Open letter to Amazon Labor Union leader Christian Smalls

"One cannot have a trade union or a democratic election without freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly.  Without a democratic election, whereby people choose and remove their rulers, there is no method of securing human rights against the state.  No democracy without human rights, no human rights without democracy, and no trade union rights without either. That is our belief; that is our creed." - George Meany, 1979

 Dear Mr. Smalls,

There is an independent worker led movement in Cuba. There is no right to strike or collective bargaining in Cuba today. Union organizers are persecuted, jailed, and some have been killed by the current government in power.

They are the descendants of the pre-1959 labor movement. For the sake of brevity will focus on five individuals: four union activists, and a bricklayer who engaged in human rights activism, and will provide some historical context.

Recommend that you research and look for yourself into the plight of these activists, and what international human rights groups have to say about it..

Ivan Hernandez Carillo (L) and Ulises González Moreno (R).

This 2016 AFL-CIO communication to the Cuban government about the violence visited upon Ivan Hernandez Carrillo when he returned to Cuba after visiting unionists and human rights defenders in Europe and the United States should be a starting point to learning more about this labor activist.

August 4, 2016

His Excellency Raul Castro Ruz
Republic of Cuba
Plaza de la Revolution
Havana, Cuba

Your Excellency:

On behalf of the twelve and a half million working women and men of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), I write to express our deep concern over the violent treatment of independent trade unionist and journalist Ivan Hernandez Carrillo after his return to Cuba from an extended trip abroad meeting with unionists and human rights activists in Europe and the United States.

According to reports, on Sunday, July 31, Mr. Hernandez Carrillo was arrested during a search of his luggage at Havana's José Marti International Airport. Police confiscated his phone, passport and luggage, and detained him.

He was then taken to the police station after being kicked, beaten and forcibly thrown into a police car. Mr. Hernandez Carrillo was held in deplorable conditions in a police station without access to communication. His family was denied contact or further information regarding his brutal treatment and
detention. He was released in the middle of the night on August 2, with no charges and no explanation of his treatment and detention.

In 2011, Hernandez Carrillo, a leader of Cuba’s Independent Trade Union Coalition (CSIC, in Spanish), was freed from prison after eight years of detention subsequent to a wave of arrests and detentions in 2003. Since then, he has suffered recurring harassment and arrest. If the government of Cuba wishes to live up to the human rights standards and commitments if has made, he and others must be allowed to exercise their rights of freedom of expression and association.

We will continue to monitor the situation faced by Mr, Hernandez Carrillo and CSIC activists. We hope to see concrete action regarding labor and human rights and signs of real change consistent with the transition toward normalized relations between Cuba and the United States. The respect for human rights should accompany such a process.

Sincerely,

Richard L. Trumka
President

cc: Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez, Embassy of Cuba, Washington, DC

The following excerpt is taken from the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and is available online in several languages. The working group determined that Ulises González Moreno was arbitrarily detained.

Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its sixty-seventh session, 26–30 August 2013
 

No. 17/2013 (Cuba)
 

Communication addressed to the Government on 25 February 2013
 

Concerning Ulises González Moreno

[...]

Communication from the source

 
3. Ulises González Moreno, a 45-year-old Cuban national, married to Ms. Jacqueline Daly and residing at Flat 2, 414 Concordia (between Gervasio and Escobar), Centro Habana, Havana, is Deputy Secretary-General of the organization known as the Sindicato Independiente de Carpinteros por Cuenta Propia (independent syndicate of own-account carpenters), which is affiliated with the Confederación de Trabajadores Independientes de Cuba (confederation of independent workers of Cuba). (These bodies are not officially recognized.) According to the source, Mr. González Moreno is a human rights defender
who has worked to defend the right of association and has discharged his duties in a civically responsible and peaceful manner.
 

4. The source reports that Mr. González Moreno was arrested at his home by two plain-clothes National Revolutionary Police officers, who took him to the Second Police Unit in Zanja. Subsequently, on 28 November 2012, he was transferred to Valle Grande Prison, a facility attached to the Prison Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
 

5. Mr. González Moreno was detained under an arrest warrant issued at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office on charges of pre-criminal social dangerousness on the basis of his links to antisocial dissident elements, pursuant to Act No. 62 (the Criminal Code) and Act No. 5 (the Code of Criminal Procedure).
 

6. According to the source, the charges were actually brought in retaliation against Mr. González Moreno for refusing to act as a police informer. It is alleged that the threat to indict him for pre-criminal social dangerousness was reiterated by officers during Mr. González Moreno’s interrogation on police premises.
 

7. On 27 November 2012, a summary trial took place before the Centro Habana Municipal People’s Court. The Court found Mr. González Moreno guilty of pre-criminal social dangerousness for “carrying out dissident activities” and for “having links to antisocial elements” and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment. According to the source, the defendant’s court appearance was manipulated and controlled by the State security services.

