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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><!--StartFragment --><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><FONT size=3> </FONT><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=640153622-26032005><STRONG>The Militant </STRONG></SPAN><STRONG>Vol.
69/No. 13 April 4,
2005</STRONG> </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> <BR> <BR> <BR></FONT><B><!-- Main headline --><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=5>Int’l meeting in Vietnam plans outreach,<SPAN
class=640153622-26032005> </SPAN>program for world youth festival
<BR></FONT></B><FONT face="Times New Roman"><FONT size=3> <BR><!-- Put text above here --></FONT></FONT><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><FONT size=3><B>BY JACOB PERASSO<SPAN
class=640153622-26032005> </SPAN>AND ARGIRIS MALAPANIS </B> <BR>HANOI,
Vietnam—Sixty-seven people from 36 countries attended the Second International
Preparatory Meeting for the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, held here
February 27-28. Delegates discussed activities they have been involved in to
build delegations to the festival around the world. They also agreed to an
initial outline of the program for the gathering. </FONT></FONT>
<P>National Preparatory Committees (NPCs) have been established in at least two
dozen countries to build delegations to the festival, reported Miriam Morales,
general secretary of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and a
leader of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) of Cuba. The previous two world
youth festivals were held in Havana, Cuba, in 1997 and in Algiers, the capital
of Algeria, in 2001. More than 12,000 youth attended the gathering in Havana and
nearly 7,000 went to Algiers. The gatherings were marked by the political tone
and character of groups and individuals engaged in popular struggles for
national liberation, union-organizing and other battles by workers resisting
austerity drives by the bosses, fights by peasants for land, and actions by
students against cuts in education. The youth at these meetings came together to
exchange experiences and improve their understanding of how to advance their
struggles. </P>
<P>WFDY, the main initiator of these festivals that started half a century ago,
is based in Budapest, Hungary. In the past, WFDY was dominated by youth groups
affiliated to Communist Parties that looked to the Stalinist regime in Moscow
for political direction and sustenance. The festivals were interrupted for eight
years as the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed
at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. The international gatherings
resumed on the initiative of communists in Cuba. </P>
<P>“For peace and solidarity; We struggle against imperialism and war!” is the
political theme of this year’s festival. The event will be held in Caracas,
Venezuela. </P>
<P>David Velásquez, president of the Venezuela NPC and the general secretary of
the Communist Youth of Venezuela, reported that the host organizations proposed
the dates of the festival be set for August 7-15, which was approved. This is
slightly later than the dates approved last year, he said, so the closing of the
gathering can coincide with the first anniversary of the defeat of the so-called
recall referendum aimed at unseating the country’s elected government. A
national demonstration to mark that anniversary is planned in Caracas that day.
</P>
<P>The Aug. 15, 2004, vote had been spearheaded by Coordinadora Democrática, a
pro-imperialist opposition coalition that has had the backing of weighty
sections of Venezuela’s capitalist class and Washington. It was the third
unsuccessful attempt in two years to topple the government headed by President
Hugo Chávez. The previous two included a military coup in April 2002 and a
bosses’ lockout at the end of that year. The Chávez administration has earned
the ire of most local capitalists and their U.S. allies after adopting a land
reform and other measures that, if implemented, would undermine the prerogatives
of the local bourgeoisie. <BR> <BR><B><FONT size=4>Facilities for up
to 20,000 delegates </FONT></B><BR>Velásquez also reported that youth
organizations in Venezuela are collaborating with the country’s government to
organize housing, transportation, and conference facilities to accommodate as
many as 20,000 delegates during the festival. He added that the Venezuelan
airline CONVIASA will arrange discounted fares in Latin America and the
Caribbean. </P>
<P>To encourage attendance, the participation fee—which covers housing, food,
and transportation for delegates—was set relatively low. It will be $200 each
for delegates from the imperialist countries, $150 for those from Eastern Europe
and the Middle East, and $100 for other semicolonial countries. An international
solidarity fund was also launched to help organizations from the semicolonial
world maximize participation. </P>
<P>About 2,500 delegates are projected to come from the host country. Elsewhere
in Latin America efforts are underway to reach out to thousands of youth. Ana
María Prestes of the Union of Socialist Youth of Brazil said such outreach
activities were held during the recent World Social Forum and the Congress of
Latin American Students, both held in Brazil earlier this year. Another forum
for such collaboration will be the Third International Conference in Solidarity
with the Bolivarian Revolution, which will be held April 10-14 in Caracas. </P>
<P>Julio Martínez, first secretary of the UJC of Cuba, said the Cuban NPC is
organizing to send 1,500 delegates to Venezuela for the festival and is
exploring the possibility of organizing travel from Havana to Caracas by boat.
