"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
"The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not ended at
all. It may have ended in a traditional form as we know it from the 20th
century, but new, far more sophisticated ways of controlling society
are being born. It requires alertness, carefulness, caution, study and a
detached view." - Václav Havel, "Freedom and Its Enemies" November 14, 2009.
On February 20, 2014 Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and seized Crimea. Eight years later, on February 24, 2022, Moscow began a new offensive to seize all of Ukraine, but unlike in Crimea, Russian troops were unable to achieve their new objective due to armed Ukrainian resistance.
The war continues to rage today, and Moscow has brought in troops and soldiers from around the world..
Equally disturbing are the links between Cuba and Iran, and their decades long hostility against the United States.
In a transmittal letter accompanying the Defense Department’s May 1998 report,The Cuban Threat to U.S. National Security,
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen wrote to the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee: ‘‘I remain concerned about Cuba’s
potential to develop and produce biological agents, given its
bio-technology infrastructure.
In its public Executive Summary, the report stated,"Cuba’s current
scientific facilities and expertise could support an offensive BW
[bioweapons] program in at least the research and development stage.
Cuba’s biotechnology industry is one of the most advanced in emerging
countries and would be capable of producing BW agents.’’In the October
2001 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Jose de la Fuente,the
former director of research and development at Cuba’s premier Center for
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, wrote he was ‘‘profoundly
disturbed’’ that Cuba was selling to Iran technology that could be used
to produce biochemical weapons. He wrote, ‘‘No one believes that Iran is
interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the
children in the Middle East from hepatitis, or treating their people
with cheap streptokinase when they suffer sudden cardiac arrest . . .."
During a May 2001 visit to Tehran, Fidel Castro proclaimed,"Iran and Cuba, in
cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees."
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, during a speech at the Imam Khomeini Mosque in Tehran in 2015, said Israel "will not see (the end) of
these 25 years.” This was just after the nuclear deal between Iran in which they agreed to cut its uranium stockpile.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded Israel killing 1,200, and taking hundreds of hostages. Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, began firing rockets into Israel.
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba are creating an alternative world order hostile to Western democracies and the rule of law.
There are two options. The first is to recognize the challenge, and develop intelligent strategies to counter it within a framework of Western alliances or secondly, ignore it, and pretend there is no threat and surrender to the new configuration of anti-democratic forces. The first is not without risk, but the latter guarantees servitude to tyranny.
However, with the first, there is an alternative to war. Cuban and Venezuelan freedom activists have made the case for it. Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born human rights activist, actress, and 2023 Sydney Peace Laureate, made the same case in an OpEd published in Time today.
For decades, many of us pleaded with world leaders: reject both appeasement and war with the Islamic Republic. There was another path—to strangle the regime and empower the people. Few chose it. Too many asked the question, “Do the people of Iran really want change?” as if they did not hear waves of Iranian protestorschant, “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” on the streets. Perhaps now—as these cries echo from the rooftops of Tehran, even under the specter of war—they will finally listen.
Ronald Reagan in his 1964 speech "A Time for Choosing" made the case plainly between the options of resistance and appeasement. "There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's
only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the
next second - surrender," said the future 40th President of the United States.
"When you realize that something is just and true, then be so resolute that you will be able to die for it.” – Milada Horáková, in a letter to her daughter
She had been a member of the Czech resistance to the Nazi
occupation of her homeland and survived torture in a Nazi prison. After Czechoslovakia was liberated from the Nazis in 1945 by the Soviets she became a member of parliament in 1946 but resigned her seat after the Communist coup of 1948.
However she refused to abandon her country.
She was arrested at her office on September 27, 1949 "on charges of conspiracy and espionage against the state."
The show trial of Horáková and twelve of her colleagues began on May 31, 1950.
Oxford Languages defines a show trial as "a
judicial trial held in public with the intention of influencing or
satisfying public opinion, rather than of ensuring justice."
Vladimir Lenin called them "model trials", but they would eventually become known as show trials under Josef Stalin with hundreds of thousands executed
and millions sent to work camps in Siberia, and they would take place
not only in the Soviet Union, but in the East Bloc including Czechoslovakia, and as far away as
Cuba. The Nazis also copied the practice, and so have other repressive regimes.
