Cuban resistance denounces Obama Cuba policy as "mistaken" and that it can cause "profound harm" to our nation

Message from Cuban dissidents on the island regarding Obama administration's Cuba policy 

Letter from Cuban Pro-Democracy Activists 

To the Congress of the United States 

It is with profound concern that we implore the Congress of the United States of America to read this letter directed against the strong campaign being waged to unconditionally lift the economic sanctions that weigh upon the Cuban dictatorship. This campaign seeks to unconditionally lift sanctions with no requirement or guarantee from the dictatorship that it first take a step in the direction of respecting human rights and the promotion of democracy.

We are aware that this campaign is also currently being conducted within the Congress of the United States of America.

We consider it of vital importance that members of Congress know that since last December the repression on our island has escalated. Since the Summit of the Americas held in April, the regime has deployed a renewed campaign of repression, marked by violence and brutality, with the objective of suffocating the opposition movement. This violence has been directed especially towards groups demanding the exercise of basic human rights and that a general amnesty law be decreed that would serve as the initial step toward a process of real changes., such has been the case with the national coalition known as the Forum for Rights and Freedoms, which carries out the #TodosMarchamos campaign for a General Amnesty.

The regime fully opposes these demands, refusing to implement any policy which would have a positive impact on the Cuban people, including economic liberalization. State controls, excessive taxation, corruption, political loyalty, are all factors that are expressly designed to impede the development of micro-enterprises. In contrast, the military elite control the most profitable businesses and establish mixed enterprises with foreign companies. The sole logic of the Castro family and their close allies is to maintain full control of Cuba. Raul Castro has been emphatic in his speeches and actions: "We will not cede even a millimeter." The Foreign Minister of the dictatorship emphasized it clearly in Washington: "The changes already occurred in 1959." The United States as a nation has declared time and again its total commitment to the defense of democracy and fundamental liberties.

The president affirms that his present policy is guided by the values of the founding fathers and that reestablishing relations will help create a greater responsibility for the regime in the topic of the respect for human rights. However, the reality of the current situation contradicts this idea and paints a completely different picture. This unconditional rapprochement has only served to legitimize the longest lived and most destructive dictatorship in the history of the hemisphere, and has served to reinforce the violation of fundamental freedoms. The lifting of the embargo, as proposed by the current administration, will permit the old ruling elite to transfer their power to their political heirs and families, giving little recourse to the Cuban people in confronting this despotic power.

Totalitarian communism will mutate into a totalitarian state adopting minimal market reforms that will serve only to accentuate the existing social inequality in the midst of an increasingly uncertain future. Within the Cuban Catholic Church some representatives have played a fundamental role in these political developments. Cardinal Jaime Ortega has been a key actor, who regrettably, has on multiple occasions denigrated the work of the democratic opposition and denied the existence of political prisoners on the island. Pope Francis has demonstrated that he is in favor of this policy and has played a key role in this process. His recent visit has demonstrated that the regime will continue oppressing and perpetrating violent abuses with no respect for the dignity of human beings.

Silence before these criminal acts is a detriment to the Cuban people. The dictatorship continues gaining time and entitlements. Accepting the primacy of this false pragmatism before a real commitment with the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Cuban nation is a troubling position.

We address ourselves with all due respect to the Congress of the United States, and implore you to support the cause of democracy in Cuba and not a mistaken policy that can cause a profound harm to our nation. If a coherent policy does not exist toward the regime, we Cubans will pay a greater price on our path toward the democratization of our nation.