8. According to the source, an indictment for establishing links with antisocial elements entails the criminalization of peaceful private and political relations between citizens, who should not have to align their opinions with those of the Government in every instance. The source recalls that article 20, paragraph 1, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

9. The source reports that the defendant’s counsel, Amelia Rodríguez Cala, was unable to act in his defence because of the summary nature of the trial.

10. The source states that Mr. González Moreno was arrested, held in custody and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, not for committing any offence, but for exercising his rights and freedoms in accordance with international law and Cuban legislation. The source considers that this case demonstrates the way in which dissidents are criminalized on the grounds of antisocial behaviour.

11. The source adds that the offence of pre-criminal social dangerousness creates a climate of legal uncertainty in which citizens fear punishment even when they have committed no offence whatsoever. 

12. The source concludes that Mr. González Moreno’s detention is arbitrary. Mr. González Moreno was convicted solely for carrying out trade union activities in a peaceful, civically responsible and independent manner outside the established trade union organizations that are controlled by the Government. The source recalls that article 23, paragraph 4, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims the right of everyone “to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests”. 

13. According to the source, the criminal offence of pre-criminal social dangerousness is arbitrary and unjust insofar as it is used as a legal basis for imprisoning citizens who have committed no actual offence whatsoever. To leave it to a judge, tribunal or court to decide whether or not a person is likely to commit an offence in the future is an arbitrary measure, particularly when it is used to imprison political opponents. To maintain contact or links with dissidents, or even to be a dissident, is not an offence. The source recalls that article 11, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: “No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute
a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.”

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a bricklayer and human rights activist. The following information about him was provided by Amnesty International in 2004 and 2010.

Cuba: Newly declared prisoners of conscience

January 29, 2004 Index Number: AMR 25/002/2004

 

Americas Censorship and Freedom of Expression

In June 2003 Amnesty International declared 75 new Cuban prisoners of conscience after they were detained in a massive government crackdown on dissent which began on 18 March 2003. This brief report gives an account of the charges and arrests of four new prisoners of conscience.

[...]

Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Date of arrest: 20 March 2003

Sentence: No trial yet, but charged with “desacato”, “desordenes publicos”, “public
disorder”, and “desobediencia”.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo is a member of the Movimiento Alternativa Republicana, Alternative Republican Movement, and a member of the Consejo Nacional de Resistencia Cívica, National Civic Resistance Committee.

He has been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were reportedly arrested and later released. He was also arrested on 6 December 2002 along with Oscar Elías Biscet3, but was released on 8 March 2003.

Most recently, he was arrested on the morning of 20 March 2003 whilst taking part in a hunger strike at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and other political prisoners. He was reportedly taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters. He has not been tried yet, but the prosecutor is reportedly asking for three years’ imprisonment for “desacato”, “desordenes publicos”, “public disorder”, and “desobediencia”.

He has reportedly been moved around several prisons, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and most recently, Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. According to reports, on 20 October 2003 he was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations.

3. See Cuba: Continued detentions following mass arrests in February and December 2002 (AI Index: AMR 25/001/2003)

https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/amr250022004en.pdf
 

 Amnesty International, February 24, 2010

Death of Cuban prisoner of conscience on hunger strike must herald change

Amnesty International has urged Cuban President Raúl Castro to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience after a political activist died following a hunger strike.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was reported to have been on hunger strike in protest at prison conditions for several weeks before his death in Havana on Monday.

“The tragic death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo is a terrible illustration of the despair facing prisoners of conscience who see no hope of being freed from their unfair and prolonged incarceration,” said Gerardo Ducos, Amnesty International’s Caribbean researcher.

A full investigation must be carried out to establish whether ill-treatment may have played a part in his death”, added Amnesty International.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested in March 2003 and in May 2004 he was sentenced to three years in prison for “disrespect”, “public disorder” and “resistance”.

He was subsequently tried several times on further charges of “disobedience” and “disorder in a penal establishment”, the last time in May 2009, and was serving a total sentence of 36 years at the time of his death.

“Faced with a prolonged prison sentence, the fact that Orlando Zapata Tamayo felt he had no other avenue available to him but to starve himself in protest is a terrible indictment of the continuing repression of political dissidents in Cuba.

“The death of Orlando Zapata also underlines the urgent need for Cuba to invite international human rights experts to visit the country to verify respect for human rights, in particular obligations in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Background information Orlando Zapata Tamayo was one of 55 prisoners of conscience who have been adopted by Amnesty International in Cuba.

The majority were among the 75 people arrested as part of the massive March 2003 crackdown by authorities against political activists. With no independent judiciary in Cuba, trials are often summary and fall grossly short of international fair trial standards, once sentenced the chances of appeal are virtually nil.

