Cuban Diplomat's LA Tour Wins Support for Revolution, Miami 5 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit CUBAN DIPLOMAT'S LA TOUR WINS SUPPORT FOR REVOLUTION, MIAMI 5 by Jon Hillson LOS ANGELES, Feb 18 (NY Transfer)--The broadly backed tour of Cuban diplomat Fernando García Bielsa in Los Angeles fulfilled its mission here, winning hundreds of new supporters for the fight to free five imprisoned Cuban revolutionaries incarcerated in U.S. federal prisons on frame-up espionage charges, and to tell the truth about the Cuban revolution and the positions of its popular government. García Bielsa, a first secretary of the Cuban Interests Section, spoke at five area college and university campuses and at a city-wide meeting at the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), an immigrant rights community institution, on February 13, 14 and 16 under the theme, "What Cuba Stands For." On February 15, he carried out diplomatic activities. García Bielsa has been involved in the work of the Cuban revolution for more than 40 years. The tour was initiated by the Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba, backed by 16 academic departments and student organizations at Compton College, branches of the California State University at Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Northridge, and the University of California at Riverside, along with several political organizations, in particular the National Committee to Free the Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prisons. Also participating were a number of faculty members at the various schools who have organized or are planning student trips to Cuba. At Riverside Armando Navarro announced that, as a result of such academic collaboration, the University of Havana will soon open a department of Chicano studies. At Cal State Los Angeles, Donald Bray reported on the third trip of dozens of students involved in an ongoing history of Cuba class that will journey to Havana in July. At Cal State Long Beach, Victor Rodriguez reported on a similar trip. García Bielsa also spoke with a dozen garment workers, several of whom brought their children, at the Garment Workers Center in downtown Los Angeles in the heart of the "Fashion District," the largest center of the city's massive garment industry. "As a colonized people, we Cubans were taught that we were lazy, incapable, and inferior. Through the participatory character of our revolution, we have overcome that. Many Latinos and Blacks in the United States have been told this, as well, and will overcome that, too," he said. The workers adjourned their discussion to go to a regular picket at Forever 21, a clothing chain whose contractors have refused to pay undocumented immigrants back wages and overtime hours. Nearly 500 students, workers and political activists attended the Cuban diplomat's various meetings -- the majority of them young -- including Puerto Rican, Central American Salvadoran, Asia-American and Black activists, as well as participants in antiwar, civil liberties, anti-globalization and other struggles. These diverse audiences provide a rare forum for frank, warm, and extensive dialogues with one of Havana's ranking U.S. representatives. García Bielsa fielded a rainbow of questions, ranging from Cuba's position on the U.S. war, the September 11 attacks, terrorism, the use of the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo and Cuban-U.S. relations, to Havana's opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas accord, its solidarity with the people of Argentina, U.S. intervention in Colombia and Venezuela, the "post-Fidel" leadership, and the "viability of socialism." For many of those participating in the events, it was their first encounter with an official of the Cuban government. The socialist regime, as is traditional in the country, designated the year with a central theme-in 2002 it is the "Year of the Heroes Imprisoned by the Empire." At the same time García Bielsa spoke in Los Angeles, another Interests Section first secretary, Oscar Blandón, spoke to 80 people at two meetings along similar lines, one at the University of Pennsylvania, and the other with seniors at Germantown High School in the heart of the Philadelphia's Black community. The Philadelphia Cuba Support Coalition organized these meetings. Luis Tlesaca, president of the Kaolin Mushroom Workers Union -- an overwhelmingly immigrant labor organization -- sent greetings to the city-wide meeting. Kaolin, the largest union in the industry, is centered in southeastern Pennsylvania, where 5,000 workers -- the vast majority Mexican immigrants -- produce 60 percent of U.S. mushrooms. The Kaolin union, which emerged from a near-decade-long battle, represents 350 workers. The Los Angeles area and Philadelphia events helped launch a national speaking tour on behalf of the Miami Five organized by National Committee to Free the Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prisons and the U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange. García Bielsa framed defense of the Miami Five by detailing 43 years of organized hostility by Washington against the Cuban revolution, "an economic war" whose sanctions -- tighter than ever in 2002 -- have been punctuated by "sabotage, terrorism, invasion, and assassination." The material cost of this unrelenting assault has been "uncountable billions of dollars," the veteran Cuban revolutionary said, "and nearly 3,500 dead. All