"The study deconstructs the show trial’s influence on inducing a country
to foster the Communist movement against decades of democratic
traditions. The research reveals the impact of the show trial of Dr.
Milada Horáková in 1950 and how it was instrumental in reforming a
society, marked the beginning of Stalinism, and ushered forth a
perverted system of justice leading to a cultural transformation after
the Communist putsch. Furthermore, the revolution truncated intellectual
thought and signified the end of many social movements – including the
women’s rights movement."
According to Watkins, Horáková was seen by the public as a symbol
of the First Republic and of democracy. Unlike others who did break
under the relentless psychological and physical torture she never did.
The communists tried to edit her testimony for propaganda purposes but
as Radio Prague in their 2005 report on the discovery of the unedited tapes of her trial.
[S]he faced her show trial with calm and defiance,
refusing to be broken. Audio recordings - intended to be used by the
Communists for propaganda purposes - were mostly never aired, for the
large
part because for the Party's purposes, they were unusable.
Milada Horakova addressed the court in the final day of her show trial on June 8, 1950 in which she refused to go along with the script prepared for her.
"I have declared to the State Police that I remain faithful to my
convictions, and that the reason I remain faithful to them is because I
adhere to the ideas, the opinions and the beliefs of those who are figures
of authority to me. And among them are two people who remain the most
important figures to me, two people who made an enormous impression on me
throughout my life. Those people are Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and Eduard
Benes. And I want to say something to those who were also inspired by
those two men when forming their own convictions and their own ideas. I
want to say this: no-one in this country should be made to die for their
beliefs. And no-one should go to prison for them."
Because she refused to cooperate with the Stalinists her punishment was
particularly severe, death by hanging.
During the trial Radio Prague reported that a note written by an anonymous eye-witness to Milada's
execution quoted the young prosecutor recommending: "Don't break her neck on the noose,Suffocate the bitch - and the
others
too."
Milada Horáková was executed in Pankrác Prison
on June 27, 1950 through "intentionally slow
strangulation, which according to historians took 15 minutes. She was 48 years old."
The reason was not that I loved you little; I love you just as purely
and fervently as other mothers love their children. But I understood
that my task here in the world was to do you good … by seeing to it that
life becomes better, and that all children can live well. … Don’t be
frightened and sad because I am not coming back any more. Learn, my
child, to look at life early as a serious matter. Life is hard, it does
not pamper anybody, and for every time it strokes you it gives you ten
blows. Become accustomed to that soon, but don’t let it defeat you.
Decide to fight.
I go with my head held high. One also has to know how to lose. That is
no disgrace. An enemy also does not lose honor if he is truthful and
honorable. One falls in battle; what is life other than struggle?
In 2007 her prosecutor
Ludmila
Brozova-Polednova
who in 1950 had helped to condemn Horakova to death, then 86, was tried as an accomplice to murder. She was found guilty
and sentenced to six years in prison in 2008 but was given a
presidential pardon by Vaclav Klaus on humanitarian grounds one year and
six months into her sentence and released in 2010.
The former
prosecutor defended her actions claiming that what she did was legal and
that she was "following orders." Brozova-Polednova tried to appeal her conviction at the Strasbourg Court in 2011 and lost. She died on January 15, 2015 at age 93.
"The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown
figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and
the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his
compatriot." - Pico Iyer
A Nonviolent moment: Tank Men face off in Beijing on June 5, 1989
On
June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the Chinese Communist Party's
massive and bloody crackdown on thousands of Chinese students and
workers on June 3rd and 4th
after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread
across 400 cities in China something remarkable happened in the midst of
all the horror and terror.
A man risked all to protest what had
taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and carrying
what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.
Wider perspective of Tank Men protest with full column of tanks
Jianli Yang, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor and former Chinese political prisoner and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China in his important 2022 article in Newsweek provides the full significance and context of what happened.
"I was near Tiananmen Square in the early morning on June 4, just as
gunfire began. At one point, I was so close to the soldiers that I
shouted to them in their trucks and told them not to shoot. We even sang
songs that every Chinese knows, trying to touch their hearts. But when
they received the order, they just opened fire. I saw many killed,
including 11 students who were chased and run over by tanks on that
fateful day."
Photos appeared of what remained after a tank ran over a student, and this is what Tank Man was in danger of becoming.