End/ 

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2010/02/death-cuban-prisoner-conscience-hunger-strike-must-herald-change/

 

Some historical context

Between 1902 and 1952 the Cuban labor union movement through collective bargaining and strike actions obtained the following for workers.

• Creation of the Ministry of Labor in 1933, there had been no government body specifically in charge of labor matters before that. 
• Employer liability established in 1933 for work place accidents.
• Eight-hour work day and the right to unionize established in 1933. 
• Labor Nationalization Law established in 1933 obligating that 50% of workers and employees hired by businesses, and management had to be native Cubans.

.Labor legislation passed in 1938 guaranteed Cuban workers' additional rights to: a minimum wage, pensions that assumed a constitutional character; and the creation of the Central of Workers of Cuba  Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC in Spanish)

Cuba's 1940 Constitution further enshrined workers rights into its fundamental law with 26 articles which included:

• Article 66: The maximum working week shall be 44 hours, equivalent to 48 in wages...
• Article 67. The right to paid vacation of one month for each 11 months of work in each calendar year is established for all manual and intellectual workers. Those who, because of the nature of their work or other circumstances, have not worked the 11 months, are entitled to paid rest in proportion to the time worked.
• Article 69. The right of syndicalisation is acknowledged to employers, private employees and workers, for the exclusive purposes of their economic-social activities.
• Article 71. The right of workers to strike, and of employers to stop work, is recognized, in conformity with regulations which will be established by law for the exercise of both rights.
• Article 72. The system of collective labour contracts, which employers and workers are compelled to execute, shall be regulated by law.
• Article 74. The Ministry of Labour shall see, as an essential part among others of its permanent social policy, that in the distribution of opportunities to work in industry and commerce, no discriminatory practices of any kind prevail. In removals of personnel and in the creation of new positions, as well as in new factories, industries or businesses that are established, it shall be obligatory to distribute the opportunities for work without distinction as to race or colour, provided the necessary qualifications as to ability are met. It shall be provided by law that every other practice shall be punishable and prosecutable on Official initiative or at the instance of an affected party. 
  

Strong trade unions and labor legislation in the Cuban Republic were key factor s in rising living standards, improved healthcare outcomes, and the defense of Cuban democracy.

Professor James W. McGuire and Laura B. Frankel in their paper published in the Latin American Research Review, “Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900-1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes” found that “Cuba's progress relative to other Latin American countries at reducing infant mortality was even greater from 1900 to 1960 than from 1960 to 1995. During the earlier period, Cuba led all Latin American countries for which data are available at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. From 1960 to 1995, by contrast, it came in fourth and fifth respectively.”

On January 22, 1959 the CTC was replaced by the CTC-Revolucionaria. In the X Congress, held in November 1959, the Secretary General, David Salvador Manso,"said that the workers had not gone to the event to raise economic demands but to support the revolution." And in the XI Congress, November 1961, the delegates renounced almost all the achievements of the labor movement: "the nine days of leave for sickness, the supplementary Christmas bonus, the weekly shift of 44 x 48 hours, the right to strike and an increase of 9.09%, among many others.

The Hotel Habana Libre that had been owned by the Hotel Workers Labor Union (Sindicato Cubano de Trabajadores de la Gastronomía ) retirement fund was seized by the revolutionary government. The Hospital Maternidad Obrera (built 1939) was taken and fell into disrepair without adequate funding and maintenance by the revolutionary government.Workers were required to do "voluntary work" that was not voluntary.

There is no freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly in Cuba. There are no democratic election, and there is no method of securing human rights against the Cuban state. Proof of this was seen in the July 2021 protests were President Miguel Diaz-Canel gave the order to attack unarmed protesters.

Mario Chanes de Armas

The Miami Herald, Mon, Feb. 26, 2007

MARIO CHANES DE ARMAS, 80

Funeral today for former Cuban political prisoner

A one-time comrade of Fidel Castro and former Cuban political prisoner will be buried Tuesday in Miami after suffering a heart attack.

BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
El Nuevo Herald

Mario Chanes de Armas, the Cuban political prisoner who served the longest sentence in modern times and symbolized the struggle for civic freedom in 20th century Cuba, will be remembered today with a funeral service in Miami.

Chanes, 80, who suffered a fatal heart attack Saturday, spent his life in prison and in exile, but no adversity convinced him to halt his quest for a democratic future for his homeland.

Certainly not during the 30 years he spent in prison for opposing the regime of Fidel Castro, his comrade-in-arms during the failed raid on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba in 1953.

In the past two years, Chanes' health deteriorated rapidly as a consequence of Alzheimer's disease. His memory failed, and in 2005, he was admitted into an assisted living facility in Hialeah.

Chanes died at Hialeah Hospital, where he had been taken in serious condition. His closest relatives were at his bedside.

''He died with the serenity and peace that accompanied him his whole life through,'' said his sister, Belén López. `He was a marvelous and kind man, willing to help everybody in exchange for nothing, a man of an earlier era.''