of them are human beings with personalities, histories, faces and families." Ultra-rightist Cuban-Americans, aided by Washington, "have carried out these attacks from U.S. soil," García Bielsa said. "They promote themselves, brag about what they do, and walk freely in Miami." Because the United States refused to enforce laws against such actions, Cubans "who love their country and are disposed to defend and protect it have infiltrated terrorist organizations," he said, describing the work of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, René González and Fernando González -- the Miami Five. Hernández received a sentence of double life imprisonment plus 80 months, while Labañino and Guerrero received life terms. René González and Fernando González were sentenced to 19 and 15 years, respectively. They had reported to Havana on the plans of the Miami-based terrorists. At the end of January the five shackled patriots were shipped off by authorities on planes to federal penitentiaries across the breadth of the United States, in a cruel effort by Washington to obstruct legal coordination of their appeals. Defenders of the Five passed out more than 1,000 fact sheets and pamphlets describing their case and conveying their unrepentant declarations in court before sentencing to meeting participants, hundreds of whom signed petitions circulated by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prisons. The petitions demand freedom for the five. Activists explained that this call is part of the fight to protest Washington's growing assaults on the Bill of Rights in its war at home against civil liberties -- the second front of the administration's so-called war against terrorism. "Everything done to the five long before September 11 anticipated illegal detentions, the USA Patriot Law, and attempts to restore COINTELPRO-style tactics against foes of U.S. foreign and domestic policies," one activist explained. Joining García Bielsa on several platforms to explain the significance of the defense effort was Adrian García, spokesman for the National Committee to Free the Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prisons. "This is a fight for justice for patriots who were defending their country-and everyone who visits Cuba-from terrorism," García said. Nearly $350 was raised at the city-wide meeting to support the Committee's activities. In documenting the gains of the Cuban revolution, García Bielsa emphasized, "We are not perfect, we are not ideal. I do not want to paint a rosy picture. We have many difficulties and problems." Cuba's principal achievement over more than four decades of revolution is "that we have survived. We are here. But more than that, we are proud, confident, and united. We have proven we can run our own affairs, that we are sovereign, that we will never surrender." The world, the Cuban diplomat said, faces "a big change," the character of which cannot be predicted. "Another Enron, here or there, another Argentina, here or there, and anything can happen," as the crisis of capitalism deepens. "It is not socialism that is responsible for the Third World debt," he said, "the ravaging of Africa by AIDS, the widening gap between rich and poor." At Cal State Long Beach, when García Bielsa reported on the drop in infant mortality in Cuba to 6.2 deaths per 1,000 births, a psychology professor from the audience responded, "This is just staggering, mind-blowing to me, because this is my field. In Long Beach, in the African-American community, infant mortality last year was 18 per thousand." The Cuban diplomat urged his audiences to "engage in politics, to effect change, within the limits you face, not only to end the blockade, but to face the problems of the world." He recalled the role of U.S. public opinion in the fight Cuba led to repatriate Elián González to his Cuban family. Several questions posed to García Bielsa dealt with the weight of ultra-rightist Cuban-Americans in Miami in the formation of Washington's anti-Cuba policies. The U.S. government's hatred of the Cuban revolution began with its triumph in 1959, he noted, and has been a consistent theme of ten U.S. administrations. "Don't overestimate the power of the right wing in Miami," he said. "They are greatly weakened. The people of the United States saw who they were during the fight over Elián." Solidarity with Cuba was evident at the meetings. At the event at the University of California Riverside, when a speaker asked how many in the overwhelmingly Chicano-Mexicano audience of 55 had been to Cuba, eight or nine raised their hands. When a second question, "How many want to go to Cuba?" was asked, every hand shot up. While the Cuban people "defend the social conquests of the revolution, I do not believe what we have in Cuba can be called 'socialism.' Nor do I believe what existed in the USSR or elsewhere was 'socialism.' We are defending socialism, but we are just beginning to build it," García Bielsa said. In that sense, "socialism is alive in Cuba, for us, for my people, and for many in the world." FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE NATIONAL MIAMI FIVE DEFENSE SPEAKERS TOUR, CONTACT: National Committee to Free the Cuban Political Prisoners Held in U.S. Prisons: (415) 821-6545 email: freethefive@actionsf.org U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange: (313) 561-8330 Email: laborexchange@aol.com ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytlab-02.18.02-22:50:12-23156