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CUBA-US: Academic Exchange Continues, Despite Embargo By Patricia Grogg HAVANA, Sep 6 (IPS) - Relocating the 27th Latin American Studies Association (LASA) International Congress from the United States to Canada has meant that 138 Cuban academics have been able to take part in the event, which promotes dialogue and academic exchange in the region. "This year marks the biggest Cuban presence at LASA for three decades," Milagros Martínez, an economist at the University of Havana and a regular participant at these meetings, which are held every 18 months, told IPS. However, in recent years she had been prevented from attending by the restrictions imposed on Cuba by the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush. The congress, on "After the Washington Consensus: Collaborative Scholarship for a New America", is running Wednesday to Saturday in Montreal, Canada. The two previous editions had no Cuban participants because Washington denied them visas. In 2004, in the western U.S. city of Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the LASA congress panel discussions which Cubans were prevented from attending set up 64 empty chairs with the names of the academics subjected to this discrimination, and devoted the session to discussing the denial of the visas. That congress approved a resolution calling for the waiving of all restrictions "on legitimate interchange between academics from the United States and Cuba," Martínez said. Washington also refused entry to some 60 Cuban speakers who had registered for the congress in the associated free state of Puerto Rico, held Mar. 14-18, 2006. Several academics said at the time that the decision was "arbitrary" and prevented LASA, a U.S. organisation, from fulfilling its international remit. According to Martínez, in most cases U.S. authorities applied Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorises the U.S. president to deny entry to "any class of aliens into the United States (that) would be detrimental to the interests of the United States." LASA was founded in 1966 and its headquarters are in the northeastern city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the world's largest professional association devoted to the study of Latin American and Caribbean affairs. One-quarter of its more than 5,000 members live outside the United States. It has subdivisions devoted to the study of different fields, one of which is the Cuba Section. LASA's main purpose is to promote training, teaching and research in Latin American studies, and to provide a forum for addressing questions of common interest. This year's congress is the largest in the history of the organisation, with some 6,000 people attending. Items on the agenda include agrarian and rural life, cultural, economic and development studies, environmental problems, gender issues, contemporary literature and arts, historical processes, international relations, migration, racial and ethnic inequalities, social movements, social justice and human rights. According to economist Armando Nova, a professor at the University of Havana, the wide range of topics addressed is one of the principal virtues of LASA congresses, which allow Cuban academics to present their ideas and "confront" those of researchers from other countries, including some from Europe. Martínez said that these assemblies are a forum for presenting results of past and present research. Sharing this knowledge permits the attainment of "a more objective and realistic vision of what is happening" in Cuba and the rest of the region. This process of exchange involves a learning curve. "Learning how to discuss, how to argue in the presence of different views, is vital. Dialogue is more difficult than repeating a fixed mindset," Martínez said. Italian political scientist Paolo Spadoni, a visiting professor at Rollins College in the state of Florida, said he believed it was incorrect to assume, "as many people in Washington do," that the Cuban researchers only contribute their country's official point of view. "This assumption demonstrates a certain lack of knowledge of Cuban reality, and limits the possibilities of expanding the debate about possible changes" on the Caribbean island, Spadoni told IPS by e-mail. He is participating in a panel discussion on Cuba at the Montreal congress. Cuban participation in the LASA congresses dates from 1977 and continued almost without interruption until March 2003, in spite of the tense relations between Washington and Havana for more than four decades. Martínez and other researchers agree that the Bush administration's stance towards Cuba has become more rigid even than that of the Ronald Reagan administration (1981-1989), and has had a profoundly negative impact on cultural contacts. (END/2007