THE EARLY YEARS

Born in the Marianao neighborhood of Havana on Oct. 25, 1926, Chanes took up commerce after graduating from high school.

Because of his leadership abilities, he soon became a labor leader in the Havana areas of Puentes Grandes and Ceiba and later extended his influence as an organizer to other provinces.

He was on his way to becoming an influential figure in Cuban labor circles, when the military coup of March 10, 1952, led by Gen. Fulgencio Batista, forced him to reassess his future.

Chanes gave up his labor work and joined the underground, where he conspired against Batista. That is where he met Fidel Castro, during a meeting with young people opposed to Batista's regime.

''A dear friend of ours, photographer Fernando Chenard Piña, knew a gentleman named Fidel Castro Ruz, and we began to meet in a house at 109 Prado in Havana,'' Chanes recalled during a long interview with El Nuevo Herald in 2003.

Along with Chenard, Chanes became chief of the secret cells that trained young men in the use of firearms, in preparation for the raid on the Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953. Chanes drove in the third car behind Castro and was wounded in the hand before retreating.

Captured days later outside Santiago de Cuba, he was tried and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, but he was released in 1955 in a general amnesty to the raiders. He then moved to Miami and worked here as a dishwasher.

CASTRO CALLS

Not long thereafter, Castro summoned him from Mexico and asked him to join the expeditionaries aboard the yacht Granma. Chanes did not hesitate to take up arms again. On Dec. 2, 1956, he and 81 other rebels landed on the eastern coast of Cuba.

After the failed landing, Chanes managed to reach Havana, where he directed sabotage teams. He was arrested again, and was in prison when the revolution triumphed, on Jan. 1, 1959.

Chanes became disenchanted by the shift in the revolutionary process toward communism and tried to pull away from the circles of power.

On July 17, 1961, he was arrested on charges of conspiring to assassinate Castro and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. He always maintained that the charges were fabricated, pointing out that no weapons or compromising documents were ever found in his possession.

`A PLANTADO'

Refusing to accept the routine in prison or even wear prison garb, Chanes identified himself as a plantado -- a disobedient inmate -- until July 16, 1991, when he was released.

Chanes found exile in Miami in 1993.

He went on to became a tireless activist for the release of Cuban political prisoners and called for the democratization of Cuba at numerous international conferences. Until 2003, Chanes worked actively in the group Plantados, along with other well-known former political prisoners with whom he served time in Cuban prisons.

Chanes took up the banner of peaceful reconciliation among Cubans and vigorously supported all activists who practiced domestic opposition on the island.

Chanes is survived in Miami by his sisters Belén, Mercedes, Aleida and Merceditas. His son, Mario, died in 1984.

Visiting will begin at 5 p.m. today at the Bernardo Garcia Funeral Home, 4100 NW Seventh St., Miami. Burial has been set for Tuesday.

Miami Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/moncada/chanes-obit.htm

 Amnesty International, 1964

 

David Salvador

 

PRISONER OF THE MONTH
DAVID SALVADOR (CUBA)

(Jailed by Batista, now a prisoner of Castro)

David Salvador was born in Ciego de Avila in August 1923, of a working-class family. At an early age he became convinced that only socialism and nationalism could free Cuba's peasants from their perennial poverty.

At the age of twenty-two he made a radio speech in which he accused the Communists of betraying the workers. Subsequently, an un-successful assassination attempt was made against him.

Salvador became associated with the Cuban People's Party which was almost assured of winning the 1952 election, but on the 10th of March that year Batista staged his coup d'etat, and set up a second dictatorship.

Salvador immediately set up an underground resistance against Batista which was to last seven years.

When Fidel Castro made his attack on Moncada barracks on the 26th of July, 1953, Salvador began to make contact with Fidelistas, and he became one of the founders of the 26th of July Movement in Cuba.

Soon he took over as the leader of revolutionary  labour throughout Cuba, a position which he held until 1960. On October 18th, 1958, Salvador was arrested by the Batista police in Havana.

He was released when the revolution triumphed on January 1st, 1959, and he became the secretary-general of the revolutionary CTC.

But by September 1959, people began to question why so many 26th of July leaders were being replaced by Communists. The purge of leaders had begun.

Salvador complained about what was happening, and in March 1960, he resigned as secretary-general.

On the 5th of November, 1960, just two years after he had been arrested by Batista's police, Salvador was arrested by Castro's police.

He was sent to La Cabana prison for political prisoners where the living conditions are inhuman, and the guards frequently brutal.

His collar bone was broken by the butt of a guard's rifle.

David Salvador was still the elected leader of 1,200,000 Cuban workers during his first year of imprisonment, but he remains in La Cabana serving a thirty-year sentence for his loyalty to the cause of the Cuban revolution.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/nws210151964en.pdf

 

Thank you for your time in reading all of this. 

