Does history repeat itself? The August 5 Cuban uprising 16 years later

"16 years ago today the events known as the Maleconazo occurred. A turning point in the national history." - Yoani Sanchez, August 5 2010

August 5, 1994 in Cuba was another day in a summer of blackouts, economic hardship, and despair. Less than a month earlier on July 13 the dictatorship had carried out a massacre in which 37 Cubans were murdered that outraged those who learned about it. However this day would be remembered differently because it was the day that thousands of Cubans took to the streets and were met by the dictatorship's shock troops.



Yoani Sanchez twitted about it today where she described how: "The majority of hits during the Maleconazo fell on my neighbors in Central Habana, defenseless people on one side and shock troops on the other."

State Security with gun in hand preparing to fire into the crowd

16 years ago it was a mass uprising that led to minor economic reforms that lasted until the worse of the crisis was over now the cycle repeats itself, but this time in reaction to popular discontent combined with the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and the steady and persistent protests of the Ladies in White.

Sanchez continued twitting on how "the Maleconazo forced the government to make economic openings, but political reforms never arrived. Cafeterias were founded but not newspapers." Nevertheless later on many of the cafeterias were shutdown.

Will history repeat itself or will the opposition be ready to press for political reforms alongside economic reforms and finally bring change to Cuba?

Transparency for Cuba by Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas

"In this way each person, enjoying freedom of expression, ... and enjoying appropriate freedom of association, will be able to cooperate effectively in the pursuit of the common good." -Pope John Paul II

The Cuban government has continued the dialogue with the European Union in which the speaker-designate, is the Spanish government. They have accepted the rules of the Cuban government and the most significant of these rules is: That the highest Spanish functionaries not dialogue with nonviolent Cuban dissidents.

This exclusion is representative of the contradiction between that dialogue and the most legitimate aspirations of the Cubans. That is why this dialogue is not a facilitator of dialogue among Cubans, or of peaceful change, because it denies a voice to those who expressly and directly go to the root of the problem by demanding rights for Cubans. If there are political prisoners in Cuba, it is because the government denies many rights to the Cubans. You can not disconnect those Cubans for the cause of which they were unjustly imprisoned. They, our brothers and comrades in struggle, are in prison for peacefully defending the rights of all Cubans, for that reason they must be released quickly and without conditions.

The government does not respect the people's right to know, it submerges them into anxiety, misinformation and uncertainty about their lives and their own future and do not even commit to its citizens to make changes and respect their rights. It is not the church that has imprisoned the prisoners, but the government. It is not the church that denies rights to Cubans, but the government. But it is also not fair to the people of Cuba, nor the faithful and suffering Church in Cuba, which is part of people, that some pastors accept the unique role of being sole partners of the government here in Cuba, accepting and practicing the condition of exclusion imposed by the government itself. At the moment that Cubans want change with transparency, rights and that what belongs to the people be respected: Freedom. That which God gives and no one can take away.

From the time of the other dictatorships that scourged Cuba and throughout the tortured history of political imprisonment in this dictatorship, many relatives of political and also common prisoners, as Cubans persecuted and excluded have found in the Church support, comfort and humane support in the midst of poverty, the enormous difficulties and the pain. It has been also and especially after the imprisonment of those we call the Prisoners of the Cuba Spring that are a sign of hope of liberation. The church can be persecuted and criticized by anyone, but when they have no where to go to even those who criticize and persecuted as any other, can go to it and touch its doors and find the loving acceptance of nuns, priests, lay people and also their bishops. Much more a church in Cuba that has grown up in poverty and has been affirmed and suffering persecution united in their allegiance to Jesus Christ. We have also learned from the Church, that no one should pretend to be a political actor from the Church because it converts the church into being a political part, when it should be a facilitator of dialogue between all parties. We believe that Cubans should not be spectators of this or any negotiation or dialogue, and should also prepare to be agents of their liberation, the protagonists of their own history as prophesized by Pope John Paul II.

The government neither recognizes us dissidents, nor engages in dialogue with us, because it would have to recognize and respect the rights and freedom of Cubans. In dissent or opposition the movement inside and outside the country peacefully struggles for freedom, reconciliation and human rights in Cuba. The Dissidents, then, is much more than a theme that can be treated by the Government and representatives of the Church without listening to or considering us. We are a group of Cubans who for decades, most of the time as a lone voice in the wilderness of terror and lies, have proclaimed the right of Cubans to their rights and sought peace working for justice. We do not ask for a space or privileges or recognition for us, or place in dialogues that are not with all Cubans. We only announce and proclaim that, with or without this dialogue, we will continue to fight nonviolently for freedom, rights, justice and peace in Cuba until we achieve those goals. This place is not given to us by anyone in this world and in that mission, we entrust ourselves to God our Father, Lord of History.

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas

Coordinator,Christian Liberation Movement

June 17, 2010

Original text in Spanish available here and the Cuban bishop from Holguin's response here.

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas Responds to Totalitarian Spokesman

Response to the Spokesman of the Totalitarian Regime, Mr. Bruno Rodriguez
Oswaldo Paya, Christian Liberation Movement

November 2nd, 2009 - Havana, Cuba - Mr. Bruno Rodríguez, you have spoken in the United Nation’s General Assembly, using the language of the agents of the repressive forces, to offend those in Cuba who defend the dignity and rights of Cubans and those who are imprisoned for this cause. As a representative of a tyranny, you spoke unabashedly, with insulting and cynical phrases, against the Cuban people.

The first and most insulting statement: Cuba is a democracy.

First it should be clarified that Cuba is all Cubans, and the government representatives that oppress it are by no means the voice of our people. In Cuba there is no democracy, there is a totalitarian regime where one group with power, that is not popularly supported or representative, denies the citizens and people at large their sovereign rights to choose and to decide, and their right to self determination.

Mr. Rodríguez also said: " Cuba respects the freedom to travel."

It is only because the Cuban people have no voice that you are able to so greatly offend them with such cynicism. In Cuba , freedom to travel is not a right and the government that Rodríguez represents denies this right to the Cubans who live inside and outside the country, a policy that cruelly separates many families.

It is not our style or our spirit to respond to offenses, nor to the sewer language of the officials and agents of the repressive government; however, on behalf of my brothers who are imprisoned for defending freedom and the rights of all Cubans, I respond to you as I responded to your predecessor, Felipe Pérez Roque, when faced with a similar offense:

Bruno Rodríguez, you are a mercenary to a government that pays you to justify to the world the oppression under which our people live!

But as I did with Felipe Pérez Roque, I remind you that those who order you can place and remove you with one finger; but we are not ordered by anyone. And as we said to those that are now in disgrace, we say to you: We are ready to defend your rights as a human being when they throw you to the trash; if it is not before the Cuban people win their freedom and their rights, as will surely happen.


Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement Havana , Cuba October 29, 2009