In the video of the confrontation, the lead tank tried to drive around him, but the lone man repeatedly ran in
front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his
engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit.
The protester
climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with him. Eventually he
climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the
protester once again blocked the tank column.
Jianli makes a powerful observation about this dynamic between the two men in the same OpEd in Newsweek.
"The Tank Man photo was taken the next day, on June 5, the morning
after, when the massacre was still ongoing. By any measure, this image
is one of heroism. But how many heroes do we see?
Nearly nine years after the picture was taken, the writer Pico Iyer
said: "The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who
risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver
who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot."
Not
only did the driver refuse to kill, but he undoubtedly disobeyed orders
and risked—and perhaps received—punishment in order to save a
countryman's life."
We do not know the identities of
either Tank Man, or what happened to them, but we do know that for one
moment, in the midst of a blood bath perpetrated by the Chinese
Communist Party, humanity and dignity triumphed over repression in this
particular case.
For more information visit:
Standoff At Tiananmen How
Chinese Students Shocked the World with a Magnificent Movement for
Democracy and Liberty that Ended in the Tragic Tiananmen Massacre in
1989 http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/
The United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Chinese students condemned the crackdown by the “People’s Liberation Army.” Chinese students around the world took to the streets and protested the bloodshed in Beijing.
People of conscience the world over were horrified. Beijing was diplomatically shunned.
Cuba’s dictatorship endorsed the Tiananmen massacre to normalize relations with Beijing
In
contrast, the dictatorship in Cuba saw an opportunity to rekindle and
old friendship. Together with North Korea, and East Germany expressed their support for the actions taken by Beijing.
Cuban foreign minister Isidoro Malmierca commended Chinese authorities for “defeating the counterrevolutionary acts.” Fidel Castro openly supported Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, as a means to both preempt reform elements in the Cuban regime, and improve relations with Beijing.
“The
crackdown in Beijing, Qian says, completely changed the atmosphere
around his tour: many Latin American governments expressed their
disapproval of the suppression and cancelled his visits, and even the
overseas Chinese, who usually greeted visiting Chinese officials with
enthusiasm, had“stern faces” and questioned the reasons for using force.
Qian had planned a visit to Mexico before Cuba. The Mexican government
cancelled his visit but allowed him to go to Cuba via Mexico City.”
[…]
“But
Qian’s reception in Havana exceeded his expectations. He was greeted by
the Cuban foreign minister at the airport and brought to a welcome
dinner the next evening hosted by Fidel Castro himself. Castro had a
long talk with Qian at dinner which continued in his office until
midnight. Understanding Qian’s situation, Castro gave him a detailed
description of what had happened in Beijing since 4 June and the
international response, based on his collection of information and from
his own perspective. Castro said that he “completely supported the
Chinese government” and would offer “whatever occasions and facilities”
Qian might need to make his government’s voice heard.”
Cuba-Sino relations: From a warm embrace in 1960 to a decades long chill in relations
Communist China and Cuba had been close in the first years of the Castro regime. Mao Zedong had already been in power in China for a decade when the Castro regime took power in Cuba in 1959.
On September 28, 1960 the Cuban dictatorship diplomatically recognized the People’s Republic of China.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a Cuban delegation’s visit to Mainland China and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other high ranking Chinese officials in November 1960 to discuss conditions in Cuba and in Latin America, and the prospects for communist revolution in the Americas.
Subsequently, between 1960 and 1964 the two regimes collaborated closely together.
Mao's regime in 1958 had embarked on the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to reorganize the Chinese populace to improve its agricultural and industrial production along communist ideological lines. The campaign was a disaster that led to mass famine and a death toll of at least 45 million which did not end until 1962.
The
visit by the Cuban delegation at the time did not go unnoticed in
Mainland China. Dimon Liu was born in China and immigrated to the United
States in 1965. She wrote about her early experiences growing up in the
midst of the Great Leap Forward in 2017 and her first encounter with Cuba while still in China.
It
was 1960, the height of famine during the years of Great Leap Forward. I
was a child living in the southern city of Guangzhou in China. Meal
time meant a little rice, and whatever we could scrape together. For
nearly two years, we had no meat, fish or even cooking oil. We were
starving.
