Copying the existing healthcare system in Cuba in the United States would lead to more deaths

Don't buy the hype or the lies.

Cholera patients in Cuba (CNN)

Nicholas Kristof's January 18, 2019 OpEd in The New York Times, "Why Infants May Be More Likely to Die in America Than Cuba" is an irresponsible work of fiction that reproduces false statistics provided by the Cuban dictatorship to justify its 60 year old dictatorship.This is but the latest chapter in a long romance with the Cuban dictatorship by the Gray Lady.

Kristof cites the questions about Cuban government statistics and dismisses them by citing that the World Health Organization and the United Nations have praised the Cuban health care system. He fails to mention that the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is being sued for conspiring "with the Cuban government to collect millions of dollars by unlawfully trafficking Cuban doctors to Brazil." (PAHO is the Regional Office for the Americas for the World Health Organization [WHO], and is recognized internationally as a part of the United Nations system.) According to a November 29, 2018 article by Frances Robles, in The New York Times, PAHO "made about $75 million off the work of up to 10,000 Cuban doctors who earned substandard wages in Brazil." 

The Cuban doctors were also separated from their families. The Castro regime feared that if they went to work abroad with their families, the doctors would be less likely to return to Cuba.

Kristof is trying to make the case for a "free, universal health care system", but a question arises: Why look at Cuba's with its questionable data and repressive dictatorship? There are other Latin American countries with universal healthcare such as Costa Rica, and Chile. Their infant mortality rates are good, but not better than the United States. Although, Chile's is almost equal to the U.S. Incidentally, if you believe Cuba's infant mortality rate numbers, than a lecture needs to be made to Canada, because America's neighbor to the North also has a higher infant mortality rate then Cuba's (despite Canada having a free, universal health care system.)  The World Bank 2017 infant mortality rates for the following countries are: Canada (5), Chile (6), Costa Rica (8), the United States (6), and Cuba (4).

Not mentioned by Kristof is the study by economist Roberto Gonzalez at the University of Chapel Hill who provides an analysis that explains in detail how the numbers are fudged. The actual estimate of the IMR in Cuba has a median estimate of 9.04 and a range that begins at 5.79 and extends up to 11.16. There is a policy in Cuba to do away with problem pregnancies, which is also a factor for the IMR rate in Cuba and the high rates of abortions. According to sources used by Kristof the IMR in the United States is 5.9.  

However one should take a serious look at the Cuban healthcare system overall.

The real deal on Cuban healthcare

Public health

New Scientist reported on January 8, 2019 in an exclusive report that "thousands of Zika virus cases went unreported in Cuba in 2017, according to an analysis of data on travelers to the Caribbean island. Veiling them may have led to many other cases that year." The Cuban government has also failed to report Dengue (1997) and Cholera (2012) outbreaks in Cuba. Jailing those who warned the world of the threat. Founded in 1956, New Scientist is the world’s most popular weekly science and technology magazine.

In 1997 when a Dengue epidemic broke out in Cuba the dictatorship tried to cover it up. When a courageous doctor spoke out he was locked up on June 25, 1997 and later sentenced to 8 years in prison. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison under condition he go into exile in December of 1998. The regime eventually had to recognize that there had been a dengue epidemic.   

Three of the victims of exposure and hypothermia at Mazorra in 2010

 On January 15, 2010 The New York Times reported the confirmed deaths of at least 20 mental patients at the Psychiatric Hospital in Cuba, known as Mazorra, due to "criminal negligence by a government characterized by its general inefficiency," a day later the Cuban government confirmed that 26 patients had died due to “prolonged low temperatures that fell to 38 degrees.”

The 2012 cholera outbreak in Cuba offered another opportunity to see how the Cuban public health system operates. The well being of Cubans is not the first item on their agenda. This was demonstrated in it's response. News of the outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of the outlawed independent press in the island. Calixto Martinez, the independent Cuban journalist who broke the story was jailed.  The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with Cholera in Havana. The dictatorship stated that it had it under control and on August 28, 2012 said the outbreak was over. A year later on August 22, 2013 Reuters reported that "Cuba was"still struggling with outbreaks in various provinces.

