Nine years ago on February 23, 2010 prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on hunger strike in Cuba after years of racist taunts and torture by prison officials

"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*
 

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, human rights defender

Born: May 15, 1967 -  Died: February 23, 2010

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a human rights defender who was unjustly imprisoned in the Spring of 2003 and was tortured by Cuban prison officials and state security agents over the next six years and ten months. He died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, aggravated by prison guards refusing him water in an effort to break his spirit. He is a victim of Cuban communism.

Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was killed under suspicious circumstances on July 22, 2012, issued a statement the same day that Orlando died and appeared in a photograph holding up a photocopy of the martyred human rights defender name and image. 

"Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison guards and State Security. Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park. He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced to more than thirty years in prison." 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with photocopy image of Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Remembering Orlando Zapata

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born in Santiago, Cuba on May 15, 1967. He was by vocation a brick layer and also a human rights activist, a member of the Movimiento Alternativa Republicana, Alternative Republican Movement, and of the Consejo Nacional de Resistencia Cívica, National Civic Resistance Committee. Orlando gathered signatures for the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to amend the Cuban constitution using legal means with the aim of bringing Cuba in line with international human rights standards.

     Amnesty International had documented how Orlando had been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November of 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were arrested and later released. He was also arrested on December 6, 2002 along with fellow prisoners of conscience Oscar Elías Biscet and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo.  

 
     Dr. Biscet just released from prison a month earlier had sought to form a grassroots project for the promotion of human rights called "Friends of Human Rights." State security prevented them from entering the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners." They were then arrested and taken to the Tenth Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, Décima Unidad de La Policía Nacional Revolucionaria (PNR), in Havana.

 
    Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released three months later on March 8, 2003, but Oscar Elias Biscet, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo remained imprisoned. On the morning of March 20, 2003 whilst taking part in a fast at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and the other political prisoners. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters. 

Orlando's mom, Reina Luisa Tamayo, holds up son's bloodstained shirt

     He was moved around several prisons, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. Where according to Amnesty International on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out following a brutal beating it was published in April of 2004:

"My dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]."*

On May 18, 2004 Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo were each sentenced to three years in prison for contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a one-day trial. Orlando Zapata Tamayo would continue his rebelliousness and his non-violent resistance posture while in prison and suffer numerous beatings and new charges of disobedience and disrespect leading to decades added to his prison sentence in eight additional trials.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo in better days.

Protests for Orlando Zapata Tamayo continue
Nine years have passed but the martyred Cuban human rights defender has not been forgotten. From the beginning the regime sought to put down and silence protests and acts of remembrance for him, but failed. In March of 2010 at the second Geneva Summit for Human Rights former prisoner of conscience Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo testified to what had happened to Orlando Zapata. In Norway, regime agents became violent and created international controversy after a Cuban diplomat bit a young Norwegian-Cuban woman for trying to record her mom engaged in a protest remembering Orlando Zapata Tamayo in front of the Cuban Embassy in Oslo in May of 2010.


On September 30, 2010 the Canadian punk rock band released a song linking what happened to Orlando Zapata Tamayo to the indifference of Canadian tourists visiting Cuba asking the question: Where were you the day Orlando Zapata died? On May 10, 2012 the Free Cuba Foundation published a video accompanying the song, after receiving the band's permission, with images and song lyrics.

On 2/19/2018 twenty activists remember Orlando Zapata Tamayo in Cuba.

Four days prior to marking eight years to the day that Orlando Zapata died, activists inside Cuba took to protest in the streets with banners remembering the courageous and martyred human rights activist.
The Castro regime did all it could to eliminate the memory of this humble and good man. The dictatorship failed.

The importance of remembrance
Friends of freedom all too often are on the defensive explaining who and what they are against. The lives of courageous nonviolent activists such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Harold Cepero Escalante, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo and the four men murdered in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down who were martyred by the Castro dictatorship should be remembered and told to others. 

The enemies of freedom do not like to have such heroes remembered and honored.  For example on May 24, 2010 in Oslo, Norway a Cuban diplomat attacked and bit a 19 year old Cuban-Norwegian girl who was filming her mother's protest on behalf of Orlando Zapata Tamayo outside of the Cuban embassy. The whole episode was a public relations disaster for the Castro dictatorship in Norway.
 
