By Kate Taylor of The Oregonian staff. Wednesday, January 19, 2000
HAVANA -- Oregon students arrived at Jose Marti International Airport on Tuesday morning to find that guidelines for debates with their Cuban counterparts have been altered.
"It was a long, long flight. I'm glad we're here," said Jessica van der Meer, rumpled and blinking in the glaring sun outside the airport. Beyond the Lincoln High School junior, a new tourist bus rented by the Union of Young Communists waited to ferry them to a hotel.
The 27 students from five Oregon high schools, who today begin unprecedented debates with Cuban students on issues such as human rights, the U.S. trade embargo and freedom of travel, learned that Cuban officials plan to bar all foreign media from covering the event. In the past three years of
negotiating terms of the debates, Cuba has billed them as completely open.
"To tell you the truth, we are very nervous," said Juan Carlos Frometa, director of the island's Union of Young Communists and host of the exchange. "This is the first time we've done something like this, and we don't want it to all go wrong.
"And we've had a bad experience with press," such as The Miami Herald's critical editorials on Elian Gonzalez, he said. The fate of Gonzalez, a Cuban boy rescued in November off the coast of Florida, has created an international furor and caused a tug of war between the United States
and Cuba.
John Tredway, the Ashland High School debate coach who organized the debates, said he was disappointed that the exchange would be closed.
"I'm troubled because I think that this should be open-door. I think it's important for people to know about," Tredway said. "Cuba really doesn't have anything to be afraid of."
The Oregon students said they would carry on. After naps at the city's Altahabana Hotel, they said they felt energized and ready to begin the debates.
"We knew it wouldn't be totally open, like the Cuban students can't be totally free in expressing themselves," said Chelsea Ruediger of Ashland High, licking the last of a Cuban pastry from her fingertips. "But I did think it would be a little more open than this."
After a long walk in a crumbling, palm-lined neighborhood, she said she found Cubans on the street to be warm and curious.
"One man took us into his garden and showed us all these herbs and gave us some to take" in case of diarrhea, said Nicole Clark, an Ashland High senior. "They were just so friendly."
Today, students from both nations will debate a mix of issues suggested by both sides. The site of the first debate in a weeklong visit will be Vladimir I. Lenin High School in Havana before an audience of students, teachers and officials.
First on the agenda is the question of baseball exchanges, the debate topic Tredway calls "least important." It will allow students to get comfortable with one another.
The students then will debate the trade embargo, the United Nations declaration on human rights and U.S. quotas on Cuban immigration to the United States. Going against the Communist's Party's position, the Young Communists will argue in favor of allowing all Cubans who wish, to go to the United
States.
The Cuban students say they want to shift the focus from Elian Gonzalez to the plight of countless other families who face tragedy when relatives drown on their way to Florida.
Some Oregon students say they will fight to make the debates as candid as possible and don't want to leave without expressing certain ideas about the two nations' governments.
"I want to make certain valid points about freedom" of speech and travel, said Misha Isaak, a Lincoln High senior. "But I want to learn something, too."
You can reach Kate Taylor at 503-294-7692 or by e-mail at katetaylor@news.oregonian.com. |