BY ANITA ÖSTLING AND DANIEL AHL
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Olga Díaz Ramos, a leader of the Union
of Young Communists in Cuba, wound up her tour of Stockholm
November 22. In all, she spoke to more than 350 people in high
schools, seminars, colleges, and public meetings in the
Stockholm area.
Díaz spoke at two high schools in different classes, in all 100 students heard her speak. Several students in Telge High School in Sodertalje wanted to know how Cuba can have so many top athletes. "Are they doped?" students asked. Díaz explained that Cuba has a national system of physical training, free of charge, and accessible to every Cuban. This forms part of the preventive health-care system in the country. "This gives an opportunity for children to develop into first-class athletes if they have the talent and decide it is what they want to do."
On her final day in Stockholm, Díaz met with 27 young union activists from the construction, food, municipal, transport, and state employees unions. Their questions about Cuba included, "Who owns the means of production? How high is unemployment? How does the health-care system work? What kind of tax system exists in Cuba?"
Díaz spoke at a number of public events. Two meetings, at the University of Stockholm and in a public hall in the downtown area, became very polarized. The Social Democratic Student Association and the Student Left sponsored the meeting at the university. Some 40 people participated, among them a handful of Cubans living in Sweden who oppose the revolution. Díaz calmly countered all their statements and slanders.
The Committee for Youth Exchange with Cuba, the Sweden Cuba Friendship Association and the Workers Education Association (ABF) in Stockholm organized the public meeting in Stockholm. It was attended by 50 people out of which a dozen were Cubans hostile to the revolution.
About halfway into the meeting one participant stated that he loved Cuba, despite the revolution and the government. He mentioned health care and education being very good. But he said Cubans can't invite foreigners to their homes and asked why Cubans can't drive their guests in their cars.
Díaz answered by describing the conditions in Cuba before the revolution, saying that it wasn't despite the revolution and the government that things are better now, but because of them. Cubans can drive foreigners in their cars, she added, but need a permit for being in business. Díaz then wrote her address down on a piece of paper and invited the participant to visit her in her home in Havana. This prompted one of the Cubans in the audience to leave his chair and try to rush up to the podium. He was stopped, but this incident led to disturbances in the hall and difficulty in keeping the meeting in order. The program ended after two hours. At the door on their way out two young men and a young woman separately explained that they had come out of curiosity and because they wanted to know more about Cuba. But given the polarized atmosphere in the hall they had refrained from raising their hands to ask their questions.
A couple days earlier, on November 18, Díaz visited Vasteras, a town some 75 miles west of Stockholm. At noon she spoke to more than 100 high school students at the Rudbeckian High School, invited by members of the Young Left, the youth organization of the Left Party.
Students asked about the future of Cuba and its socialist revolution. "Since 1990," Díaz said, "it has been said that the Cuban revolution will fall. It has also been said that Cuba was a satellite to the Soviet Union. But Cuba has developed through a historical struggle for independence, which lasted for 130 years. We have made many mistakes along the way. But we have corrected and improved ourselves, and continue to do so."
Later that day, Díaz was invited to speak at the town library. A majority of the 30 or so people attending the meeting were from Chile and other Latin American countries. As part of her presentation, she described the preparations of the Union of Young Communists for its seventh congress, which opened December 7.
A debate was opened when Díaz was asked how the UJC views the arrest by British cops of former dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet. "We're skeptical about it," she declared. "We think it's strange that those who supported the military dictators in Latin America back then are the ones who are now trying to prosecute them. From the human viewpoint, he clearly deserves the harshest possible punishment. Legally, one has to consider whether a government has the right to prosecute a person who has immunity in another country. One has to consider whether this brings about the prosecution of other individuals who the capitalists want to get their hands on, and to what extent this process has been created to give the right wing its own martyr. Up to now the left has had martyrs because we have been forced to fight. We see the danger in the Spanish judicial system prosecuting a person responsible for the Chilean trauma, and how this will unite the forces on the right. Prosecuting Pinochet is a decision the Chileans themselves have to make."
Another question concerned the role of Cuban president Fidel Castro. "The leadership of the revolution," said Díaz, "has worked very hard to renew itself, and has prepared a large group of youth to lead our country. Nobody can replace Fidel, but we will try to be like him."
Daniel Ahl is a member of the Young Socialists in Stockholm.