Take action on Sunday
On Sunday, February 24, 2019 at 3:00pm sharp join us at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC to protest this and other crimes of the Castro regime. If you are not in the area then make your own poster and take a selfie holding it up in protest. Ni1Mas! Not1More. Elie Wiesel is right: "To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death."

*Source: "Queridos hermanos míos de la oposición interna de Cuba", escribió Zapata en su misiva, "tengo muchas cosas que decirles, pero no he querido hacerlo por papel y tinta, pues espero ir a ustedes un día cuando nuestra patria sea libre y sin dictadura castrista. Vivan los derechos humanos, con mi sangre les escribí, para que la guarden como parte del salvajismo de que somos víctima el presidio político Pedro Luis Boitel". - "Golpiza y celda tapiada para Orlando Zapata"  La Habana, 22 de abril 2004 (María López, Lux Info Press / www.cubanet.org  

Havel at 80: Remembering Václav Havel's legacy of truth telling and freedom

"I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you." - Václav Havel, New Year's Message, 1990

Václav Havel was that rarest of statesmen, a great and good man. Today, we observe the 80th anniversary of his birth. In Washington D.C. the National Endowment for Democracy has spent the day reflecting on the Czech play write, who became a dissident, a prisoner of conscience, president of Czechoslovakia, resigned in protest over the velvet divorce, then president of the Czech republic and finally citizen and play write once again. All the while he demonstrated his solidarity with victims of repression in his own country and around the world.

The fruits of his legacy can be seen in the work of Forum 2000, an annual gathering of politicians, philosophers, artists, scientists, and the public to reflect on important issues challenging civilization. The topic on the twentieth gathering of Forum 2000 is "The Courage to take Responsibility."

When some Cuban democrats falsely claim that they are alone in the world confronting the Castro dictatorship, one need only remind them of Václav Havel who exchanged letters with Cuban opposition democrats Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Oscar Elías Bicet. The same Havel that on his last trip as president of the Czech Republic traveled to Florida International University and addressed the Cuban people in 2002. Havel invited Cuban dissidents and exiles to the Forum 2000 in Prague a practice that has continued until the present.

These are difficult times with the passing of moral exemplars, such as Elie Wiesel earlier this year. All the more reason to remember the words and deeds of individuals such as Václav Havel.

In 1968, after Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring, an effort by Czechoslovak communist reformers to build socialism with a human face, Havel wrote the following to the Czechoslovak President Alexander Dubcek who had been one of the reformers later purged: "Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." 

Havel believed that moral actions, no matter how small or futile they may appear at the time can have profound consequences for both freedom and a just society. It is because the world is not a puzzle to be solved but incredibly much more complex that decisions of right and wrong made by each person have such great importance.

In 2009, President Barack Obama had backed out of meeting with the Dalai Lama due to an upcoming trip to China, Havel offered the following reflection on October 12, 2009 at the Forum 2000 conference:

I believe that when the new Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize postpones receiving the Dalai Lama until after he has accomplished his visit to China, he makes a small compromise, a compromise which actually has some logic to it. However, there 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.

It is also important to remember that Havel had a great sense of humor especially about the absurd. This is another legacy that is observed on December 18th of each year the “Short Trousers for Václav Havel” initiative started in 2012.

Short Trousers is a reference to Havel stepping into political life in 1989 and his inauguration to the presidency in visibly short trousers. He explained vainly that rather than a tailor’s mistake it was his habit to pull his pants up at every dramatic situation. To this, one might say global mythology of his short trousers, he added with a smile: "I must say that I am glad of it, more or less. From my point of view it’s a pretty gentle way of mocking myself."

Let us remember and honor this man passing on his ideas and what he did to new generations while at the same time heeding his prophetic warnings for our civilization. On February 21, 1990 in an address to the U.S. Congress he warned of catastrophe if there was not profound change:

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our Being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed, whether it be ecological, social, demographic or a general breakdown of civilization, will be unavoidable. If we are no longer threatened by world war or by the danger that the absurd mountains of accumulated nuclear weapons might blow up the world, this does not mean that we have definitively won. We are in fact far from definite victory. 

Crackdown in Cuba as international media there engage in self censorship and regime propaganda

Repression in Cuba and the under reporting by the international press.