All of a sudden, there was cane sugar from Cuba, and we
school kids had to learn Cuban songs. We had been on rations even before
the Great Leap Forward which began in 1958. Thirty jin (one jin is
about 1.1 pound) of grains per month for an adult, and fifteen jin for a
child above the age of seven. Two jin of meat and two ounces of cooking
oil, also for a month. [...] People on our streets were dying of many
infectious diseases, though no one dared to say anyone died of
hunger.[...]
Frank Dikotter, the historian at the University of
Hong Kong who wrote "Mao's Great Famine", a book about this period, said
in a social media post that "the first thing the regime did in
September 1960 was to procure an extra 100,000 tons of grain and ship it
to Cuba," in order to help break the economic blockade imposed by
Washington on the island. Dikotter added that "you can feed about 2000
people for a day with a ton of rice... Or over half a million people for
a year."
Properly fed people rarely existed in China at that
time, unless you belonged in the very small and exclusive club of
Chinese Communist elite. For a child like me who received coupons for
under 8 pounds of rice a month, you could have fed more than 2 million
of us for a year; or about half a million Chinese adults for a year on a
standard ration of 30 jin, or 33 pounds of rice per month for the
amount of grain sent to Cuba.
Cuba was not the only place that China exported food to during those harrowing years.
In
the midst of the Great Famine, while tens of millions of Chinese died
of hunger, Beijing exported food to their communist ally in Cuba.
Relations between China and the Castro regime cooled, and completely deteriorated following a February 6, 1966 speech
by Fidel Castro that was heavily critical of the Peoples Republic of
China. Havana finally sided with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet split.
Criticizing Mao
Castro, while receiving Soviet subsidies, would continue to slam the Chinese Communists in the 1970s.
“I
believe that Mao (Zedong) destroyed with his feet what he did with his
head for many years. I’m convinced of that. And some day the Chinese
people, the Communist party of China will have to recognize that,”
Castro told American journalist Barbara Walters in May 1977. He went on
to list what he said were Mao’s grave mistakes: a cult personality and
abuse of great power. “I also acquired that power, but I never abused
it, nor did I retain it in my hands,” Castro said. Although both Cuba
and China were functioning Communist states, Castro told Walters he
viewed China as a “good ally” of the US, which was a bitter enemy of
Cuba.
How Moscow drove Cuba into improving relations with Beijing
Russia’s
democratic spring in the mid to late 1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev led
to a cooling of relations between Havana and Moscow.
Perestroika
was a policy that recognized economic central planning was a failure,
and pursued reforming and restructuring the Soviet economy, and Glasnost was a policy that sought “more open consultative government and wider dissemination of information.”
These policies both instituted were viewed with great dread, and rejected by the Castro brothers. This was at a time when 75% of Cuba’s commercial exchanges were with the Soviet Union,
but that did not stop Havana from censoring Soviet publications, and
the beginning of the Castro brothers’ outreach to Beijing in 1989.
Havana’s successful engagement with Beijing: Harming U.S. interests and security
Backing
the massacre of thousands of Chinese nationals by the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) on the orders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
resulted in Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s high-level visit to Cuba in
1993. This was followed by Raul Castro’s first visit to China in 1997.
Prior
to this, Beijing quietly began in 1992 jointly operating intelligence
bases targeting the United States from Cuba, according to Chris Simmons,
a former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Western
Hemisphere counterintelligence research section, revealed to the Miami Herald on July 4, 2024.
He said that U.S. surveillance services were unaware of the arrangement
until 2001, operating undetected for a period of nine years.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a report in December 2024
that identified four places in Cuba it believes are most likely to be
aiding China’s intelligence activities against the United States. One of
the authors of the report Ryan C. Berg,
Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, and Andrés Martínez-Fernández, Senior Policy Analyst, Latin
America, Allison Center for National Security, testified before Congress
on May 6, 2025. They point to these spy bases in Cuba being upgraded
with new technology.
This restored “special friendship” between two Communist
dictatorships was founded on the mass killing of Chinese civilians by
the PLA in June 1989, and Havana’s public support for this crime against humanity.
Following
this rapprochement, it is believed Havana began offering their biotech
knowledge, gained from Moscow, to their counterparts in Beijing, and in
2002, China and Cuba signed a formal agreement to produce monoclonal antibodies.