In July 2013 an Italian tourist returned from Cuba with severe renal failure due to Cholera. New York high school teacher Alfredo Gómez contracted cholera during a family visit to Havana during the summer of 2013 and was billed $4,700 from the government hospital. A total of 12 tourists have been identified who have contracted cholera in Cuba.  

Cuba's two tiered and politicized healthcare system

Cuba has a two tiered health care system one tier for the nomenklatura and foreign tourists with hard currency that offers care with modern equipment and fully stocked pharmacies, then there is a second tier which is for the rest  with broken down equipment, run down buildings and rooms, scarce supplies, a lack of hygiene, the denial of certain services and lengthy wait times. Healthcare professionals are poorly paid and lack food.

On December 28, 2017 the Spanish news service EFE reported that the Castro regime had dismantled a network of medical officials and workers who'd adulterated a medicine for children made at the laboratories of the state-owned drug company BioCubaFarma. They replaced the active substance methylphenidate with a placebo substance in the manufacture of the drug marketed as "Ritalin." The active substance was sold on the black market. Nevertheless, The Miami Herald had an article touting the importance of importing drugs from Cuba on December 14th.

The statistics and numbers that the international community has access to with relation to the Cuban healthcare system have been manipulated by the dictatorship. Katherine Hirschfeld, an anthropologist, in Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898 describes how her idealistic preconceptions were dashed by 'discrepancies between rhetoric and reality,' she observed a repressive, bureaucratized and secretive system, long on 'militarization' and short on patients' rights. 

The importance of public health transparency
 Sherri L. Porcelain is an adjunct professor who has taught Global Public Health in World Affairs at the University of Miami for more than 30 years. She wrote an important analysis titled U.S. & Cuba: A Question of Indifference? I could not find this article on the ICCAS web site, found it initially at Professor Suchlicki's Cuba Studies Institute, but it is no longer online. This is troubling and what Dr. Porcelain's analysis reveals is disturbing.

"Investment in the health of people includes protecting human rights. This means allowing the health community to speak out and not to be jailed for releasing information about a dengue epidemic considered a state secret, or not sharing timely data on a cholera outbreak until laboratory confirmation of travelers returning from Cuba arrive home with a surprising diagnosis. This causes me to reflect upon my personal interviews where the remaining vigor of public health actions in Cuba exists to fight vector and water borne diseases. Sadly, however, health professionals are directed to euphemistically use the vague terms of febrile illness in place of dengue and gastrointestinal upset for cholera, in contradiction to promoting public health transparency."

Let us hope that this myth of the Castro regime being a health care super power be debunked before any more foreign patients or tourists are negatively impacted or that policy makers in other countries seek to follow Nicholas Kristof's advice and copy the disastrous system in the island. 

Copying the existing healthcare system in Cuba in the United States would lead to more deaths of both infants and adults, but we would never hear about it, because the bureaucracy would cover it up with inflated numbers of how great the healthcare system is. Dissatisfied patients and family members would fear retaliation if they questioned their health outcomes.

How the world remembered Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero five years after their murders

Paying homage to two murdered human rights defenders across the Americas

Activists remember Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in Guatemala

Five years ago on Sunday, July 22, 2012 near Bayamo in eastern Granma province of Cuba the incident provoked by State Security ended the lives of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante. At 5:00pm, in a telephone call, Felix Rivero Cordoví from Bayamo reported"Oswaldo Payá has died in a collision with a police car."  Later we learned that Harold Cepero had also died of his injuries. Five years later and Cuban officials have still not handed over the autopsies to the families. Instead the Castro regime engaged in a massive coverup blaming the driver of the car for the deaths while denying that a second vehicle was involved.

Mass at Ermita de la Caridad celebrated lives of Oswaldo and Harold

 On the fifth anniversary of these suspicious deaths former world leaders such as former Chilean president Sebastian Piñera, former Mexican president Felipe Calderón, former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana, former Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla, and Mariana Aylwin, daughter of the late Chilean president Patricio Aylwin issued statements recognizing the living legacy of Oswaldo Payá. Others also demanded an impartial investigation into what happened to Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante on July 22, 2012. The current Secretary Genereral of the Organization American States issued a call "for a professional and impartial investigation."