Image loaded by Cuban Activist Angel Moya with text "They're going to arrest us"

A crackdown is underway on democratic opposition activists in Cuba, but you won't learn about it from the various news bureaus on the island. Today over twitter Cuban dissident leader Angel Moya Acosta reported more than 200 hundred dissidents arrested in Oriente-Camaguey, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia. Among Moya's last tweets on Sunday afternoon he reported that 48 Ladies in White were marching through 5th Avenue in Havana and at 1:49pm that they were going to be arrested. 

Oscar Elias Biscet along with 24 other activists were arrested yesterday to prevent them peacefully associating. Lady in White Maria Cristina Labrada was arrested following a search of her home by state security agents. Others are being hunted by state security and the national revolutionary police.  On Friday state security bused in school children to take part in an act of repudiation against the Ladies in White. Activists in the island photographed and video recorded the proceedings but international journalists, self censored and did not report it.

Children brought in by state security for act of repudiation

The international press in Cuba understand that if they report the news objectively in the island the Castro dictatorship will not grant them interviews and may expel them from the country or not renew their accreditation. 

Unfortunately, some in the press have gone beyond omission to publishing articles that are essentially Castro regime propaganda. Two high profile news organizations that have been engaged in this practice, the first since 1959 and the second more recently are The New York Times and the Associated Press. Sadly this is not a new practice or confined to Cuba.

It is important to criticize those in the press who go along with regime lies and profit from the deception while recalling how this is a profound failure of their ethical and professional duties as journalists. However at the same time one must praise the courageous few that published the truth and paid the ultimate price for practicing good journalism.

Courageous Welsh journalist broke story on Russian famine

Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist broke the story on the Ukranian famine on March 29, 1933 despite official denials. Walter Duranty of The New York Times wrote an article a day later rebutting Jones's claims that was published in the paper of record on March 31, 1933. In the end seven million starved to death in a communist regime manufactured famine in the Ukraine between 1931 and 1933. He was banned from returning to Russia by the Soviet regime. Two years after publishing this story he was murdered in Inner Mongolia on the eve of his 30th birthday by Chinese bandits in what his family believes was a Moscow plot to punish him.

In the case of Cuba, The New York Times actively promoted Fidel Castro over other opposition figures in the struggle against Cuban dictator Batista with the reporting of Herbert Matthews. Once Fidel Castro was in power in January of 1959 and consolidating his communist regime over the first few months of his dictatorship the New York Times continued to defend the young dictator. In July of 1959 Matthews reported: "[t]his is not a Communist Revolution in any sense of the term. Fidel Castro is not only not a Communist, he is decidedly anti-Communist."

Over a half century later and the totalitarian dictatorship in Cuba has an international press corps that carries on the shameful tradition of Walter Duranty and Herbert Matthews. The New York Times continues with coverage and editorial page that goes as far as providing advice to the dictatorship on how to build coalitions with U.S. business to change Cuba policy in Washington. 

However the Associated Press has gone further in reporting that: 1) Leaves out critical facts to advance lifting sanctions and providing credits to the dictatorship. 2) Describing common sense precautions by foreign based NGOs as a "clandestine operation" in language used by the regime while also engaging in the same practices themselves. 3) Consistently providing coverage that portrays the democratic opposition in a negative light repeating the Cuban dictatorship's talking points with the most recent example being on January 8, 2015. 4) Not providing context of the totalitarian nature of the regime and the "demonstrators" bussed in by the political police to attack pro-democracy activists on International Human Rights day. 

Andrea Rodríguez, the correspondent of the Associated Press in Cuba, is a worse case example of all the above practices and was challenged by the late Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas after one of her biased filled articles. On September 20, 2011 the Cuban human rights defender released the video he had made of his interview with Andrea Rodriguez because he believed that what he had told her was not fairly reflected in the article she had written. He provided a transcript along with the video of the interview and in it challenged the false narrative peddled by The New York Times and the Associated Press stating:

"Where in the world does a woman dressed in white walking down the street constitute a provocation? Only in a fascist-communist regime like this. Therefore the victim gets criticized because no one dares to criticize the executioner.

There is a real “moral inversion,” in what the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, diplomats and politicians are doing against the people of Cuba and against the dissident right now. They judge the persecuted, the poor, those who are silenced, but they do not dare to judge the government. And what the government needs to be told is what we say in “the People’s Path”. Hold free elections; change the law so Cubans can express themselves, so they can choose. But what they want is to keep their privileges while they say that everything has been agreed upon. This joke will go very wrong because the people of Cuba are not stupid, and the majority are still poor and distressed.