What
Cubans call “the Special Period” produced one notable success:
pharmaceuticals. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, Cuba got so good at
making knockoff drugs that a thriving industry took hold. Today the
country is the largest medicine exporter in Latin America and has more
than 50 nations on its client list. Cuban meds cost far less than their
first-world counterparts, and Fidel Castro’s government has helped
China, Malaysia, India, and Iran set up their own factories:
“south-to-south technology transfer.”
“Díaz-Canel
emphasized the notable progress made by Cuba and China in the sphere of
biotechnology over recent years while also highlighting the close
collaboration that the two countries share in the sector; providing
great benefits and knowledge for both peoples.”
Without
Havana’s joint ventures over the past 20 years in Cuba, Beijing may not
have been in a position to have the capability to run a biotech /
genetic engineering lab like the one in Wuhan that caused so much
tragedy during the COVID pandemic.
Modernizing big brother for the 21st century
Raúl Castro met with China’s Minister of Public Security on December 1, 2024,
and Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei are providing Havana censorship
tools that are used to block information, track dissidents, silence
dissent, and shut down the internet during anti-government protests.
Communist China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on June 4, 2024 described Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla as a “good old friend of China.” Rodríguez’s official visit from June 5 to 9,
2024 as a special envoy of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel
highlighted the two communist regimes’ “special friendship.” Never
forget that this rekindled friendship was forged in the blood spill 36
years ago in Tiananmen Square.
A 2017 declassified British diplomatic cable revealed that
"at least 10,000 people were killed. The Chinese Communist regime still defends committing this massacre, and is punishing those who seek to remember and observe the date.
George Orwell wrote in "As I Please" in the Tribune on February 4, 1944 that "[t]he
really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits
'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it
claims to control the past as well as the future."
We are witnessing this attempt to silence the victims, erase
and rewrite the history of the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the
crackdown and massacre that began on June 3, 1989 through social media
and in the real world. People are being arrested for engaging in silent,
nonviolent protests in remembrance of students and workers murdered by
the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on orders of the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP).
Making this known is the most effective method to combat
it by amplifying the voices of those impacted, and who continue to demand justice. Below is the 2025 declaration by the Tiananmen Mothers, translated by Human Rights in China.
The Tiananmen Mothers have issued the following statement on the 36th anniversary of the June Fourth (Tiananmen) Massacre. Read the English version here, translated by HRIC: https://t.co/KhwPP02FeJpic.twitter.com/97y1d0ZCEA
— 中国人权-Human Rights in China (@hrichina) May 29, 2025
The Czech writer Milan Kundera wrote that "[t]he struggle of man against
power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." This is the
challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party in its effort to
erase the mass protests, months long occupation and crackdown in
Tiananmen Square, and across China. It is also why we must remember and
honor courageous Chinese dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo martyred for his commitment to nonviolence and democracy.
If you are in the Washington DC area then join the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on June 4 at 8:00pm at the Victims of Communism Memorial located on the corner of New Jersey and Massachusetts Avenues to honor the
legacy of the brave men and women who stood for freedom, and paid the ultimate price, at their annual
Tiananmen Square Massacre candlelight vigil
Please also share over social media documentary information on what happened. For example, the three hour 1995 documentary, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, provides an over view of the entire protest, and its context in Chinese history, and it is available online. The BBC in 2019 provided a more concise synopsis of the crackdown which is shared below.
"Human rights are universal and indivisible. Human freedom is also
indivisible: if it is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore
denied, indirectly, to all people. This is why we cannot remain silent
in the face of evil or violence; silence merely encourages them." -
Vaclav Havel
Nearly ten years ago, in the Panam Post I made the case against loosening sanctions on dictatorships, using the example of what had happened on the two occasions that they were loosened on the Cuban regime.
"The Carter Administration was the first to lift the travel ban and
hold high-level negotiations with the Cuban dictatorship, and both sides
opened Interest Sections in their respective capitals between 1977 and
1981. Then from 1981 to 1982, the Castro regime executed approximately
80 prisoners, which was a marked escalation when compared to 1976.
Furthermore, during the Carter presidency, Fidel Castro took steps that
resulted in the violent deaths of US citizens.
During the Mariel crisis of 1980, when over 125,000 Cubans sought to
flee the island, the Cuban dictator sought to save face by selectively
releasing approximately 12,000 violent criminals or individuals who were
insane into the exodus. According to his bodyguard, “with the stroke of
a pen,” Fidel Castro personally “designated which ones could go and
which ones would stay. ‘Yes’ was for murderers and dangerous criminals;
‘no’ was for those who had attacked the revolution.”