About 1,000 of the Cuban delegates will come from Cuba. They will include about
200 students from countries in Africa and elsewhere in the colonial world
studying on scholarships in Cuba. Another 500 delegates, Martínez said, will
come from the more than 20,000 Cubans volunteering in Venezuela as doctors,
literacy teachers, or agricultural specialists. The UJC leader also reported
that Cubana Airlines would offer discounted airfares for delegates to the
festival. </P>
<P>Leaders of the UJC have been traveling to other countries to help build
delegations. Kenia Serrano, for example, president of the Cuban NPC and head of
international relations for the UJC, reported that she traveled to Malaysia for
that purpose prior to Hanoi and would have a similar stopover in Peru after
departing from Vietnam. </P>
<P>Jessica Marshall of the Young Communist League and Arrin Hawkins of the Young
Socialists, as well as other delegates from the United States, reported on
activities across the country to build a large delegation for the Caracas event
this summer. These included the second meeting of the U.S. NPC in Chicago on
February 12, which was attended by about 100 students and other youth from some
40 organizations. </P>
<P>Delegates from Europe reported initial plans to send up to 150 people to the
festival from each of their countries. Projections from more remote areas—from
Cambodia to Bahrain—ranged to smaller delegations of a few dozen. Groups from
more than 100 countries are expected to send delegations. </P>
<P>A deadline of April 21 was set to establish National Preparatory Committees
in all countries where efforts are under way to build the youth festival. </P>
<P>Delegates in Hanoi also discussed the initial outline of the program for the
festival, presented by the Venezuela NPC. </P>
<P>Velásquez said the plan includes organizing up to a third of the delegates to
travel to a half a dozen provinces in Venezuela, where a number of seminars will
be held. This will allow delegates to get a first-hand feel for the struggles of
workers and farmers in the country for land, jobs, and literacy. Delegates who
stay in Caracas will also have a chance to visit working-class districts and see
the new popular clinics staffed by Cuban doctors and a growing number of
Venezuelan counterparts. The trips to the countryside will also give a chance to
thousands of Venezuelan youth who cannot go to the festival in Caracas to meet
with their peers from around the world. The workshop on young peasants, for
example, will be held in Cojedes state, where Venezuelan toilers have waged land
occupations and other struggles for land. </P>
<P>Most conferences will be held at universities and other facilities in
Caracas. Their topics include “peace, war and imperialism,” “education, science,
and culture, communication and technology,” “employment, economy and
development,” and “democracy and human rights.” Workshops will also be held on
the struggle for women’s liberation and the fight against racist discrimination.
</P>
<P>One of the main activities will be the anti-imperialist tribunal, which will
be held August 13-14. It will be held at the Caracas Exposition Center, with
capacity for 15,000 people. At that meeting, delegates will conduct a mock trial
of Washington and other imperialist powers, presenting evidence by fighters for
national liberation—from Puerto Rico to Ireland and Western Sahara. </P>
<P>The third international preparatory meeting, scheduled for April 22-25 in
Lisbon, Portugal, will finalize the festival’s program and activities. </P>
<P><!--StartFragment --> <B><FONT size=5>Miami: students build youth festival
<BR></FONT></B> <BR><!-- Put text above here --><B>BY SONJA SWANSON
</B> <BR>MIAMI—The local organizing committee in Miami for the 16th World
Festival of Youth and Students held its first public event March 15 at Florida
International University, Biscayne Bay Campus. About 40 students and others came
to see the film <I>The Revolution Will Not Be Televised</I>. The movie documents
the U.S.-backed military coup in April 2002 that briefly toppled Venezuela’s
elected government, and the mass working-class mobilizations that led to its
defeat within days. </P>
<P>The program included Luis Henríquez, a leader of the Bolivarian Circles here,
who talked about the relevance of the documentary for today and why youth should
oppose U.S. intervention in the Americas. </P>
<P>Nicole Sarmiento, who is active in the local committee, described previous
festivals. Young people at these events, she said, have a chance to exchange
experiences about struggles for national liberation, women’s rights, union
organizing, and other fights of working people. She encouraged students and
other youth to make plans to go to the festival in Venezuela this summer, which
will be held in Caracas and other cities August 7-15. </P>
<P>In the discussion, a member of the Bolivarian Circles here who is a dentist
described the internationalist help by more than 20,000 volunteer doctors and
literacy teachers from Cuba who serve in Venezuela. As a result of this aid, and
other programs instituted by the government since Hugo Chávez was elected
president in 1998, she said, working people in areas that had no access to
health care now receive regular and quality medical care. </P>
<P>Students and others who came contributed more than $100 to help send youth
from Miami to the festival. Ten people signed up for more information on the
festival and future activities of the local committee. The next meeting of the
committee will take place at the offices of Veye Yo, a Haitian rights
organization in Miami. The local organizing committee in Miami can be reached at
<A href="mailto:wfys2005@yahoo.com">wfys2005@yahoo.com</A>. </P>
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