But the worst is that the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, and entire states are accompanying the Cuban government in setting up this fraud, this joke that will bring only confrontation and pain to Cubans, and that is keeping the majority of the Cuban people silent and gagged while this virtual scenario for change is being created.

Sadly, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed on July 22, 2012 and all the evidence points to an extrajudicial execution carried out by the Castro regime's security services. However on July 22, 2012, despite the misgivings of Oswaldo's family, the AP correspondent in Havana over twitter echoed the official position of the Castro regime. The truth of what happened is coming out and the regime's false narrative is crumbling, no thanks to the Associated Press or The New York Times.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was murdered but his legacy of speaking truth to power in the defense of human rights and freedom lives on as do his words and the Christian Liberation Movement that he founded.

World War III, Syrian Refugees and Prudence

"Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all." - Edmund Burke

Christians are being targeted for genocide but U.S. State Department silent

Pope Francis on September 13, 2014 declared that World War III was already underway and that it was "one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction." His Holiness also declared the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris a part of this war.

The United States is already engaged in this war with troops on the ground in Syria that predate the November 13th attacks and that will now be intensified. Patrick J. Buchanan in an important column outlines what has been going on in the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS):

The President’s strategy is to contain, degrade and defeat ISIS. While no one has provided the troops to defeat ISIS, the U.S. is using Kurdish and Yazidi forces, backed by U.S. air power, to degrade it. And recent months have seen measured success. The Kurds have run ISIS out of Kobani, captured much of the Turkish-Syrian border, and moved to within 30 miles of Raqqa, the ISIS capital. Yazidis and Kurds last week recaptured Sinjar in Iraq and cut the highway between Mosul and Raqqa. The terrorist attacks in Paris, the downing of the Russian airliner in Sinai, the ISIS bomb that exploded in the Shiite sector of Beirut, are ISIS’s payback. But they could also be signs that the ISIS caliphate, imperiled in its base, is growing desperate and lashing out.

Now there is a debate raging in the United States concerning what to do about Syrian refugees fleeing from the Islamic State. This requires both courage, prudence and a recognition of the realities on the ground over there and over here.

First, the United States does not have its borders under control and terrorist cells are probably already in the United States. At the same time American intelligence services have, following the September 11, 2001 debacle, had a decent record in stopping terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Secondly, ISIS has been engaged in all out genocide against religious minorities in the territory it occupies targeting Yazidis, Christians, and Turkmen. Christians in the Middle East, especially with the start of the second Iraq war have been victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide, but this has been ignored by both the Bush and Obama administrations. This could be the end of Christianity in the Middle East and the U.S. State Department refuses to recognize this ongoing situation.

Back in April 2015, I met with the president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, Juliana Taimoorazy, and blogged about this issue which predates the Iraq war with the Armenian genocide that began a hundred years ago in 1915 that ended in 1923 targeting Christians.
 
In the 1930s the failure of Western Democracies to take in Jewish refugees highlighted in the disgraceful episode of the SS St. Louis Voyage of the Damned in 1939 sent a signal to the Nazis that they could do what they wanted with the Jewish population in Europe without any consequences.

Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen are being targeted for extermination and need to be given refuge. This should be done in a prudent manner, taking safeguards, but remembering that the lesson of the Good Samaritan in the Bible calls out to us to protect and assist refugees. Father Longenecker offers the following counsel, although his scope is narrower than mine:

..."Christian charity demands that we welcome the stranger and give solace to the homeless where we are able. We are the richest and most prosperous and bountiful country in history. We can, and should make room for the homeless and those displaced by war–especially as our own involvement in the Middle East has contributed to the mess. We have meddled in the countries of the Middle East–in their politics, their economics, their wars and their military coups. We’ve propped and then toppled their dictators. We’ve invaded their countries and bombed their people. Of course we should take in their homeless refugees. On the other hand, when you see the hordes of fit young men streaming across the European borders you can’t help but suspect that these are not refugees but an invading army. Should we open the borders to just anyone? Of course not. Why can’t anyone use common sense? ... Furthermore, why not be even more selective and take only family groups with husband, wife and children or one parent and their children or family groups with extended family members like grandparents? Are there single people who need help? Accept women and their children. Accept old people. Accept the disabled, the poor and blind. In that way we offer loving Christian charity to those in need while excluding those who might be a risk."

Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen should be provided refuge and measures set up to avoid taking in terrorists disguised as refugees. Senator Cruz's call to give a priority to Christian refugees entering the United States should be rooted in the recognition that they are the largest group in the area targeted for genocide. Shiite Muslims have Iran as a nearby sanctuary. At the same time it is imperative to get the borders and ports of the United States under greater control to prevent the incursion of more terrorists.

It is also important to remember that not all Christians and Yazidis are leaving, some have stayed to fight and take their last stand against ISIS. A friend of mine Jordan Allot, who made a documentary on Cuban prisoner of conscience Oscar Elías Bicet in 2010, traveled to Iraq and Syria with an Assyrian-American school teacher from New York to raise awareness about the plight of the Christian communities there and made the documentary Our Last Stand.

The threat of terrorism remains and we are in the midst of a terrible global conflict but we should not lose our humanity in confronting it or showing solidarity with its victims, but we must do so prudently in order not to compound the present evils.

Cuban and Venezuelan solidarity in the midst of crisis: A brief and incomplete summary

"To save freedom in Venezuela is do it in Cuba. Everyone to participate in this historic event. Neither Maduro nor Castro, we want freedom!" -  Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez, announcing from Cuba solidarity protests in support of Venezuelan Democratic Resistance on February 20, 2014 

Activists in Cuba protesting in support of Leopoldo López and Venezuela

Cubans have suffered under the grip of a totalitarian communist dictatorship imposed by the Castro brothers since 1959. They understand better than most what the stakes are for the democratic resistance in Venezuela. On August 25, 2013, Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo of the Christian Liberation Movement in an address to the Christian Democrats of the Americas placed the Venezuelan situation in a regional context:

"The Cuban government is not legitimate, as the Venezuelan government is not and will not be because presidents of the world shake hands with the impostors in power, it will be much less because they spearhead regional organizations like the CELAC, as is the case of the Cuban dictator, to the shame of Latin America. Legitimacy is delivered by the people at the polls, in free elections, in an atmosphere of respect and safety. We all know that's not what happened in April in Venezuela and we all know that has not occurred in Cuba for more than 60 years."

Christian Liberation Movement's logo in Venezuelan colors

 Both on the island and in exile there have been actions in solidarity with people of Venezuela struggling to be free. These are but a small sample there are many more examples:

On February 16, 2014 the Christian Liberation Movement tweeted: "Castro tyranny sends thugs to Venezuela, we send them the L of Liberation" and posted the above logo with Venezuelan colors.

On February 20, 2014 members of the internal Venezuelan resistance and their Cuban counterparts released a joint declaration of coordinated actions in their respective countries at a press conference held in Miami. 

On February 24, 2014 members of the Cuban exile and FIU communities gathered to hold a silent vigil for four victims of the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown and the students murdered since February 12, 2014 in Venezuela.

On February 28, 2014 the Christian Liberation Movement held a teach-in on "Cuba and Venezuela: Challenges for Democracy" with a prominent member of the Venezuela opposition in attendance on what should have been Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's 62nd birthday.  

On March 14, 2014 Cuban exiles held a mass at the Our Lady of Charity (La Ermita) praying for liberty and justice in Venezuela.

On April 2, 2014 over twitter Oscar Elías Bicet posted photos of a march by Project Emilia activists in Cuba in support of imprisoned Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López Mendoza, congresswoman Maria Corina Machado, and Venezuela.

On April 8, 2014 activists from Cuba, Ukraine and Venezuela signed a joint document for freedom and democracy at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami.

 Over social networks, Cubans have been retweeting the posts of Venezuelan activists engaged in nonviolent resistance in their homeland. Furthermore, Cuban exiles have joined in solidarity with protest marches in South Florida. Below Aramis Perez, of the Cuban Democratic Directorate on February 22, 2014 at a massive rally in Doral, Florida took part in the protest to demonstrate his solidarity.

The Castro and Maduro regime's want to impose totalitarianism on the people of Venezuela and maintain it on the Cuban people and are using all the means at their disposal. At the same time the free peoples of Cuba and Venezuela are joining together in a struggle to free themselves of these two tyrants using nonviolent means. 

They need your solidarity.

Dr. Biscet and questions about the Cuban healthcare system

A Cuban doctor in Havana exposes poor conditions in a Cuban hospital. Why is it that in 2013 this reality still takes many by surprise? 