Message from Secretary General on Anniversary of the Death of Oswaldo Payá

Message from Secretary General @Almagro_OEA2015 on Anniversary of the Death of Oswaldo Payá #Cuba pic.twitter.com/L5uC6QfCUI

— OAS (@OAS_official) July 22, 2017

July 22, 2017

Five years ago, on July 22, 2012, Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero died when the vehicle they were riding in crashed into a tree in the eastern Cuban province of Bayamo. Ángel Carromero and Jens Aron Modig were also in the car.

Even today, series and well-founded doubts about the case persist. That is why on this new anniversary of the death of Oswaldo Payá, I join the call of the families of the victims and of all those who demand justice for a professional and impartial investigation.

Oswaldo Payá was perhaps the best-known activist in Cuba because of his tireless work in favor of democracy. Through the Varela Project he promoted the amendment of laws to respect the right to free expression, freedom of the press and freedom of association.

The Varela Project is based on the Constitution of Cuba itself, which under article 88 (g), grants legal initiative to citizens, among other powers.

The freedom to meet, associate and to speech are fundamental rights recognized in international human rights law and all democratic societies.

These principles must be respected. It is unacceptable that those who try to defend their rights are persecuted for their opinions and have their voices silenced.

From the OAS we must always promote respect for basic freedoms, that sovereignty lies in the people, and the most complete validity of human rights.

The struggle of Oswaldo Payá is absolutely inspiring for our defense of these principles and values.

Reference: S-022/17

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio in a tweet sent by his office expressed clearly that what happened on that day was an extrajudicial killing.

Five years ago #OswaldoPaya was murdered by the Castro regime. We remember his fight for freedom in #Cuba. pic.twitter.com/lhMDDtrNjb

— Senator Rubio Press (@SenRubioPress) July 23, 2017

 Joining Senator Rubio in calling what happened on July 22, 2012 a murder are Senators Dick Durbin, Bill Nelson, Jeff Merkley, and Cuban Americans Bob Menéndez and Ted Cruz. They are demanding an independent and impartial investigation into what happened on that day.

Activities were carried out across the Americas remembering the legacy of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero with peaceful gatherings and masses held in Miami, Cuba, Guatemala, Spain. The solidarity of the shaken was on display when family members of Venezuelan political prisoner Mayor Antonio Ledezma sent messages of solidarity and support recognizing Oswaldo's legacy. 
 
Hopefully the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will do its job and complete its investigation into killings of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero finally after five years. Currently we only have the report prepared by Human Rights Foundation that indicates that the official version put out by the Castro regime was a coverup and that this was most likely an extrajudicial killing.

UN Human Rights Council's moment of silence for Fidel Castro

"...[T]here arises a question as to whether those large, serious compromises do not have their origin and roots in precisely these tiny and very often more or less logical compromises." - Vaclav Havel, October 12, 2009, Forum 2000 conference

Photo taken by Cuban Mission to the UN during moment of silence for Castro

Six months ago I wrote a blog post on the existential crisis at the United Nations Human Rights Council that began from the start. "Ten years ago the United Nations Human Rights Council was founded on a small moral compromise that sacrificed human rights oversight in Belarus and Cuba in what U.N. officials called the dawn of a new era. Special rapporteurs with mandates to specifically monitor the human rights situation in those two countries were formally gotten rid of in 2007 and a code of conduct established that undermined the independence of all special rapporteurs."

Reflecting deeper on this crisis came to the conclusion that at the heart of the deteriorating global human rights situation that has gripped humanity for more than a decade is worse than we thought because it goes beyond geopolitical circumstance and to first principles on the nature of human rights that those in positions of power have rejected. Yesterday another manifestation of this crisis manifested itself in a matter of small procedural importance but of profound moral consequences.

Despicable: UN Human Rights Council delegates just stood for minute of silence for human rights abuser Fidel Castro. UN Watch stayed seated.

