By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Young Cuban communists pledged on Tuesday their support into the 21st century for President Fidel Castro's four-decade-old revolutionary government at the start of a self-styled ``anti-imperialist'' conference in Havana.
``Fidel, it is a great privilege to accompany you today, to accompany you forever,'' Otto Rivero, head of the Young Communists' Union, told the opening of the seventh congress of the organisation, the youth wing of the ruling Communist Party.
``The youth will not let you down, nor will it let our people down!'' Rivero proclaimed, to lengthy applause, in a speech to Castro, other senior government leaders, and 1,500 youth delegates from around the island.
Speaking from a backdrop of a Cuban flag and portraits of official national heroes like Argentine-born guerrilla Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara, Rivero added that young people's loyalty was an ideal birthday president for Castro on the imminent 40th anniversary of his Jan. 1, 1959 revolution.
``Let's reject capitalism!'' he also said.
The three-day conference's opening session focused on a central document, drafted by the youth leadership, examining recent events in Cuba, the movement's dwindling membership, and young militants' patriotic duties into the next century.
The conference was to be, Rivero said, ``a strong, anti- imperialist congress,'' expressing the movement's rejection of Western-style capitalism and commitment to Cuban socialism.
In its document, the group, or UJC as it is known by its Spanish-language initials, said economic reforms in recent years -- such as the legalisation of dollars, expansion of a small private sector, and opening to foreign investment and tourism -- had been ``bitter steps which have brought inevitable social inequalities.''
The document noted that although one in every six Cubans between the age of 15 and 29 is a UJC member, the number of local chapters and of people going on to join the Communist Party at the age of 30 is declining.
UJC militants were urged to be model communists into the 21st century. ``We are guarantors of the work of the Socialist Revolution, which encompasses all areas of economic, political, social and cultural life, with the privilege of the leadership of Fidel and the Party, and with the genuinely democratic essence of our political system,'' the document said.
Castro's revolution ushered in a one-party system that has been maintained since then despite decades of criticism from the capitalist world, led by the United States which has had an economic embargo on Cuba for 36 years.
The Cuban government is clearly, however, now worried about losing support from the young in a society where the socialist ideology is being increasingly strained by some capitalist- style reforms and foreign influences.
Many young Cubans, in conversations with foreigners, express weariness with their political system and a desire for change or to emigrate abroad.
One tiny dissident youth movement, which calls itself an alternative to the UJC, announced plans for a ``pro-democracy'' demonstration early on Tuesday outside Cuba's foreign ministry.
But Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, head of the Movement of Cuban Youth For Democracy, was detained on Monday afternoon, before he could lead the planned protest, dissident sources said.
Lobaina had said he intended to start a hunger-strike outside the ministry in protest at not receiving a visa to take up an invitation from Amnesty International to attend celebrations this week of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in Paris.
Lobaina had begun a hunger-strike at the detention centre where he was held, dissident sources added.
Members of the foreign press corps were not allowed into the UJC conference, although reporters from state-controlled media were permitted to cover the event. Some of the day's sessions were broadcast on state television.
The UJC meeting, which takes place every six years, is considered the most significant official political gathering since the Communist Party's fifth congress last year. Castro, dressed in his trademark olive-green military fatigues, received a standing ovation at the start of the meeting.
21:58 12-08-98
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