Ernesto Fernández Sánchez, a member of the National Secretariat of the Federation of University Students of Cuba, and Estela Zulueta Valdés, a law student at the University of Havana, were scheduled to speak on the campus that day. As of March 25, they had still not received the visas they applied for more than two months earlier.

Sánchez and Zulueta were set to arrive March 19 to begin a month-long speaking tour of U.S. campuses. Under the auspices of the Long Beach-based Committee for U.S.-Cuba Academic Exchange, 29 professors had written to invite them to speak in seven states and the District of Columbia.

Roxana Leiva, a graduate student at CSULB, opened the March 20 meeting. "The participants in this meeting...send you warm greetings of solidarity," she said, reading from a letter to the two Cuban students.

"We strongly protest the moves by the U.S. State Department to delay the decision on your visa applications," she continued, "in order to de facto deny you entry into the United States. We consider this act by the U.S. government an attack on academic freedom and on the exchange of ideas."

Cuba’s only threat to the U.S. government is the example of its revolution, "which we have a lot to learn from," said Professor Eugene Ruyle, who chairs the academic exchange committee.

After being told by State Department officials that the visas were awaiting "security clearance," Ruyle had urged the professors who had sent invitations to contact the department and ask that the visas be granted. Many made calls in response to this appeal. A government spokesperson told several that "we’re in a time of war," and that Cuba is on a list of countries that "support terrorism."

Emily Paul, a CSULB student who is also on the committee, encouraged participants in the event to sign a protest petition. Greetings were presented to the meeting from the head of the Long Beach student government and from the African Student Union.  
 
Cuban scholars granted visas
Following a protest campaign by organizers of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) conference, 70 Cuban invitees have been granted visas to attend the conference. Organizers had asked people to contact the State Department and ask that the visas for 103 Cubans be issued in time for them to participate in the event, which will be held in Dallas March 27–29.

Among the 33 whose visas were not granted were two of the three Cuban members of the Executive Committee of the LASA Section for Scholarly Relations with Cuba.

"The reasons given by U.S. consular officials were based on the Immigration and Nationality Act," said Eloise Linger, who is a co-chair of the committee. The act "has been used in the past to deny visas on the basis of membership in Cuba’s Communist Party, and/or simply to anyone deemed to be detrimental to the interests of the United States," she said.
 
 
Related articles:
Washington’s provocations heighten tensions with Cuba
Five Cubans in U.S. jails remain in ‘hole’  
 
 
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