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 5, 2016

On December 5, 2016 delegates of the U.N. Human Rights Council opened a meeting in Geneva by standing silently after Venezuela’s delegation requested a minute of silence to “honor” the late Cuban tyrant Fidel Castro. Meanwhile now in Cuba those Cubans that refuse to mourn the dead dictator are being beaten down, jailed and threatened with 15 year prison terms for speaking out. At least 20 cases have been documented and two high profile examples stand out: the graffiti artist and the medical doctor both jailed for freely expressing themselves: Danilo Maldonado and Eduardo Cardet.

Let us recall that Fidel Castro, the Cuban tyrant, presided over extrajudicial executions of thousands of his countrymen, the destruction of Cuba, twice called for a nuclear first strike on the United States, sponsored terrorism across the world, collaborated with genocidal dictators who murdered millions in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. 

Even more outrageous is that while the human rights body honors one of the great human rights violators of the Americas at the same time it ignores a human rights champion who passed away four days later the great nonviolent democrat and human rights defender Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez, former president of Costa Rica and one of the drafters of that great democracy's constitution.

Cuban Americans went out into the streets of Miami to celebrate the departure of Fidel Castro because he was a man who had done much evil and was still capable, while lucid, to do more.

However those who do good in the world like Vaclav Havel and  Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez are sorely missed and we mourn for their absence because we need more human beings like them that lift up humanity defending human dignity while speaking truth to power.

It is a real shame to see that at the heart of what should be the most important human rights body on the planet this simple lesson has been lost due to political expediency and an apparent bankruptcy of fundamental values.

Let us hope that the world's democrats in that august body request a moment of silence for the victims of Castroism and perhaps a candlelight vigil should be held outside of the UNHRC with photos of the many victims of the Cuban dictatorship as was done on Sunday in Washington, DC.

They could also hold a moment of silence for Costa Rica's Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez and honor a moral exemplar instead of a dictator who collaborated with war criminals in genocide.

Honoring the memory of a brutal and genocidal dictator diminishes the moral authority of the UN Human Rights Council and in that it only benefits the brutal and genocidal regimes around the world leaving the victims ever more at their mercy. 

Requiescat in pace Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez, former president of Costa Rica and friend of free Cubans

Remembering a departed President who co- founded a just and enduring free order in Costa Rica

Luis Alberto Monge Álvarez (December 29, 1925 – November 29, 2016)

Friends of freedom lost a great ally on November 29, 2016 when Luis Alberto MongeÁlvarez passed away he was ninety years old.  At the age of 23, President Monge was the youngest member of the National Constituent Assembly of 1949. He was twice legislator for the PLN (1958-1962 and 1970-1974) and was president of the Legislative Assembly. He was President of Costa Rica for just four years between 1982 and 1986. The current President of Costa Rica declared three days of national mourning on his passing.

President Luis Alberto Monge (Center) surrounded by other former presidents

For Cubans he was a friend of freedom who assisted Cubans resisting tyranny first against Fulgencio Batista and later against Fidel Castro.  In 2004 he was a founding member of the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba. Four years later at a gathering of this committee in Costa Rica he spoke clearly in a manner that sadly to many heads of state fail to do today. The following is a cable made public by wikileaks describing this meeting:

Costa Rica continues to be one of the region's leading critics of the Castro government and a strong advocate for democratic change and human rights reforms in Cuba. For instance, on May 20, 2008, the Costa Rican Committee for Solidarity with Democracy in Cuba and the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba hosted a forum on Cuba. Participants included a former ex-president of Costa Rica, a current Costa Rican deputy, an ex-deputy, a Czech diplomat in Costa Rica, and a former Cuban political prisoner. The May 20, 2008 forum highlighted Costa Rica's commitment to freedom and democracy and its criticism of Cuba's abysmal record on human rights. Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez, President of Costa Rica from 1982 to 1986 and a member of President Arias' National Liberation Party (PLN), spoke of "communist occupation" in Cuba. He referred to the "communist dictatorship" of the Castro regime while expressing Costa Rica's solidarity with the Cuban people.

Incidentally Costa Rica has a 96.3% literacy rate, has an excellent universal healthcare system, and a thriving democracy that respects fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. This is no small part due to President Luis Alberto Monge's life time of work and leadership in Costa Rica. He was a politician who practiced what he preached with honesty and transparency and in the process became an elder statesman of Costa Rica.