In Latin America, this warming of relations coincided with the
arrival of the Sandinistas to power in Nicaragua in 1979 and a widening
civil war in Central America, all with Cuban backing.
The second to seek engagement was the Clinton administration in the
1990s, similarly coinciding with brutal massacres. That included 37
Cubans in the “13 de Marzo” tugboat sinking (1994) and the murder of
four in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down (1996). Despite all of
this, President Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and opened
up cash-and-carry trade that formed a pro-Castro lobby in the United
States. In Latin America, this warming of relations coincided with the
arrival of Hugo Chavez to power in Venezuela in 1999 — with Cuban
backing that has had negative consequences throughout the region."
Cuban speaker Enrique Del Risco was present at this 17th edition Oslo Freedom Forum on the second day, and he highlighted how regime elites are building shiny high rise hotels, while average Cubans live in squalor. Western democracies are complicit in subsidizing these bad actors, often with taxpayer funds. Thanks to the U.S. embargo none of them are Americans.
Later the same day the 2025 recipients of the Václav Havel International Prize for CreativeDissent: Azza Abo Rebieh, Sasha Skochilenko, and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara were recognized.
Luis Manuel was able to deliver an audio message from his prison in Cuba.
This blog entry thus far is Cuba-centric, but the Oslo Freedom Forum
spans the world, as do the human rights crises .
Oswaldo Payá when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought
on December 17, 2002 spoke prophetically when he said: “The cause of
human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a
single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we must state
that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also
the right to remain human will be jeopardized.”
Too often some Cubans, for justifiable reasons, are focused on the
troubles in Cuba, but fail to see what is happening elsewhere. Too many
believe that we are alone, and that no one is watching our plight.
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be
what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never
be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the
inter-related structure of reality.”
Just as what happened in
Cuba affected what is happening in Venezuela, and Nicaragua, so is what
happening in China and Russia affecting Cuba. Therefore we owe it to
ourselves to learn what is happening around the world, and to be in solidarity
with human rights defenders, and friends of freedom everywhere.
Tomorrow, May 28, 2025, is the last day of the 2025 Oslo Freedom Forum, please join them online.
"There is no forgiveness for acts of hatred. Daggers thrust in the name of liberty are thrust into liberty's heart." - José Martí
#JoséMartí130
José Julián Martí Pérez: 28 January 1853 – 19 May 1895
José Julián Martí Pérez was killed 130 years ago today in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on May 19, 1895. He is buried in the Santa Efigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.
Cubans the world over honor his memory and Cuban independence follows a
day later. Seven years and one day after Martí's death Cuba formally
obtained its independence on May 20, 1902. Cuban historian Dr. Jaime Suchlicki in his essay
"The Death of a Hero" describes him as Cuba’s greatest hero and most
influential writer.
Yesterday, a modern José Martí, marked four years in prison. Maykel Castillo Pérez "Osorbo" is an artist, husband, father, and an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience
who has spent 48 months separated from his family for "the crime" of exercising his fundamental rights.
He is a rap artist, like Martí a poet, a defender of human rights, and
imprisoned for his defense of Cuban sovereignty residing among the
Cuban people.
Cuban prisoner of conscience: Maykel Castillo Pérez "Osorbo"
The Cuban dictatorship jails
minors for expressing themselves, in an action reminiscent of the
Spanish colonial government's targeting of the future Cuban independence
leader when he was a child. On October 21, 1869, José Martí, then 16, was jailed and accused of sedition for a letter he wrote to
a friend criticizing his decision to join the Spanish colonial army.
Cubans across the ideological divide claim José Martí as
their own. The claims of the dictatorship, led by the Castro family,
that Martí is the intellectual author of their political project is
ironic considering that the life and writings of this Cuban journalist,
poet, and independence leader are the antithesis of the Castro
dictatorship. The late Cuban scholar Carlos Ripoll is required reading
to understand the thought of José Martí.
The Institutional Repository of Florida International University’s
Digital commons offered the following description of two videos
examining the work of Carlos Ripoll on May 10, 2017.
