wilson said. "The defeat of the invading armies of the South African apartheid regime in Angola two decades after Che was killed in Bolivia was a by- product of the internationalism of Che and the Cuban revolution."
Wilson and Pérez are invited to speak at Kunzle's class at UCLA on "Revolutionary Art" October 23. They will also address the classes of Marjorie Bray and Enrique Ochoa, professors of Latin American Studies at California State University Los Angeles, later that evening, and speak at another class at California State University Long Beach on the morning of October 24. Their visit will end with a meeting at the UNITE union hall here on the evening of October 25. Villegas had also been invited to speak at all these events.
Protest messages demanding the State Department grant Villegas a visa can be called or faxed to James Theis, Cuba Desk, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C. Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20520; Tel: (202) 647-9273; Fax: (202) 736- 4475.
Message from Harry Villegas
October 22, 1997
Kendya Mosley, President
Undergraduate Students
Association Council
UCLA, Los Angeles, California Compañeros, University students,
It's very gratifying to know that today you are carrying out the scientific event on the thought and works of commander Ernesto Che Guevara, an example for honest human beings.
Che's example is more and more relevant because there are more evils that afflict the societies of the third world: more poverty, more hunger, more illiteracy. But sooner or later, the social justice that you and others are fighting for will prevail throughout the world.
I hope that your event is very successful, and I convey to you our hope to be able to share with you, in the future, an appreciation of the life of this great man of the Americas.
Revolutionary greetings,
Pombo
Why is Washington afraid to let Harry Villegas of Cuba come to the U.S.? Tues., Oct. 28, 7:00 p.m.
Cougar Den, University Center
University of Houston
(Main campus, Gate 1)
For more information call U of H History Dept. (713) 743- 3083 or Cuba Coalition of Houston (713) 313-7355