One of the myths of the Castro dictatorship that refuse to be brought to an end by the harsh reality is that of the Cuban health care system. The infrastructure has been steadily decaying for decades, even when heavily subsidized for decades by first the Soviet Union and then until today by Venezuela.

One just needs to scratch the surface and ask themselves if the health care system in Cuba is so great:  

Why is there a cholera epidemic underway when the last one to hit Havana was in 1883? Why did 26 mental patients die from negligence and exposure in January of 2010?

Why did the son of one of the commandants of the regime, Juan Juan Almeida, go on hunger strike to try to obtain needed healthcare? 

Why is their a two tiered system for elites and those with tourist dollars that is top notch and a substandard one for most Cubans?

Why do international organizations ignore this reality and accept the doctored statistics provided by the dictatorship? Why do they not listen first hand to those brave souls willing to talk about the actual state of prenatal care?

At the end of the day, the divorce between the dismal reality of the Cuban healthcare system and the myth erected by the dictatorship and maintained by many others raises other troubling questions.

Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet on the death of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Evidence contradicts the Cuban regime's official story

Óscar Elías Biscet on the death of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

In the commentary below, Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet González discusses the contradictions between the version presented by Cuban officials and the evidence at hand. Dr. Biscet goes on to speculate that in the attempt to psychologically terrorize Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas regime agents caused his death in what he describes as a felony homicide.




The commentary is part of a news program hosted by Dr. Biscet.

Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet González and the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights today made public the second episode of the program "Revelando Cuba" (Revealing Cuba). They are asking viewers to support the distribution of this program, both within and outside of Cuba by downloading and duplicating the video. 

This episode (in Spanish) can be downloaded for distribution below. 

Episode 2:
http://goo.gl/Rlw6b (PC)
http://goo.gl/PXK71 (Mac)

Jose Marti on the 160th anniversary of his birth

"Freedom can not be fruitful for the peoples who have their forehead stained in blood." - Jose Marti

"La libertad no puede ser fecunda para los pueblos que tienen la frente manchada de sangre." - Jose Marti  

José Julián Martí Pérez

He organized a war of independence, but did so without resorting to dehumanizing his adversary or appealing to hatred. He was also a fierce advocate for civil liberties and especially freedom of thought and expression. Today, January 28 marks 160 years since the day José Julián Martí Pérez was born.

Cubans of all ideological stripes claim him as their own, but objectively who has maintained the spirit of his words and ideas? There is a movement in Cuba that seeks to restore human rights and liberties using nonviolent means. There are courageous men and women who risk everything standing up to dictatorship and some of them have been killed in the process and their families targeted for reprisals.

Jose Marti wrote that "There is no forgiveness for acts of hatred. Daggers thrust in the name of liberty are thrust into liberty's heart." Following this statement to its logical conclusion leads us over a century later to:

"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together.’" - Oswaldo Paya, December 17, 2002

"To love one's neighbor is also to love one's enemy. Although in reality that qualifier-'enemy' does not exist in my vocabulary. I recognize that I only have adversaries and I have acquired the capacity to love them because in this way we do away with violence, wrath, vengeance, hatred and substitute them with justice and forgiveness." - Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez (1999)

Both Oswaldo and Oscar embody the best of Jose Marti when they reject hatred and maintain their defiance to injustice while working towards both liberation and national reconciliation. 

José Martí also recognized the power of women in struggle observing that "The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women. But when women are moved and lend help, when women, who are by nature calm and controlled, give encouragement and applause, when virtuous and knowledgeable women grace the endeavor with their sweet love, then it is invincible."

The Ladies in White have demonstrated this power and one of their founding leaders Laura Pollan spoke courageously about the stakes in the struggle stating in 2010:  "They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." She went on to continue in her defiance of tyranny declaring on September 24, 2011 that "We are going to continue. We are fighting for freedom and human rights.”

Gandhi, King, and Marti: Brothers in Thought

Finally, what of those who claim Jose Marti as theirs in word but in practice are the antithesis of all he stood for? Today, it was learned that one of the Ladies in White had been detained by officials of the Cuban dictatorship and sexually molested. Last year this same regime had threatened to rape her five year old and this mother went on hunger strike for 19 days to demand that her child's safety be guaranteed. 