All eyes on Cuba: Rosa María Payá Acevedo in Havana, Cuba to host award ceremony on Thursday, March 8th

"I suppose it is true in a sense that a man can be a fundamental skeptic, but he cannot be anything else: certainly not even a defender of fundamental skepticism." - G.K. Chesterton 

"Democratic change today in Cuba is possible, even if tyranny pretends otherwise." - Rosa María Payá

Rosa María Payá Acevedo is back in Cuba at her family's home engaged in an exercise of political freedom to honor her martyred father on March 8, 2018 at 11:00am. My prayers and thoughts are with her. One cannot forget that she is at the mercy of the Castro regime that murdered her dad Oswaldo Payá and friend Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012. This same regime then made death threats against her, and the rest of the Payá family.

Let us also not forget that 24 U.S. diplomats in Havana between November 2016 and August 2017 suffered severe injuries, including brain trauma, under circumstances that have not been cleared up or that a Cuban dissident was the victim of a brutal machete attack on May 24, 2015 for advocating to keep a school open in Cuba.


This is why it remains important for friends of freedom to follow her on social media and raise the alarm if and when danger seems imminent or she is actually under attack. On March 6, 2018 at 10:07am Rosa extended the following invitation in Spanish, "Thursday 8/3 at 11:00am we invite civil society and interested citizens, accredited and independent press, diplomatic corps of democratic countries and above all, you, to the Payá Award, murdered in Cuba 2012 by the Castro regime that today seeks to perpetuate itself."

Jueves 8/3 a 11am invitamos a sociedad civil y ciudadanía interesada, prensa acreditada e independiente, cuerpo diplomático de países democráticos y, sobre todo, a ti, a entrega del Premio Payá, asesinado en Cuba 2012 por el régimen castrista que hoy busca perpetuarse @CUBADECIDE https://t.co/ThUXq9B37w

— Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) March 6, 2018

Arrests and detentions are already taking place to prevent dissidents from attending the ceremony in what may be shaping up to be a crackdown. Independent journalist Agustín López Canino has been detained. Activists Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, and Sayli Navarro are being held under house arrest in order to prevent them attending the ceremony on Thursday.

Latin American leaders have applied for visas to enter Cuba, including Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) and Jaime Bellolio, a member of Chile's Chamber of Deputies.Will the Castro regime allow them to enter?

This is a time to be vigilant, keep all eyes on Cuba, and to denounce repression and other irregularities.

Bacardi, Rosa María Payá and CubaDecide

 The Bacardi family continues its 150 year tradition of defending Cuban independence and freedom

Today was a day of worry with news that Rosa María Payá had her passport taken away at the airport by regime officials missing her flight to Miami. She had arrived in Cuba on July 17, 2017 to mark five years since her father Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and friend Harold Cepero Escalante had been killed under suspicious circumstances on July 22, 2012. She organized a mass on July 20th and visited her dad's tomb with friends and drew attention to the challenges facing Cuba in 2017 and continued to demand justice for her loved ones. However there is also cause for optimism.

Rosa María Payá with Ladies in White during Mass for Oswaldo and Harold on 7/20/17

Bacardi, Rosa María Payá and CubaDecide
The Bacardi family is the antithesis of the Castro family in Cuban history through to the present day. Consider for a moment that Angel Castro, Fidel and Raul Castro's father fought for the Spanish crown against Cuban independence. The Castro brothers emerged out of the worse elements of political gangsterism to impose a dictatorship that has lasted 58 years. In contrast two generations of the Bacardi family fought for Cuban independence with one family member fighting alongside General Antonio Maceo. During the Republic the family not only had enlightened business practices but also engaged in civic activities that promoted a democratic culture. Each time that dictatorship arose in Cuba under Machado, Batista and Castro the Bacardis joined the democratic resistance. Now they have recognized the work of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and that of his daughter, Rosa María Payá and they are supporting the Cuba Decide initiative to push for a democratic transition.

Sayli Navarro, unidentified activist, Rosa María Payá,, and Ivan Hernandez Carrillo,

On July 20, 2017  The Bacardi Family Foundation issued a press release that states, in part, "Cuba Decide: A citizens’ demand for a plebiscite in Cuba is underway and building support on the island and across the world on the heels of the 5th Anniversary of the attack which took the life of Cuban Opposition leader, Oswaldo Payá. The Bacardi Family Foundation selects the citizen movement as their flagship program to support during the 2017 and 2018 year."

The news did not come out of the blue. Back on April 21, 2017  The Bacardi Family Foundation reported it was "working with the Cuba Decide project, the citizen movement for plebiscite in Cuba.  Cuba Decide is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, citizen initiative, whose goal is to organize a vote that changes the oppressive communist party-ruled system into a democratic, multiparty one."

