SDS to Sponsor Students For Cuban Work Project

Harvard and Radcliffe students will be picking fruit in Cuba this summer under the joint sponsorship of the Cuban government and national Students for a Democratic Society.

The program was announced at the SDS meeting last night by Russell T. Nufeld, section leader in Social Relations 149 and regional representative of SDS. Nufeld, who recently returned from Cuba, is organizing the program at Harvard and area schools.

Nufeld expects eight students from Harvard and Radcliffe to participate in the project, which can accommodate 300. Students must provide their own transportation to Mexico City, Mexico. The Cuban government will then pay their fare to Havana.

Participants will spend July working on citrus farms at the Isle of Youth, a former prison island now a cane field run by the Cuban Young Communist League. During August they will tour Cuba. "The program is designed to build support for the Cuban revolution on American campuses," Nufeld stated. He added that "Cubans are still afraid of an invasion by the United States, and seeing these students working with them will be very encouraging."

Nufeld expressed no concern about State Department reprisals because the Supreme Court ruled the ban on Cuban travel unconstitutional. However, he said that since Mexico will not admit the students when they return from Cuba, they will probably sail to Montreal, Canada.

The summer program is to be followed by a similar project from November to March, called the Che Guevara Brigade. Participants in the Brigade will join 450,000 Cuban volunteers, primarily from the cities and schools, in the sugar cane harvest.