Cuba's nonviolent civic movement is making a reality out of what José Martí saw as the necessary final struggle for a truly free people: "One revolution is still necessary: the one that will not end with the rule of its leader. It will be the revolution against revolutions, the uprising of all peaceable individuals, who will become soldiers for once so that neither they nor anyone else will ever have to be a soldier again."

In 1931, Mohandas Gandhi outlined how peaceable individuals could become soldiers because they were soldiers for peace using nonviolent means founded in discipline and truth to achieve real and lasting change through pure defiance without the element of violence in it. This meant in practice that Jose Marti's formulation of a "just and necessary war" had become obsolete because the same or better results could be obtained with nonviolent resistance therefore war is no longer just or necessary. The twentieth century and its bloody tide would demonstrate the failure of bloody wars when compared with the successes of nonviolent resistance both on a small and large scale.




In January of 1998 when the Free Cuba Foundation organized a conference titled Gandhi, King and Marti: Brothers and Thought some protested because Jose Marti had died in battle, but the organization argued at the time that his views prior to his death were evolving in a direction that would find broad agreement with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Óscar Elías Biscet Presents Manifesto for Democracy in Cuba

Cuban opposition figure Oscar Elias Biscet on Wednesday presented a manifesto on which he intends to collect signatures to promote a move toward democracy on the Communist-ruled island. Accompanied by about a dozen dissidents, Biscet read the document at an appearance before international media where he demanded a “total change” in Cuba because “the people are tired of tyranny.” The initiative is called Proyecto Emilia, in remembrance of Emilia Teurbe Tolon, who embroidered the first Cuban flag in the mid-19th century.  Biscet, a physician and veteran human rights activist, was among the “Group of 75” dissidents jailed amid a harsh crackdown in March 2003." - EFE & Latin American Herald, "Cuban Opposition Figure Promotes Democracy Manifesto"

Emilia Teurbe Tolón

PROJECT EMILIA

This project, imbued with a deep love of country, bears the name of one of the Cuban heroes who devoted the best of her fruitful life to the struggle for the independence and freedom of Cuba.

We refer to Emilia Teurbe Tolón,  designated in 1950 by the Congress of the Republic of Cuba, to mark the centenary of our national flag, as the incarnation of the Woman of Cuba.

Emilia was the first Cuban woman banished from our country for political reasons. She also had the honor of working on the original Cuban flag that was designed by her husband and poet Miguel Teurbe Tolón,  on the initiative of General Narciso Lopez. Born into a wealthy family in the city of Matanzas, she had the human sensitivity to donate her property to benefit the education of the poor.

Those of us who sign this document, inspired by her patriotic example, propose to carry out this project whose main objectives are: the conquest of fundamental human rights, democracy and freedom of the Cuban people.

We assume that Cuba's communist regime bases its legality in the 1976 Constitution, as amended in 2003. In article 69, the Constitution refers to the People's National Assembly as the organ of state power. It also adds that the assembly represents and expresses the sovereign will of the people. To leave no doubt, Article 70 states that the National Assembly of People's Power is the only body with constituent and legislative authority in the Republic of Cuba.

Whereas: We have confirmed for years that the National Assembly of People's Power has transgressed to cede their sovereign rights and power the Council of State.

Whereas: We verified that the National Assembly of People's Power has complied passively and given legal force to all Decree-laws adopted by the Council of State.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has lost its sovereign power by accepting the mandate of the Council of State in convening extraordinary sessions. 
Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has infringed on the freedom of our people by allowing the Council of State to declare as irrevocable in the National Constitution social, political, and ideological ideas contrary to the interests of the Cuban people.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has violated the respect for the views of minorities enshrined in the world's most advanced constitutions and granted extreme power to docile majorities.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power, violating the constitutional principle of the separation and independence of powers, has given the Council of State the power to issue guidelines and impose decisions on the Judiciary.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has ignored the popular will and limited civic freedom by subordinating it to the Local Assemblies of People's Power.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has stipulated that the Local Assemblies of People's Power are subordinated to the Council of State.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has stifled freedom of expression, association, speech and press to those not aligned with the policy and ideology of the state.

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has given the government the power to strip Cubans born in our country of their citizenship .

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power, in not objecting to the measures of the Council of State that have sunk into misery and desperation our people, it has become complicit in this infamy. 

Whereas: The National Assembly of People's Power has exalted one Party above the state and the nation. 

Therefore: We declare that these laws, compiled in the 1976 Constitution, constitute an abuse of power that flagrantly violates the dignity of Cuban citizens.