Carlos Ripoll (1922-2011) was a Cuban scholar who lived in the
U.S. for close to half a century, during which he carried out
outstanding research on several Cuban historical, literary, and
political topics. Chief among them was Ripoll’s life-long interest in
the life and work of Jose Marti. Based on personal acquaintance with
Ripoll, reading of his works, and a survey of Martiana donated by Ripoll
himself to the FIU library upon his death, Dr. Santi will explore
Ripoll’s reading of Marti, is legacy and, in particular, what Ripoll
called repeatedly “the falsification of Jose Marti in present-day Cuba.”
Dr. Enrico Mario Santí in this 2017 presentation hosted by the Cuban Research Institute
at Florida International University discussed his relationship with
Carlos Ripoll’s and his view of Martí, describing a Martí who “was not a
Marxist, but he was a radical revolutionary. On the one hand Martí was
not a socialist, but Martí was very interested in pursuing a revolution
after the War of Independence. In other words there were no easy
political solutions that Ripoll was advocating, but on the contrary was
asking us to think through these issues and to be very careful about the
facts of Cuban history, and the way Cuban history was being
manipulated.”
For Spanish language readers, Professor Santí recommends reading Ripoll’s essay “La noble intransigencia de José Martí” which is available online, among other works.
Both José Martí’s writings and actions taken by him in life point to a man
who prized liberty, independence based in popular sovereignty, and
freedom of speech, thought and association as fundamental to his sense
of being. He was a prisoner of conscience, before Amnesty International
coined the term, jailed for writing a disapproving letter to a classmate for joining the Spanish colonial army.
Under the Castro regime freedom of expression can end in prison for engaging in “enemy propaganda,” and freedom of thought can also lead you to prison for the crime of “dangerousness.” This is an affront to José Marti’s belief that
“liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak
without hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy, under the Castro regime, is a currency
for survival.
The Castro regime's celebration of José Martí is doubly ironic because both Francisco Franco's father and Fidel and Raul Castro's father had been soldiers who fought in Cuba to preserve its colonial status within the Spanish empire. Castro's father, Angel, according to the 2016 documentary, "Franco and Fidel: A Strange Friendship",
had a photo of Franco on his nightstand. This historical link
translated into a "special relationship" between the two dictators and
is available online.
Cuba under the Castros is not the vision advanced by Cuba’s
greatest hero. This tradition of freedom and respect for freedom of
thought and speech exists among Cuban dissidents, and on more than one
occasion cost the lives of other heroes to defend. One of Martí's modern day
counterparts is Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who addressed the European Parliament on December 17, 2002:
“The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free
of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to
dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not
going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I
wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth
together.’”
Other counterparts of Martí are found among the Cuban artists, journalists and intellectuals that nonviolently gathered in
front of the Ministry of Culture to read his works on January 27, 2021, and were beaten up by the Castro dictatorship’s Minister of Culture, and arrested by the regime’s political police.
Today we remember and honor José Martí and his modern day counterparts
risking all for Cuba to be free, and hope that their authentic history
will reach a wider audience to counter the disinformation spread by the
Cuban dictatorship, and others.
"I think they kill my child every time they deprive a person of their right to think." - José Martí
23 years and five days on May 10, 2002 Oswaldo José
Payá Sardiñas, Regis Iglesias Ramirez and Antonio Ramón Diaz Sánchez of the Christian Liberation Movement
(from left to right in above picture) turned in 11,020 signed Varela Project petitions to the Cuban authorities demanding reforms that would see human rights respected in Cuba
and fundamental freedoms restored.
Both Regis Iglesias Ramirez, Antonio Ramón Diaz
Sánchez and dozens of other activists involved in the Varela Project
were imprisoned in the March 18, 2003 crackdown known as the end of the Cuban
Spring and spent seven long years in prison and now suffer exile.
Oswaldo José
Payá Sardiñas was assassinated on July 22, 2012 by Cuban government agents together with Harold Cepero Escalante, the Chirsitian Liberation Movement's youth leader.
Totalitarians may terrorize and murder but those who live on have an
obligation to remember and rescue both the facts and the truth. Please
assist in this effort by spreading the word.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo
and Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, Oswaldo José
Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante were killed for exercising their
fundamental rights as human rights defenders in Cuba.
At the same time it is important
remember that the Varela Project shook the foundations of the Castro
regime and continues to live on today as an example of the power of the powerless.