President Luis Alberto Monge on the right protesting for the freedom of Lech Walesa

Partial Chronology of Cuban Diplomatic Malfeasance 1962 - 2015

The case against opening Cuban Consulates in the United States

Cuban diplomats denied U.S. re-entry visas following this plot being discovered

Cuban diplomats for more than 50 years have plotted and facilitated terrorist attacks, beaten up peaceful protesters, threatened and bitten protesters using homophobic language, and participated in the cover up of extrajudicial killings. In the ongoing conversation surrounding engagement with the Castro dictatorship some inconvenient facts are being overlooked.

Castro's Cuba even by the standards of a totalitarian regime does not behave as expected. The Castro regime has explicitly viewed terrorism as a legitimate tactic to advance its revolutionary objectives. In 1970 the Cuban government published the "Mini Manual for Revolutionaries" in the official Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO) publication Tricontinental and translated it into many languages, written by Brazilian urban terrorist Carlos Marighella, which gives precise instructions in terror tactics, kidnappings, etc. and translated into numerous languages which were distributed worldwide by the Cuban dictatorship. There is a chapter on terrorism that declares, "Terrorism is a weapon the revolutionary can never relinquish." This manual is still circulating today and the Cuban dictatorship has trained terrorists that targeted the United States and other countries in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s with acts of violence with the objective of altering political behavior. John Hoyt Williams in a 1988 article in The Atlantic reported: "In the Arab world some 3,000 [Cuban advisers] can be found in Libya and Algeria, among other things training terrorists and Polisario guerrillas."

Below is a partial record of Castro's diplomats, who are often spies, in their diplomatic posts around the world engaging in actions that should give White House policy makers pause before green lighting Cuban consulates across the United States.

New York City, USA (1962)
Cuban diplomats Elsa Montera Maldonado and Jose Gomez Abad, a husband and wife team at the Cuba Mission in New York City, who in reality were State Security agents who plotted to murder large numbers of Americans. Both were expelled for their role in a planned terrorist attack on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1962 which sought to detonate 500 kilos of explosives inside Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal.

New York City, USA (1969)
A Black Panther plot to bomb five Manhattan department stores on April 3, 1969 during the Easter shopping rush was broken up by the indictment of 21 members of the militant group on April 2nd. The Chicago Tribune reported that they had planned to "set off bombs in the midtown stores of Macy's Alexander's. Bloomingdale's, Korvette's and Abercombie & Fitch. The bombings were to be accompanied by gunfire in the crowded stores." They had also planned to dynamite the tracks of Penn Central railroad at six location and bomb a police station in the Morrisania section of the Bronx to divert police from the railroad bombings. On April 10, 1969 Andrew Tulley reported in the Reading Eagle that that the Communist Cuban mission to the United Nations has become a financial and propaganda headquarters for promoting revolution by black militants and white radicals. ... Specifically, it was said, these include the Black Panther Party. The United States denied re-entry visas to two Cuban U.N. diplomats ..."as a normal reaction to evidence that the Cuban mission is engaged in extensive subversive activities. One of the two diplomats, Jesus Jimenez Escobar, a mission counselor, is described as one of the Havana regime's leading experts in the export of revolution."  Tully had met one of the five other Cuban diplomats then under investigation in Cuba in  1959: Lazaro Espinosa, third secretary at the U.N. missions was introduced to him by Che Guevara at the Havana Hilton Hotel as Castro's "leading technician in terrorism." The judge presiding over the Black Panther trial on February 21, 1970 had three gasoline bombs explode in front of his home. On May 13, 1971 a jury with five African American members acquitted the thirteen Black Panther members of murder conspiracy charges.

New York City, USA (1994)
 The United States expelled two Cuban diplomats on April 12, 1995, for having assaulted people last August (1994) protesting in front of Cuba's mission to the United Nations. The diplomats, Edmundo Suarez Hernandez, a counselor, and Saul Hermida Griego, an attache, and their families were told are to leave by midnight Sunday. The Cuban Foreign Ministry responded with a statement that the incident in August had been "provoked by terrorist groups who go around unpunished because of the inefficiency of the New York police." On August 30, 1994 anti-Castro protesters chained themselves to the Cuban Mission door. Cuban diplomats attacked them with sticks, screaming, "Cuba Our Way!" Two diplomats wielded a crowbar and ax handle. More than a dozen police officers suffered injuries. Four Cuban Mission employees were arrested on assault charges. All four were released after claiming diplomatic immunity.  US officials said it's unusual for diplomats to be expelled for violent behavior.

