[NYTr] Youths, Workers Challenge US Ban on Cuba Travel

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Aug 9, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/cuba-0809

Youths, workers challenge U.S. ban on travel to Cuba

By Larry Hales
Buffalo, N.Y.

Activists from the United States who support the Cuban people and the
Cuban Revolution marched across the Peace Bridge from Fort Erie, Ont.,
to Buffalo, N.Y. on July 28 to protest the U.S. travel ban against Cuba
and the over 40 years of U.S.-imposed blockade of the island.

The action was led by the Venceremos Brigade, a group that has been
traveling to Cuba since 1969, openly challenging the U.S. blockade and
travel restrictions imposed on the country. Members of the U.S. Cuba
Labor Exchange and the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand
Together) were also among the nearly 80 people who defied the travel
ban.

Deciding to actively challenge U.S. travel restrictions is a serious
matter, as potential fines can be heavy. Just this year the reactionary
Bush administration announced a new task force whose goal is to
intensify the harassment of supporters of the Cuban revolution, and
even people simply going to the island for a vacation.

The protests on the walk across the mile-long Peace Bridge were lively,
with up to 15 people crossing at one time, with their luggage, and
shouting chants such as, “Cuba Sí! Bloqueo No!” and other chants in
support of the Cuban Five, five political prisoners here in the U.S.
whom Cubans consider heroes for providing information about terrorist
anti-socialist groups of Cuban exiles in Miami.

As the protesters went through U.S. customs, some of them were harassed
by customs agents and in some cases were even insulted. Then dozens of
supporters on the U.S. side greeted the weary travelers with cheers and
chants and regaled them with a cookout.

FIST, which is the youth organization of Workers World Party (WWP), had
a contingent of 17 people, one an infant. A representative of the
League of Young Communists (UJC) in Cuba told the FIST contingent that
it was the first pro-socialist youth group in a long time to travel to
the island from the U.S.

While on the island, the FIST youth, along with veteran WWP members,
visited with leadership of the UJC, with Cuba’s National Center for Sex
Education (CENESEX), with a professor at the Communist Party’s school
on Marxism and Socialism, with U.S. graduates of the Latin American
School of Medicine and with the director of the medical school. These
visits were just a few of the highlights of the trip, which included a
visit to the memorial in Santa Clara for the Argentine-born hero of the
Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara.

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