By Kate Taylor of The Oregonian staff. The Oregonian. Thursday, January 20, 2000
Oregon and Cuban students agree on baseball but tangle over a trade embargo
HAVANA -- Oregon and Cuban students Wednesday did what their leaders have not been able to do for four decades -- go head-to-head to try to resolve differences over human rights, the U.S. trade embargo and other issues.
Cuban officials Tuesday said the exchange -- marking the first time American and Cuban high school students have formally debated such issues -- would be closed to foreign media. But Wednesday, after long insistence, the Cubans relented and gave The Oregonian exclusive access. The only other
reporter present was a Cuban, Ignacio Hernandez Rotger, who writes for Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper of the Union of Young Communists.
Students gathered early Wednesday at sprawling Vladimir I. Lenin High School. They unanimously passed the Oregon students' resolution encouraging more baseball exchanges between U.S. and Cuban teams.
By midday, however, the debate grew tense as students argued over another resolution: that the United States end its 40-year trade embargo against Cuba.
Loud gasps of dismay greeted remarks by Misha Isaak, a senior at Lincoln High, who said Cuba had to own up to human rights violations as part of peacemaking between the two nations. Suddenly, nearly every Cuban student wanted to stand at the lectern that faced long tables in a simple classroom.
When Tara Anderson, an Ashland High senior, said many Americans think President Fidel Castro should step down before the embargo is dropped, Cuban students responded again and again that when Americans say Castro should leave office, they really mean they want to destroy what the island's 1959
revolution has accomplished.
Jonah Morningstar, an Ashland High senior, got a cold reception when he said the embargo should not be lifted because it would give the United States too much economic power in Cuba.
Raising the specter of children who do not get medical help because of the embargo, Boris Serrano Barrios, an 18-year-old Lenin High student, said, "You don't understand how the economy works here." Serrano said Cuba owns a percentage of every business on the island, so the United
States would not be able to engulf it in McDonald's and Burger Kings.
At a noon break, the 27 Oregon students, 26 Cuban students and the audience of 40 other students and educators -- from the high school and the Young Communists union -- burst from the classroom "so everyone could just calm down," said Poppy Alexander, an Ashland High senior.
Standing above a courtyard filled with small orange flowers called Cupid's Tears, Cuban student Yadnava Martinez, 16, said tension between the two groups had to do with "different sources of information. We were prepared for that to be a problem, and, hopefully, we can clarify some of the
misunderstandings."
Walking past a "Save Elian" poster -- a reference to 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy rescued off the coast of Florida in November -- she said: "It's good that they are telling us their misunderstandings. That way, we both learn. We should have done this years ago."
The tug of war over Elian came up briefly in the debates, with both sides agreeing he should be returned to his father in Cuba.
At times, Oregon students weren't well-informed enough to usefully debate the trade embargo, said Juan Enrique Aparicio, Lenin High School cultural affairs director. When Cuban students began to describe which laws needed to change and how they needed to change, the Americans were lost, he said.
"The embargo affects us so much. That's why we know the details so well," he said.
After much haggling over detail, the Oregonians and Cubans voted 45-3 for a resolution to drop the embargo. All three dissenters were from Oregon.
A third resolution -- that both nations respect the United Nations' declaration on human rights -- caused some contention as well.
When Skye Mathison, an 18-year-old senior at Ashland High, asked the Cuban students whether they wanted to live in a world without human rights, Lenin High School student Serrano insisted that Cuba didn't need to pass such a resolution. He claimed there is no violation of human rights on the
island.
Instead of arguing the point, Mathison insisted that if Cuba has no problems with human rights, then its students shouldn't have a problem passing a resolution supporting human rights.
At times, with students debating in Spanish, language was a problem despite help from translators. For example, the Cubans objected to a verb in the human rights resolution, saying it implied that their nation was not in support of human rights. Eventually, the verb was changed and the
resolution passed unanimously to thunderous applause.
"It's been so amazing to hear their opinions," Mathison said. "They are very good at defending their country and picking apart your logic. And this kind of debate makes you realize that . . . there is no objective truth about this situation. Their reality is much different than
ours."
But some Cuban youths who are not part of the Young Communists group called the debate a farce because students on the island cannot really speak their minds freely.
"It won't change anything," said Juan Santiago, 19, puffing on a cigarette in the lobby of the elegant Hotel Nacional. Santiago, there to meet a friend from England on Tuesday evening, said, "Things aren't going to change for a long time."
Asked what might happen when the 73-year-old Castro dies, Santiago leaned forward and rustled the broad leaves of a plant beside him. "Wait," he joked, "Let me see if we've got a microphone here."
But other Cuban youths around Havana said they were proud of their nation's government. "We speak freely," said Irendy Aldama, 15, looking up from a notebook she had filled with translated Shakespeare sonnets and Maya Angelou poems. "That's what the revolution was all about --
giving us freedom."
At the end of Wednesday's debates, several students from both sides hugged, and John Tredway, the Ashland teacher who organized the event, asked the Oregon students to pass out T-shirts and baseball caps inscribed with "USA-Cuba Youth Debates."
"This is the beginning of an everlasting friendship" between Oregonian and Cuban students, said Juan Carlos Frometa, director of the Union of Young Communists. "Let's keep doing these events."
Oregon and Cuban students will debate again on Friday at Villana-Revolucion Agricultural High School on the outskirts of Havana.
You can reach Kate Taylor at 503-294-7692 or by e-mail at katetaylor@news.oregonian.com. |