Despite the efforts of local government officials and rightist Cuban-Americans to disrupt the event because of the presence of a sizable delegation from Cuba, the conference came off as scheduled. The delegation, which numbered more than 100 scholars and academicians, was the largest number of Cubans to visit Miami in 41 years.

About 2,800 professors and scholars from the United States, and another 2,200 from other countries attended the conference, which featured 691 seminars and workshops, and had some 2,772 academic papers presented to the conference participants.

Discussion on the Cuban revolution was a centerpiece of the gathering, with 36 seminars devoted to the topic, the most of any subject. LASA was founded by academics, especially in the United States, to study revolutions in Latin America. "We're a product of the Cuban revolution," explained Ivan Jaksic, Latin American history professor from the University of Notre Dame.  
 

Threats pushed back

The LASA congress provoked controversy in broader Miami politics when, several days before the opening session, El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister publication of the Miami Herald, published the names of 112 scholars from Cuba who had signed up to attend the gathering.

On that same day, Miami-Dade county officials informed Florida International University's (FIU) Latin American and Caribbean Center, the conference host group, that an opening night gala slated to be held at the Miami-Dade Cultural Plaza in downtown Miami would have to be moved. County officials insisted that the mere presence of the Cuban delegation violated a 1996 county ban against using any government facility or resources in dealings with Cuba or Cuban citizens. Organizations seeking to use or rent county facilities must sign an affidavit agreeing to comply with the anti-Cuba policy.

On the eve of the conference the county was forced to back down when conference organizers demanded that the county uphold the contract they had signed with FIU. "This one slipped through without the affidavit," county attorney Robert Cuevas said. "But they signed [the contract], they paid their money [$3,840], so they can have their event."

The liberal Miami Herald, reflecting the views of the prevailing wing of the local ruling class, wrote in an editorial that the county's ban "nearly embarrassed the community." It encouraged officials to, "Dump this ban, or at least amend it so that arts and educational exchanges are encouraged. Defectors always welcome."

Death threats directed against the conference's organizers at FIU forced the Latin American and Caribbean Center to close for the duration of the event.

Conference organizers paid $30,000 for a heavy police presence. "I've never been to an academic conference before where you had police checking badges at the door and with so much overt security," said Liza Bakewell, an anthropology professor at Brown University.

But large-scale rightist protests anticipated by some never materialized. Conference participants counted four rightists protesting outside the first day, and about a dozen on each of the next two days. Radio Marti, the U.S. government sponsored radio station that broadcasts anti-revolution propaganda into Cuba, set up shop inside the Miami Hyatt-Regency where the LASA gathering was held, and broadcast daily programs.

A number of workshops on Cuba featured well-known academicians and liberal commentators presenting their views on what a "post-Fidel" Cuba would look like and what stance the U.S. government should take.

Another discussion at the conference was on "globalization," the role of the World Trade Organization, and the labor movement, mainly reflecting views dominant in the trade union officialdom in the United States.

One workshop took up the situation of farm workers in southwestern Florida, including the fight of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.  
 

Struggles in Latin America

A packed workshop on "The United States and Repression in Latin America: Documenting the Cases of Chile, Honduras, and Guatemala" featured Peter Kornbluh, director of the Chile documentation project at the National Security Archives, a research group in Washington.

During the first day of the conference, a leaflet was posted for an informational meeting on the mass uprising against the dollarization in Ecuador and the overthrow of President Jamil Mahud.

About 30, mainly young conference participants from Latin America, attended and watched a video from Ecuadoran television that showed the power and militancy of the recent protests.

The Cuban delegation proposed a resolution for the LASA membership affirming its "condemnation of the...embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba." The resolution passed with 104 delegates in favor and only a handful opposed. Since LASA's by-laws require 10 percent of its active membership vote on any resolution--about 300 members--the resolution was nonbinding.

Bill Kalman is a member of United Transportation Union Local 1138 in Hialeah, Florida. Mary Ann Schmidt contributed to this article.  
 
 
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