"by Chris Banks / May 28, 2007" link: freethefive.org/updates/Solidarity/SLYouthConference42907.htm

I traveled to Cuba as part of a delegation representing the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five at an International Youth Conference on the Cuban Five. Along with Karina Garcia, a Columbia University student and ANSWER organizer from New York City, Gloria La Riva, coordinator of our committee, and I, were eight other people from the United States who attended...

...We are planning all of this activity for precisely the same reason that the Cubans organized this international youth conference, so that the cause of the Five does not fall off the radar, so that the Five are not forgotten as the struggle moves forward. It is our responsibility to make sure that the struggle to liberate the Five does not become old news, and instead, is amplified until they have returned to their homeland and families in Cuba, not as martyrs but as revolutionaries reporting for duty.

The conference was planned and organized by the UJC, the Union of Young Communists. During my time in Cuba I was astounded by the level of revolutionary consciousness among the youth. I was blown away by the Cuban youth I met which were better informed, more articulate, and better able to reason than the university students I went to school with...