Mexico City, Mexico (1996)
On March 8, 1996 a group of Mexican students belonging to various universities,  a federal representative of the PAN Cristián Castaño Contreras, and a Cuban journalist were brutally assaulted by officers and employees of the Cuban embassy during a peaceful demonstration outside of the embassy. The attack left many injured. The Cuban embassy staff even attacked a student displaying a Mexican flag and tried to destroy it. The behavior was reminiscent of a Rapid Response Brigade in Cuba used to beat down dissidents in the island.

Washington, DC (2000)
On April 14, 2000 nonviolent protesters gathered in front of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC. In the early evening, a band of about 10 Cuban diplomats, alleged to have been drinking took off their coats, ties and jewelry, began screaming obscenities and yelling threats, and indiscriminately attacked 20 peaceful protesters  with fists and sticks, even injuring a Secret Service officer. Among the Cuban diplomats engaged in the violent assault, according to one of the victims, was Gustavo Machin Gomez.

Paris, France (2003)
At the Cuban embassy in Paris on April 24, 2003 Cuban diplomats engaged in the brutal beating of nonviolent protesters with iron bars and threatened them with deadly force. "Not only did members of the embassy come out with iron bars to hit us, but one of them was carrying a firearm, which he loaded while outside the embassy," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. "This new element is extremely serious. It is unacceptable that persons linked to a foreign embassy should commit such offences on French territory."

Geneva, Switzerland (2004)
On April 15, 2004 when the United Nations Human Rights Commission  decided by a single vote to censure the communist regime for its human rights record a Cuban human rights defender Frank Calzon was physically attacked by members of the Cuban diplomatic delegation. According to Freedom House: "Witnesses said a Cuban delegate punched Mr. Calzon, knocking him unconscious. UN guards reportedly protected him from further assault by additional members of the Cuban delegation."

San Jose, Costa Rica (2004)
Costa Rican members of the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba led by former president Luis Alberto Monge invited other Latin American and European leaders as well as representatives of civil society to hold a “International Forum for Democracy in Cuba” on the eve of the Ibero-American Summit on November 16, 2004.  The Cuban government learned on November 9 that the event was being planned and attempted through diplomatic channels to have the event suspended, accusing participants of being: CIA agents, terrorists, and servants of the North American government, and requesting that Costa Rican authorities inform them of the steps taken to cancel the event. When Costa Rica refused to suspend the event on November 10 the Costa Rican consul was called to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations and once again the demand to have the event cancelled was made.  A diplomatic note was sent on November 11 followed by a second one on November 12 with the aim of canceling the forum. Having failed to stop the event Cuban diplomats organized an act of repudiation inside the Legislative Assembly. Costa Rica's governing institutions are open to the public. The Cuban counsel Rafael Dausá Céspedes utilized groups with ideological affinities with the Cuban revolution in Costa Rica to physically storm the event to use physical intimidation and threats of violence to shut it down after it had started. Six activists including the vice-president of the Czech Senate, Jan Ruml began a “sit-in” to protest the actions of the mob. They refused to depart the room under a threat of violence. . This led to a two and a half hour stand off. Meanwhile in another part of the same building the event went off without a hitch, because the sixty did not want to surrender the room to the six.

Oslo, Norway (2010)
On May 22, 2010 Norwegian media reported that Cuban diplomat, Carmen Julia Guerra, insulted, threatened, and bit a young Norwegian woman, Alexandra Joner age 19, of Cuban descent on her mother's side while she was across the street from the Cuban embassy in Oslo. She was filming a non-violent demonstration in solidarity with the Ladies in White and in remembrance of martyred Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. The main national newspaper in Norway, Aftenposten,  photographed the young girl with bite marks on her hand.

Mexico (2012)
In January of 2012 there were reports in the media of Cuban, Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats meeting in Mexico to discuss cyber attacks on U.S. soil and allegedly seeking information about nuclear power plants in the United States. 