This is a continuation of a long family tradition recognized by Bacardi briefly while downplaying their historic contributions to Cuban independence and liberty as follows:

"Since its early days in Santiago de Cuba, the Bacardi family has demonstrated a belief that our great blessings come with a responsibility to be a positive force in our community. Individually, family members have carried on this tradition as our numbers have grown and as our community has expanded to encompass much of the globe. Since 1997, with the creation of the Bacardi Family Foundation, we have dedicated resources to augment the efforts of family members who wish to continue in the tradition of social stewardship."

Past is prologue
The Bacardi family, began their world famous Rum business in Santiago de Cuba in 1862. Don Facundo Bacardí Massó founded Bacardi Limited on February 4, 1862. The family would also play an important role in civic life in Cuba, especially Santiago over the next century, and were constant opponents of dictatorship, political corruption and remained ardent Cuban nationalists over several generations. Forced into exile by the Castro regime the Bacardi family has maintained the traditions of the Cuban Republic celebrating independence day, carrying on the family business and continuing the fight for a free Cuba.

Emilio Bacardi Moreau

 A history of the Bacardi family written by Tom Gjelten, a reporter for National Public Radio titled Bacardi and The Long Fight for Cuba :The Biography of a Cause led to renewed interest in their role in Cuba's independence.  A 2008 review of the book in The New York Times by Randy Kennedy touches on the figure of Emilio Bacardi Moreau.

Emilio Bacardi, especially, comes to life as the book’s most powerful character, though one so strange that Gabriel García Márquez might have invented him. Emilio was imprisoned twice by Spain off the coast of Morocco for his revolutionary activities. But he still managed to hold the company together, to serve as Santiago’s mayor during the unsettled years of the American occupation, to help found a salon called the Victor Hugo Freethinker Group, to practice theosophy in a predominantly Catholic country and to track down a genuine mummy on a trip to Egypt, which he bought as the centerpiece for a museum he had founded in San­tiago. (Modest he was not; he signed his revolutionary correspondence with the name Phocion, after the Athenian statesman known as “the good.”)

His son Emilio Bacardi Lay actively took part in Cuba's war of independence. In 1895, he was a field officer for Gen. Antonio Maceo during the invasion of Cuba by independence forces. He reached the rank of colonel by the age of 22. He fled Cuba in 1961 due to the Castro regime. Bacardi Imports, Inc., re-established its headquarters in Miami in 1963 after having been based for a century in Santiago de Cuba. Emilio Bacardi Lay died in exile in Miami on October 14, 1972 at the age of 95 and was the last surviving ranking officer of Cuba's war of independence with Spain.

Must read biography of the Bacardi family by Tom Gjelten

This is the history that the Castro dynasty would like to erase but no matter how much they try they will fail because history is what it is and the facts are the facts. Meanwhile to all who read this please consider that if you wish to make a toast to freedom with alcoholic spirits then do it with Bacardi.

The Case for a Reboot of U.S. Cuba Policy

"They are selling a virtual reality as if it was real change, and that is fraud. It is outrageous." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Cuban opposition leader interviewed on October 3, 2011

 The New York Times has published an Editorial titled "Undoing All the Good Work on Cuba" that rehashes Obama Administration talking points that advance a specific policy agenda, although ignoring the current situation, changing policies over the past half century, security concerns, and how sanctions on the Castro regime have protected US taxpayers.


During the eight years of the Obama Administration the situation for Cuban opposition leaders became more precarious and this was demonstrated with the deaths of high profile figures that could have over seen a democratic transition such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Laura Inés Pollán Toledo.

The current situation

Levels of violence against dissidents worsened while the old totalitarian patterns of repression still endure.  Rising violent repression against political dissidents in Cuba, including crippling and disfiguring machete attacks, became a high profile regime tactic starting in 2013. The case of Sirley Avila Leon in May of 2015 is well documented, even if it is not widely well known because The New York Times did not find it "fit to print" but thankfully others have.

Machete attack victims 2013 - 2015

 There is no right to education in Cuba if you dissent from the official line. Fếlix Yuniel Llerena López, a 20 year-old religious freedom defender, was expelled from the Enrique José Varona Pedagogical University in Havana on May 8, 2017 following a visit to the United States. 18-year-old journalism student, Karla Pérez González, was expelled from Marta Abreu University of Santa Clara for “political reasons” on April 12, 2017 and her expulsion ratified three days later on April 15th. 24 year old David Mauri Cardoso was expelled from the University of Cienfuegos in February of 2017 after he honestly answered politically loaded questions in what was supposed to be a Spanish literature exam.

If you have a relative who is a dissident, although you are not, you can still be fired from your job. Professor Dalila Rodriguez from the University of Las Villas was expelled from her job on May 9, 2017 because her father, Leonardo Rodriguez is a dissident. 

Dissidents have been jailed and mistreated in psychiatric facilities in Cuba. The practice continues today with Daniel Llorente Miranda, the dissident who on May Day ran out in front of the parade with an American flag shouting out for a free Cuba, held in Mazorra.