Movimiento Libertad Democrática por Cuba 
Ángel Moya Partido

Unidad Democrática Cristiana 
Raúl Borges

Frente de Acción Cívica Orlando Zapata Tamayo 
Hugo Damián Prieto

Frente Nacional de Resistencia Cívica Orlando Zapata Tamayo 
Jorge Luis García Antúnez

Movimiento Opositor por una Nueva República- Movimiento Democracia 
José Díaz Silva Partido

Partido por la Democracia Pedro Luis Boitel 
Félix Navarro

Movimiento Damas de Blanco Laura Pollan 
Berta Soler

Estado de Sats 
Antonio G. Rodiles

Asociación de Presos y Expresos Políticos en Cuba 
Egberto Escobedo

Coalición Central Opositora 
Damaris Moya

Frente Anti totalitario Unido 
Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez

Alianza Democrática Oriental 
Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina

Escritor
Ángel Santiesteban Prats

Músico
Gorki Águila Carrasco

Cuban women told not to dress in white if they want to attend Mass

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:10, New American Bible

Ladies in White marching in Matanzas, Cuba

Eight ladies dressed in white were expelled from the Catholic parish in Aguada de Pasajeros in Cienfuegos by Father Tarciso. The priest who removed them from the Church told them, "you can continue coming to Church because this is God's house, but wear another color." The women are members of a human rights movement known as the Ladies in White who in recent months have faced rising repression at the hands of the Cuban dictatorship.

Unfortunately, one cannot expect much in the way of assistance appealing to the Cuban Cardinal for help in this matter. On June 5, 2015 Cardinal Jaime Ortega in a radio interview claimed that there were no political prisoners remaining in Cuba. Following the announcement by human rights groups in Cuba that at least 71 political prisoners remained in prisons there, the Cardinal requested that a copy of the list be given to him. News of the Cardinal's statements are now circulating in the United States painting him in a negative light.

These are difficult times for Cuban Catholics and for Christians generally in Cuba.

Nine years later: Another Cuban Black Spring?

Nine years to the day after major March 18 crackdown on nonviolent activists 70 Cuban women arrested including Cuban human rights leader Berta Soler (pictured below)

Berta Soler

The ninth anniversary of the Cuban Black Spring providentially fell on a Sunday just 8 days before Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in Cuba on March 26. Today, approximately 70 members of the Ladies in White were arrested by the Castro regime and taken away. A majority of the 70 women were detained while trying to attend Mass.

The Cuban Spring: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3


The Ladies in White and the Cuban Black Spring

In March of 2003 following a crackdown on nonviolent opposition activists, known as the "Black Spring", their wives, mothers, and sisters formed the Ladies in White and begin their weekly Sunday pilgrimages to attend Mass and march through the streets of Cuba demanding their loved ones freedom. The women would suffer harassment, beatings and detentions over the next nine years.

Many of the activists who had been unjustly imprisoned had been organizers of nationwide petition drive called the Varela Project , named after Father Felix Varela, that sought legal and constitutional reforms to bring the Cuban regime in line with international human rights norms.



Today, nine years later thanks to the sacrifice of the Ladies in White the men unjustly imprisoned in 2003 are no longer in prison. Most of them were forced into exile while a small number remain on the island. The founder of the Ladies in White, Laura Pollán, died under mysterious circumstances on October 14, 2011. The new head of the Ladies in White "Laura Pollán" , Berta Soler was arrested today and remains detained tonight. They continue to demand the release of the remaining political prisoners in Cuba and that human rights be respected.

Elements within the Catholic Church in Cuba have been accused of not defending human rights on the island and on occasion siding with those in power there or ignoring evils perpetrated by the regime which has led to frustration in some opposition circles.

Hopefully, in addition to his important pastoral message, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will address the importance of human rights as he did on April 18, 2008 in his address to the United Nations General Assembly:

Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. At the same time, the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity. It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights.

Catholic layman and Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya tweeted today that the "arrests and mistreatment of the Ladies in White were part of the regime's maneuvers in its murky preparation of the Pope's Cuba visit." Hopefully the arrest of 70 nonviolent women attempting to attend Mass and march peacefully through the streets of Cuba on the ninth anniversary of the crackdown that brought the Ladies in White into existence will serve as a bright beacon for all observing the situation in Cuba.