Academic experts from two hemispheres are mounting a protest against the U.S. State Department for virtually banning Cuban attendance at an international congress for academics this year in Puerto Rico.
I deplore the State Departments decision to deny visas to every single one of the Cuban scholars who applied to attend our International Congress, said Dartmouth University Professor Marysa Navarro, President Ex-Officio of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). Navarro heads LASAs Cuba Task Force. Scholarly contacts shouldnt be turned into political footballs. Thats the bottom line here.
The State Department recently wrote rejection letters to all 55 Cuban visa applicants, who last year came to learn at the last minute of new, iron-clad restrictions by the Bush Administration for keeping the Cubans out of the academic gathering. Now, the Administration is denying them again. This is unconscionable, Navarro said.
Scholarly contact ought to continue across political boundaries. Throughout the Cold War, academics and researchers from the United States and the Soviet Union stayed in contact, attended conferences, and exchanged ideas. Its difficult to see why U.S. scholars should be denied contact with their Cuban counterparts today,
Navarro stated.
In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, LASA President Sonia Alvarez decried the visa denials as "an egregious violation of academic freedom." Alvarez is a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA.
Navarro characterized members of LASA as not only political scientists and sociologists, but also professors of literature and film, environmentalists, musicians, and historians. Cuban academics have been members of LASA for at least 20 years and have been attending the professional associations international congresses since 1977.
LASA is the largest scholars association on Latin America in the world. It has more than 5000 members, from United States, Canada and Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. It brings together experts on Latin America from all disciplines and diverse occupational endeavors.
For further information, please contact:
Sally Glass
Washington Office on Latin America
(WOLA)
202-797-2171 X211 |