There is no right to travel for Cuban nationals and dissenters are regularly denied exit and entry. Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, and Sayli Navarro were denied the right to travel by the Castro regime on June 4, 2017. 

Amnesty International has recognized Eduardo Cardet as a new Cuban prisoner of conscience and has an urgent action underway for his release.


What is taking place in Cuba is fake change. The regime is working to achieve regime succession and prevent a democratic transition in Cuba.

Policy changes over the past half century

The argument made by the Obama Administration and repeated by The New York Times that "hard-line sanctions-based approach was in place for more than 50 years after the 1959 revolution and never produced what anti-Castro activists hoped would be the result" is both a straw man argument and untrue.

The Castro regime beginning in 1959 sent armed expeditions to Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to overthrow their governments. The regime's destabilization policy led two thirds of the 21 states of Latin America voting to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States on February 14, 1963.   A cache of three tons of weapons was found on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963 that was to be used to disrupt the democratic elections there.

Due to the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle that consolidated Castro's rule and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that ruled out a direct U.S. invasion, economic sanctions were put in place not to eliminate the Castro regime but limit its ability to expand into the rest of the hemisphere and to force the Soviet Union to expend large sums in keeping the Castro regime afloat which may have contributed to the USSR's demise in 1991.  The embargo was not designed to overthrow the Castro regime but to contain its mission to destabilize other governments in the region.

President Carter ended Cuba travel embargo and began normalizing relations in 1977

On April 27, 1977 representatives of the Carter Administration and the Castro regime sat down and personally negotiated an international fishery agreement. This was the first time since 1958 that any officials of the United States government sat down with representatives of the Castro regime to formally negotiate an agreement. 

President Carter in an interview with Robert Fulghum on December 19, 1996 quoted on page 310 of the book Conversations with Carter said: "When I had only been in office two months in 1977, I opened up all travel for American citizens to go to Cuba and vice versa. And we opened up an entry section, which is just one step short of a full embassy in both Havana and Washington. And those offices, by the way, are still open."

Outcomes of Carter normalization with Castro regime

Robert A. Pastor, of The Carter Center in July 1992 in the report "The Carter Administration and Latin America: A Test of Principle" summed the outcome of the Carter policy on Cuba: "In November 1977 there were 400 Cuban military advisers in Ethiopia; by April 1978 there were 17,000 Cuban troops there serving under a Soviet general.

The Castro regime also played a crucial role in the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua while the Carter Administration imposed sanctions on the Somoza regime when it refused to pursue democratic reforms. According to Robert Pastor:  "Somoza pretended the sanctions had no effect on him. He doubled the size of the National Guard and evidently believed he was secure. However, by May 1979, with Cuban President Fidel Castro's help, the three Sandinista factions had united and established a secure and ample arms flow from Cuba through Panama and Costa Rica."

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 mentally ill into the exodus. 

Towards the end of the Carter Administration the discovery of a Soviet ground forces brigade operating on Cuban territory and the ineptness in handling the Mariel boat lift crisis spelled not only the end of the policy but was also a contributing factor to the defeat of President Carter during his 1980 re-election bid. 

This first attempt at normalizing relations saw a worsening human rights situation in Cuba, a migration crisis and reversals in US interests in the region.

President Reagan restores Cuba embargo in 1981 and challenges Castro regime on international stage

Carter's policy of détente was rejected by the Reagan administration. Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 and re-imposed the travel ban, toughened economic sanctions, in 1982 placed the Castro regime on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and started Radio Marti to break through the communist monopoly with uncensored information for Cubans on the island. 

Ronald Reagan backed the creation of a Radio Free Cuba to break Castro regime's information monopoly over the Cuban people beginning in 1981. When it finally went on the air in 1985 Radio Marti marked a before and after inside Cuba. At the time President Reagan hoped that Radio Marti would ''help defuse the war hysteria on which much of current Cuban Government policy is predicated.'' 

Outcomes

The Castro regime's response was to end an immigration agreement and suspend the visits to Cuba by Cubans living in the United States. The Reagan Administration named former Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and made human rights in Cuba a priority there. The end result was that for the first and last time Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission were able to visit Cuban political prisoners inside the island. There was no Cuba migration crisis during the Reagan Administration.

President Clinton seeks rapprochement with Castro regime in 1993

The Clinton Administration in 1994 initiated regular contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military that included joint military exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. Despite this improvement of relations the 1990s saw some brutal massacres of Cubans that are rightly remembered such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters.  This led to the signing of the Helms - Burton Bill later in 1996, but as soon as he was re-elected President Clinton renewed his drive for normalized relations with the Castro regime. 