Dominican Republic (2012)
On January 28, 2012 in the Dominican Republic the Cuban ambassador physically assaulted a 70 year old Cuban exile who had screamed "Down with Fidel! Down with the Castros!" This same diplomat had been already expelled by the United States in 1995 for beating up peaceful demonstrators in New York City. 

Injured in Panama by Cuban diplomats

Panama (2015)
On April 8, 2015 Cuban diplomats streamed out of the the Cuban Embassy in Panama attacking civil society representatives who at the time were laying flowers at a bust of Jose Marti in a public park nearby. Several activists were injured and at least one required surgery. During the Summit of the Americas Cuban diplomats disrupted official meetings in order to block Cuban and Venezuelan dissidents from taking part, despite being officially accredited. 

Havana, Cuba (2016)
 Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine and Commissioner Ricky Arriola, had a highly publicized meeting in Cuba to discuss opening a Cuba consulate on Miami Beach with Gustavo Machin Gomez a Cuban diplomat who took part in a violent attack on peaceful demonstrators in 2000 in Washington DC. He was expelled from the United States for his espionage activities in 2002. Chris S. Simmons, a 23-year Counterintelligence Officer, from 1996-2004 involved with the majority of US Counterintelligence successes against the Castro regime provided the background on the Cuban Foreign Ministry's, deputy director of North American affairs. According to Simmons, Machin was involved in the operation to "spin" the death of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in 2012. Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero were killed in an incident in which state security agents hit their car in a second vehicle, on July 22, 2012. These are the kind of individuals we will have in our community if a Cuban consulate is opened.

Cuba's Ladies in White spokeswoman Berta Soler's nonviolent action and its international impact in 2004

Berta Soler's 2004 act of nonviolent defiance in Cuba led to a second act of resistance in Costa Rica

Berta Soler

Berta Soler in Miami! Join her and the exile community in a vigil in honor of the memory of Laura Pollán and other Cuban martyrs on Saturday, April 27 at 5:30pm in Merrick Park located at Le Jeune Rd & Miracle Mile in front of Coral Gables City Hall. Learn how she inspired me.


The Moral High Ground vs. The Violent Mob

 “What is the most important weapon in breaking people's wills? This may surprise you, but I am convinced that holding the moral high ground is more important than firepower.” - VADM James B. Stockdale, USN

The inspiration that led to a violent mob being successfully confronted by a minority who held the moral high ground in San Jose, Costa Rica on November 16, 2004 came from inside of Cuba a little over a month earlier. On Tuesday, October 5, Berta Soler Fernandez delivered a letter addressed to Fidel Castro describing her husband’s (Angel Moya's) plight to the government offices behind the Jose Marti monument in Revolution Square. Later that same day, joined by five other wives of Cuban prisoners of conscience, she went again, this time prepared with food, water, and blankets. Berta then declared to international media:  "I am going to wait here until I see my husband with my own eyes or I get arrested." Later, despite a massive paramilitary operation, her primary demand was met. Seven years later, following a sustained nonviolent campaign by the Berta Soler and the Ladies in White, Angel Moya was released.

Angel Moya and Berta Soler

            Non-cooperation is the use of force, albeit non-violent to effect profound change. Gene Sharp’s analysis of Gandhian non-cooperation is that “the primary motive of non-co-operation is self-purification by withdrawing co-operation from an unrighteous and unrepentant Government. Then, the secondary objective is to rid oneself of the feeling of helplessness thus being independent of all Government control.” In her campaign against the Cuban government, Berta had the high moral ground combined with the courage and discipline not to participate in the injustice being done to her husband. 

Berta Soler was willing to take action. This had both important external and internal effects. I believe that the internal effect had a greater impact on the final external impact. Internal effects here are defined as effects upon the soul or spirit of the activist while the external effects are the manner in which her action led other activists to respond in solidarity with her, and the regime to react (either negatively or positively to her demands). 

Self purification is by definition at its essence non-cooperation with evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago offers a firsthand experiential account of understanding good and evil:

“It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.”

