BY SARA LOBMAN AND SHOGHI FRET
NEW YORK - "There is no question that the Cuban revolution will move forward and that Cuba will continue to be an independent, revolutionary, and socialist country," Ricardo Alarcón told a meeting of some 150 people at Casa de las Américas here November 8. Alarcón, president of Cuba's National Assembly, was in New York to represent Cuba at what has become an annual debate in the United Nations General Assembly on the U.S. economic embargo of the island (see article on page 11).

Defenders of the U.S. blockade argue that it is an instrument to "achieve a democratic transition and human rights" in Cuba, Alarcón said. But when the U.S. government launched its economic war in May 1959, "democracy was a bad word in Washington." He reviewed the long list of U.S. interventions in Latin America to install and support bloody dictatorships, from Bolivia to Chile, and Argentina.

The Cuban leader noted that unlike the UN Security Council - where Washington and four other governments hold veto power - the General Assembly only has the power to make recommendations. In past decades the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly against the apartheid regime in South Africa, against Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, and for independence for Namibia, he said, only to have Washington scuttle similar resolutions in the Security Council. "But in the end history forced them to comply with these resolutions. And it will in this case as well.

"No one has anything to teach us on democracy," Alarcón said. "As Fidel [Castro] said `ask our children who have an infant mortality rate that is just a dream for the children of Latin America.' Ask our workers, who have social dignity and justice, and who discuss, analyze, and decide the questions affecting them. It is the workers, peasants, youth, students, and women who in fact, not just in words, participate in the leadership of their society. That's what happens in Cuba. That's our national reality."

This is in stark contrast to the situation in other countries where confidence in elected officials is at an all time low, the Cuban leader said, pointing to the high participation of the Cuban people in elections compared to the United States, where the most popular candidate is "none of the above." Working people vote in Cuba because they have "a system of their own that belongs to them," Alarcón said. He noted that elected officials in Cuba are not paid for their services, but take the responsibility voluntarily. "The struggle is still on to perfect our democracy, our economy, and all aspects of Cuban life," he stated. "But we in Cuba are not in a transition to the past. When we say more democracy we mean more socialism."

While many of those in attendance were longtime supporters of the Cuban revolution, a number of young people came who are more recently attracted to its example. Liam Flynn-Jambeck, 19, for instance, participated in the world festival of youth and students held in Cuba last summer. He was struck by how problems that are endemic in the United States, like homelessness, are difficult for many Cubans to understand.

This was the first time Ricky Genao, 18, had heard a leader of the Cuban revolution speak. He came because Cuba is a "small island standing up to an imperialist power. Too many people gave up after the Soviet Union fell," he said. "But as long as there is struggle there is hope."  
 
 
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