Outcomes
 
The worsening human rights situation was a contributing factor in the August 1994 rafter crisis in which 35,000 Cubans fled the country. Experts have identified that this was a migration crisis engineered by the Castro regime. The Cuban dictatorship did this because it successfully reasoned that it could coerce the Clinton Administration to the negotiating table to obtain concessions which indeed it did and prolonged the life of the dictatorship  President Clinton  shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and opened cash and carry trade with the dictatorship loosening economic sanctions.  This new period of engagement coincided with the rise of Hugo Chavez and reversals of the democratic gains made in the 1980s and early 1990s.

President Obama pursues normalization of relations with Castro regime in 2009
 
The Obama Administration beginning in 2009 loosened sanctions on the Castro regime. On his watch concluding on December 17, 2014 the Obama administration freed all five members of the WASP spy network, including Gerardo Hernandez -- who was serving two life sentences, one of them for conspiracy to murder four members of Brothers to the Rescue murdered during the previous attempt at normalizing relations during the Clinton Administration. They de-linked the pursuit of full diplomatic relations from the rise in human rights violations in Cuba and in the region by Cuban state security.

The Obama administration doubled down on concessions ignoring the Castro regime's continuing sponsorship of terrorism and smuggling of weapons to North Korea in order to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. President Obama followed through on his pledge made at the State of the Union to work for the lifting of economic sanctions on the dictatorship.

The Obama Administration marginalized dissidents and downplayed their importance early on in 2009 refusing to meet with them; the Obama State Department threatened the daughter of a martyred dissident in order to protect the sensibilities of the Castro regime's foreign minister in 2015. Not to mention claiming that there was no room for dissidents at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana later that same year.

President Obama went to Cuba with his family in March of 2016, in the midst of a human rights crackdown, and legitimized Raul Castro's regime before an international audience. In October of 2016. Less than a year after a fleeing refugee was shot in the back in the spring of 2015 by a Cuban state security agent. Mr. Obama issued a Presidential Policy Directive ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to share information with the Castro regime's secret police.  In January of 2017, in one of his final acts, President Obama further gutted the Cuban Adjustment Act ushering in the wholesale deportation of Cubans fleeing to the United States.

Outcomes

President Obama on December 17, 2014 claimed to have charted a "new" course on Cuba but in reality it was a very old and discredited policy applied in Cuba of marginalizing democrats and embracing dictators for perceived gain.

Human rights have deteriorated in Cuba with rising levels of violence against nonviolent activists. including machete attacks, and the suspicious deaths of human rights defenders such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo (2010), Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia (2011), Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (2011), Wilman Villar Mendoza (2012), Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (2012), and Harold Cepero Escalante (2012).

There were 9,940 politically motivated arbitrary detentions over the course of  2016. In 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration, there were just 869 arbitrary detentions documented. During the eight years of the Obama White House there has been an eleven fold increase in politically motivated arbitrary detentions with 2016 being the worse. Religious repression escalated in Cuba in 2016 including the beating of pastors, the confiscation of Churches and some demolished by the dictatorship.

This worsening situation in Cuba is also reflected in an increase in Cubans fleeing the island. In 2008 there were slightly more than 10,000 visaless Cubans entering the United States compared to 46,635 visaless Cubans entering the United States in the first ten months of 2016.

On the economic front the Obama White House repeatedly claimed to have achieved $6 billion in trade with Cuba under the new policy but the actual number according to the U.S. census bureau is $380.5 million dollars in trade in goods with Cuba.

 

Trade between Cuba and the United States imploded under the Obama Administration. Peak year of U.S. trade in goods with Cuba was 2008, the last year of the Bush Administration. The two worst years in trade are the ones following the new Cuba policy launch in December of 2014. All of the details are available at the U.S. Census Bureau. The Cuban economy contracted in 2016 and at the same time military control over it has expanded.

The consequences in the region have also been negative. The Castro regime's military and intelligence services have been heavily involved in the attempt to build and impose a totalitarian regime in Venezuela for the past 18 years. Furthermore in Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Ecuador regimes with links to Havana pursue an anti-democratic agenda. Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban dissident blogger journalist, wrote a May 28, 2017 entry titled "The Kremlin is Back."  The Russians returned to Cuba, and made new inroads into Latin America during the Obama years.  


Conclusion

The New York Times has a terrible track record in Cuba and its latest editorial continues that lamentable tradition trying to make the case for the Trump Administration to continue the failed policies of the Obama Administration on Cuba. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day and The New York Times on December 8, 2016 reported how increased U.S. tourism to Cuba has meant more food shortages for Cubans because food production is geared to tourists. The record indicates that the case for tightening sanctions, and pushing a human rights centered policy will best serve both U.S. national interests and the prospects for a non-violent democratic transition.

The good work on Cuba was undone by the Obama Administration when it prioritized engaging with the Castro dictatorship, marginalized Cuban democrats, ignored the regime's support for outlaw regimes, and terrorist groups all in the service of a flawed policy.