HAVANA INSTITUTE CANCELS TOUR OF CANADIANS
Toronto
Vernel Olson, National Chairman of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and chairman of the Directorate of the Student Tour to Cuba, announced June 3 that the tour of 100 Canadian university students will not take place this summer. Olson made a special trip to Cuba after receiving word of the cancellation of the tour. The tour was called off by Cuban authorities without an explanation, just two weeks before the first students were to leave Canada.
The tour was launched early in March after a firm commitment from ICAP [Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples] was obtained through the Cuban Ambassador to Canada, Dr. Americo Cruz. On the basis of similar commitments last year a group of 45 Canadian students visited Cuba for eight weeks during July and August. The cancellation of this year's tour, while final preparations were being made, came as a complete surprise to those who have been active in the preparation of.the tour. Students who were selected t2 go were stunned by the news and those contacted indicated deep disappointment at not having a chance to visit Cuba this summer,
_ At a joint meeting of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, the . Student Tour to Cuba Directorate, a leading member of the Toronto Selection Committee, and two representatives of the students, a full report was given by Olson and the following statement was adopted unanimously:
"The cancellation of the student tour to Cuba after three months of intensive preparation, and just as the first students were getting ready to leave Canada, constitutes a grave blow to efforts of Canadians to establish the truth about Cuba and is a blow to the revolution itself. The organizers of the tour were deeply conscious of the importance of 100 Canadian youth visiting Cuba this summer, in view of the increasing isolation of the island and its people from the North American continent, The tour was doubly significant in view of the total isolation of Cuba from the United States due to the restrictive travel ban.
the unprecedented response to the tour by students from coast to coast was a high point in over four years of activities by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and student campus committees. The Canadian Fair Play for Cuba Committee has been the only committee in the western capitalist world that has been able to establish real understanding of the Cuban revolution on a broad nonsectarian basis. The impressive response to this year's tour is testimony of the respect which the Committee has earned, and is living proof of the interest in the Cuban revolution which its activities have inspired. Further evidence of this respect and interest is the fact that over thirty eminent persons from Canadian universities participated in the selection process,
"Tt is a serious matter that the results of over four years! work in defence of the truth of the Cuban revolution has now been jeopardized, not by the external enemies of the revolution, but by the arbitrary action of an institution of the Revolutionary Government. We believe that the best interests of the Cuban people have not been served by this action. The widening interest among Canadians in the struggles of the Cuban people for a better life will undoubtedly be greatly retarded. The increasing interest of Canadian youth in the committees on Cuban and Latin-American affairs in the past year will inevitably suffer a serious setback.
"The withdrawal of previous commitments was a blow not only to the 100 students who gave up the remuneration of summer employment in order to witness the Cuban experiment first-hand, but was also a blow to at least 100 people from all parts of Canada who gave time, energy and money to assure the success of the tour in every respect.
. “After serious consideration of all available information, we can only conclude that the student tour was the victim of sectarian forces within the revolution itself which have been measurably ,
strengthened in' recent months as a result of the critical international situation, This problem is not new for the Cuban revolution. Only a few years ago Fidel Castro found it necessary to speak out against this danger when he attacked the methods of Anibal Escalante (former General Secretary of the. United Party).
"phe cancellation of the tour can be a source of satisfaction only to the sworn enemies of the Cuban revolution, or to hopeless sectarians. The Fair Play for Cuba Comrittee has been struck:a harsh blow but our confidence in the Cuban people and their cause, and the pressing need to continue our activities in defence of the: revolution, is unshaken. The real friends of Cuba will not diminish their efforts to bring the truth about the C:tban revolution to the Canadian people."
TSHOMBE