The Christian tradition speaks of original sin and the Roman stoics spoke of the inner conflicts between the moral purpose and the will. In all cases the struggle to resist evil and to do good is constant and throughout a lifetime there are victories and defeats regardless of which one chooses to embrace. No one is purely evil or purely good. Nevertheless, refusing to cooperate with evil -- engaging in non-co-operation -- is a method of self purification that also raises moral forces in the practitioner giving greater reserves to challenge an unjust adversary.

           

            This provides the context in which the series of events that created a nonviolent confrontation in the Legislative Assembly of San Jose, Costa Rica.  Costa Rican members of the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba led by former president Luis Alberto Monge invited other Latin American and European leaders as well as representatives of civil society to hold an “International Forum for Democracy in Cuba” on the eve of the Ibero-American Summit.  The Legislative Assembly is open to the public to reserve rooms, and organize forums and information sessions. The organizers of the forum followed all the appropriate protocols and filled out the appropriate forms, and were given the space. This was all done openly and without any subterfuge.

The Cuban government learned ahead of time on November 9, 2004 that the event was being planned and attempted through diplomatic channels to have the event suspended, even before it started, accusing the participants of being: CIA agents, terrorists, and servants of the North American government, and requesting that Costa Rican authorities inform them of the steps taken to cancel the event. When Costa Rica, a bastion of democracy and civil liberties in the Americas refused to suspend the event on November 10, 2004 the Costa Rican consul was called to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations and once again the Cuban government demanded that  the Costa Rican government cancel the event.  Diplomatic notes were sent shortly afterwards on November 11 and November 12 with the aim of canceling the forum.

Having failed to stop the event the Cuban government sought to organize an act of repudiation inside the Legislative Assembly.  Costa Rica being an open and democratic society with a long history of tolerance and pluralism and the ability to engage in civilized debate all of its governing institutions are open to the public. The Cuban counsel, and high ranking intelligence officer, Rafael Dausá Céspedes utilized groups with ideological affinities with the Cuban revolution in Costa Rica to physically storm the event and use physical intimidation and threats of violence to shut it down after it had started. 

Six activists including the vice-president of the Czech Senate, Jan Ruml began a “sit-in” to protest the actions of the mob. They refused to depart the room under a threat of violence. One of the six held up a picture of the “Ladies in White” throughout the sit in. This led to a two and a half hour stand off by six activists against a mob of sixty. Meanwhile in another part of the same building the event went off without a hitch, because the sixty did not want to surrender the room to the six.

How was this possible? What happened? The answers are simple. This is possible because those few who engaged in the sit-in made a specific demand. They refused to leave the room under a threat of violence. They were willing to risk their lives to defend their right not to be threatened or assaulted by a mob. The sit in placed a handful of participants at the mercy of a mob of sixty.   National and international media were present in the room to document the behavior of both sides in the confrontation. 

The sit-in participants were willing to negotiate to achieve their goal and as the minutes stretched out into hours the mob of sixty not as disciplined began to leave forcing the organizers of the mob to negotiate. After more than two and a half hours (at the time the Legislative Assembly was due to close) Costa Rican officials, still fearful of violence from the mob, carried out the non-violent protesters engaged in the sit-in bringing an end to the stand off. 

The Costa Rican public and press criticized the government for not removing the violent mob, and viewed the action of the mob with justly harsh criticism. The six engaged in a non-violent sit-in to protest the violation of their right to free assembly, free speech and freedom from intimidation held the moral high ground and won the day. 

All of this was made possible by Berta Soler, whose example, taking action to save her husband against incredible odds but with great moral courage inspired another act of resistance 918 miles away in the face of another mob organized by agents of the Cuban government.

One of the benefits of a nonviolent moral stand is that it is a positive example that inspires others and leaves a positive impact that often times cannot be measured or predicted.

What: Vigil with Berta Soler to honor memory of Laura Pollan and other Cuban Martyrs

When: Saturday, April 27 at 5:30pm

Where: George Merrick Park at City Hall
400 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables, FL 33134
across the street from Coral Gables City Hall, at the intersection of Le Jeune Road and Coral Way (Miracle Mile).
From 836: exit Le Jeune Road, travel south to Miracle Mile.