Project Varela was one of the projects Orlando Zapata Tamayo worked on, and his death impacted a Canadian rock band I.H.A.D.who wrote and sang the song "Orlando Zapata" in his memory.
"The solution to the Cuban problem lies with the Cubans, and that's why we created the Varela Project." - Oswaldo Payá , Havana, February 2012
Oswaldo Payá, Regis Iglesias, and Antonio Diaz, turn in petitions
Twenty three years ago today on May 10, 2002, carrying 11,020 signed petitions in
support of the Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement's Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas,
Antonio Diaz Sanchez, and Regis Iglesias Ramirez delivered them to the Cuban
National Assembly.
Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, in his 1999 novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting observed
that "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory
against forgetting." Memory provides context to unfolding events today,
and helps to render informed judgements.
This blog entry is an exercise in preserving memory.
The Varela Project, named after the Cuban Catholic Priest Felix Varela, sought to reform the Cuban legal system
to bring it in line with international human rights standards. They had
followed the letter of the law in organizing the campaign. They specifically asked for the following in the petition.
Guarantee
the right to free expression and free association that guarantee
pluralism, opening Cuban society to political debate and facilitating a
more participatory democracy.
Amnesty for all those imprisoned for political reasons.
Right of Cubans to form companies, both individually owned and in cooperatives.
Proposal
for a new electoral law that truly guarantees the right to elect and be
elected to all Cubans and the holding of free elections
President James Carter at the University of Havana.
Former President James Carter visited Cuba in May 2002 and on May 15th gave a speech at the University of Havana, where he advocated for the lifting of economic sanctions on Cuba and "called for the Varela Project petition to be published in the official newspaper so that people could learn about it."
The Varela Project was not presented for debate before the National
Assembly, which according to then existing law drafted by the Cuban government meant that it should have been deliberated in that legislative
body.
Less than a year after the petitions were turned in, starting on March 18, 2003 the Cuban Spring would end with a massive crackdown on Cuban civil society with many of the Project Varela organizers, imprisoned and summarily sentenced up to 28 years in prison.
The 75 activists with long prison sentences became known as the "group of the 75."
The Castro regime announced, at the time, that the Cuban dissident movement had been destroyed.
They spoke prematurely.
First, the remaining activists who were still free continued gathering signatures and would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures on October 5, 2003, and they continued to gather more.
Secondly, the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of the activists who had been detained and imprisoned organized themselves into the "Ladies in White." A movement that sought the freedom of their loved ones and organized regular marches through the streets of Cuba, despite regime organized violence visited upon them. This new movement was led by Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, a former school teacher.
Antonio Diaz Sanchez and Regis Iglesias Ramirez were released from
prison into forced exile in 2010.
President Carter made a second trip to Cuba in March 2011, and did not publicly mention Project Varela during that visit, but instead focused efforts on trading Alan Gross for the remaining members of the WASP network jailed in the United States on charges of espionage, and murder conspiracy that killed three Americans and a US resident in 1996, and calling for the lifting of economic sanctions on the Castro regime. President Carter also downplayed the threat of FARC, ETA, and ELN terrorists harbored in Cuba.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed on July 22, 2012 together with Harold Cepero, a youth leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, in a car "accident" that all the hallmarks of a state security operation copied after the East German Stasi, who trained intelligence operatives in the Castro regime.
Revisiting and remembering these historic moments is part of the struggle against forgetting, and the conversation that it may arouse will only serve, when backed up with facts, to strengthen memory with
truth. Memory, and retentiveness are defenses against the Castro regime's totalitarian rewriting of history.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in a July 14, 2003 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times provided context to the aftermath of Project Varela, and the March 18, 2003 crackdown in which 75 Cuban dissidents, many of them organizers of the petition drive were sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years.
"Cuba finds itself in a grave crisis. In the last few years,
thousands of its citizens have participated in what’s known as the
Varela Project, overcoming a culture of fear and calling for a national
referendum on civil rights, the peaceful evolution of freedom and
reconciliation. But now a cloud of terror hangs over that quest for
change."
This analysis remains relevant today.
In 2023 Antonio Diaz Sanchez, Regis Iglesias Ramirez and other members of the Christian Liberation Movement reflected on the significance of the Varela Project.
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