8-12-05,9:54am

CARACAS—Terrorism, human rights violations and the need to create new forms of democracy capable of granting all power to the people were issues discussed today during the workshops and conferences of the 16th World Festival of Students and Youth, with the participation of more than 15,000 delegates from 144 countries.

The denunciation of terrorism and it being used as a pretext for intervention and waging war on other nations was taken up during a panel discussion at the Military Circle of Fort Tiuna, during which Irma González, daughter of René, one of the five Cuban heroes imprisoned in U.S. jails, recounted the atrocities committed against those anti-terrorist fighters.

Camilo Rojo also spoke, explaining what the consequences were for him and other relatives of the 73 people who died in the 1976 sabotage of a Cuban airliner, which killed his father. A U.S. delegate, Marcial Guerra, gave an emotional account of his support for the cause of the Five, and criticized the hypocrisy of his country’s government, which proclaims a struggle against terrorism while sheltering self-confessed terrorists like Posada Carriles, whom they have not yet extradited to Venezuela despite international demands to do so.

During the discussion, Olga Salanueva read out a letter from her husband, René González, addressed to those at the Festival who have come together to fight for a different world. The letter acknowledges the international solidarity with the Five and urges the youth of the world to maintain their struggle against imperialism.

Percy Alvarado, a former Cuban State Security agent, referred to the innumerable terrorist acts against Cuba aimed at overthrowing the Revolution. As a consequence of those actions, he explained, 3,478 people have died and more than 2,000 have been injured or were left maimed, and the country has suffered almost incalculable economic damage.

Emil Calles, dean of Simón Rodríguez University, commented that is the duty of young people worldwide to expose the atrocities being committed in these times. The crimes against the Iraqi people show to what extremes the power of the media and governments claiming to defend human rights will go. 'We need a permanent counter-offensive,' he commented.

Turkish researcher Halil Can Emre condemned the torture and humiliation of prisoners being held in illegal jail cells like that established by the United States in the territory that it illegally occupies in Guantánamo, Cuba.

At the Teresa Carreño Theater, hundreds of delegates discussed democracy, participation and the role of youth in the processes of popular and revolutionary transformation. Oscar Figueroa, secretary general of the Communist Party of Venezuela, commented that it is necessary to return to those concepts their true meaning as people’s power.