BY ELIZABETH STONE
HAVANA, Cuba - During the International Women's Conference held in Cuba this April 13-16, several Militant reporters spent an evening at the headquarters of the Continental Latin American and Caribbean Student Organization (OCLAE).

This group has existed as an organizing center for students in Latin America and the Caribbean for more than three decades. Kenia Serrano, a Cuban who is currently the president of OCLAE, talked with us and gave us a tour of the well-kept offices where a team of young people from different countries carry out the organization's work.

The first thing she showed us was a large painting of a Puerto Rican youth - José Rafael Varona - which dominates the room where the leadership of OCLAE has meetings. "This is one of our heroes," Serrano said. Varona, better known by his nickname "Fefel," was a leader of student protests in the l960s against the drafting of Puerto Ricans into the U.S. army to fight in Vietnam. He was a fighter for Puerto Rican independence and a leader of the Federation of Pro- Independence University Students (FUPI). He spent time in Havana participating in the leadership of OCLAE as a representative of FUPI.

In the spring of l967 Varona visited Vietnam at the invitation of the National Union of Students of Vietnam. He was wounded by a bomb dropped from a U.S. plane while traveling with a group of young people in the countryside. On March 24, l968, he died from the wounds. Serrano told how after Fefel's mother received word of his death, a messenger appeared at her door with an order that he report to be drafted into the U.S. army.

On May 29, as part of a solidarity week with Puerto Rico, students in Cuba will be taking a bust of Varona to the Cuban city of Matanzas. They will place it in a square which will be renamed "Latin American Student Square - José Rafael Varona." FUPI plans to send a delegation to Cuba to participate in the dedication of the bust.

"There is a new generation of youth coming into political activity," Serrano explained, pointing to the activists in FUPI as an example. Up until recently FUPI had been dwindling in size, but it is now seeing a revitalization and growth in membership.

Serrano said OCLAE experienced a crisis in the early 1990s, which was reflected at its l992 conference. "At the time people began to question whether we could continue as an anti-imperialist organization."

By the time of the l995 OCLAE conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, the situation had shifted. "We saw the beginning of new struggles, of Chiapas, and the determination in Cuba that the revolution would survive," Serrano noted. This strengthened those who supported continuing the work of OCLAE.

"I was a delegate at that conference," Serrano said, "and we established that we wanted to be a more open, plural organization, yet with clear principles. We felt more confident that we could take up the questions facing youth - unemployment, illiteracy, drugs and other issues."

Serrano pointed to Malcolm X as an example of an anti- imperialist fighter whose ideas are important for young people today.

In her travels in Latin America Serrano is finding more young people repelled by the attacks on working people in every country and wanting to do something about it. She said students in many countries are fighting cuts in education and attempts to privatize universities. "We feel there are going to be more protests," she said.

Students who try to organize also experience repression. At San Marcos University in Peru, one of the oldest universities in Latin America, for example, the army occupies the campus.

Serrano pointed out that intervention by U.S. imperialism in Latin America is growing, not decreasing, and the need for young people to fight back is greater than ever.

Elizabeth Stone is a member of the International Association of Machinists in Chicago.  
 
 
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