Therefore: The 1976 Constitution, as amended in 2003, permanently institutionalizes the communist regime of Cuba.
 

Therefore: The National Assembly of People's Power has no validity whatsoever and ceases to be the expression of the will of the people by giving the Council of State all the prerogatives enshrined in the Cuban Constitution.

We consider that the current communist constitution violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Human Rights Covenants on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations.

We agree to declare illegitimate the Communist Constitution and the National Assembly of People's Power with its organs of state power.

We call on the Cuban people to subscribe to this project to take steps toward a sovereign, democratic, free and just Cuba.

We proclaim that the new democratic and free Parliament that emerges from these exigencies is declared in Constitutional Assembly; and ratify a constitution that respects the dignity of all Cubans.  

We insist that the Constitution contain the bases for the democracy and freedom that so many of our compatriots from our wars of independence have fought and given their lives for.

We demand that the legal system of our country has as a base the democratic principles that prevail in other nations of the civilized world. These are: sovereignty of the people, government based on the consent of the governed, majority rule, minority rights, guarantee of basic human rights, free and fair elections, equality before the law, due process, constitutional limits on government, independent balance of powers, social , economic and political pluralism; as well as the values ​​of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation and compromise.  

Unfortunately, we have seen through more years than we would like to recall how Cuba's communist regime has not conceded even one atom of freedom and has rigidly and arbitrarily resisted any changes that would ensure a decent life for our people.

Consequently, we have no alternative but to launch the non-violent political challenge to realize the freedom of our people. To do this, we ask the assistance and protection of God, and we ask the Creator to guide us in this just cause for the freedom and prosperity of the Cuban people.

VIVA CUBA LIBRE!

Given in Havana, Cuba, on January 9, 2013 

Source: Blog Punt de Vista

Original Text in Spanish: 

 

PROYECTO EMILIA

Este proyecto, imbuido de un profundo amor patrio, lleva el nombre de una de las heroínas cubanas que dedicó lo mejor de su vida fructífera a la lucha por la independencia y la libertad de Cuba.

Nos referimos a Emilia Teurbe Tolón, designada en 1950 por el Congreso de la República de Cuba, con motivo del centenario de nuestra Bandera Nacional, como la Encarnación de la Mujer de Cuba.

Emilia fue la primera mujer cubana desterrada de nuestra patria por motivos políticos. Tuvo además el honor de laborar en el original de la bandera cubana que fuera diseñada por su esposo y poeta Miguel Teurbe Tolón, a iniciativa del General Narciso López. Perteneciente a una acaudalada familia de la ciudad de Matanzas, tuvo la sensibilidad humana de donar sus bienes en beneficio de la enseñanza de los pobres. 

Quienes suscribimos este documento, inspirados en su ejemplo patriótico, nos proponemos realizar este proyecto cuyos objetivos esenciales son: la conquista de los derechos humanos fundamentales, la democracia y la libertad del pueblo cubano. 

Partimos de la base de que el régimen comunista de Cuba fundamenta su legalidad en la Constitución de 1976, con sus modificaciones de 2003. En su artículo 69, esta Constitución designa a la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular como el órgano de poder del Estado. Asimismo añade que dicha asamblea representa y expresa la voluntad soberana de todo el pueblo. Para no dejar dudas, en su artículo 70 afirma que la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular es el único órgano con potestad constituyente y legislativa en la Republica de Cuba. 

Por Cuanto: Hemos confirmado durante años que la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha prevaricado al ceder sus derechos soberanos y su poder al Consejo de Estado. 

Por Cuanto: Hemos verificado que la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha acatado pasivamente y dado fuerza legal a todos los Decreto-leyes adoptados por el Consejo de Estado. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha perdido su poder soberano al aceptar el mandato del Consejo de Estado en la convocatoria a sesiones extraordinarias. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha atentado contra la libertad de nuestro pueblo al permitir que el Consejo de Estado declare como irrevocables en la Constitución Nacional ideas políticas, sociales e ideológicas contrarias a los intereses del pueblo cubano.

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha violado el respeto a la opinión de las minorías plasmado en las constituciones más avanzadas del mundo y otorgado extremo poder a mayorías dóciles. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular, violando el principio constitucional de la separación e independencia de poderes, ha otorgado el Consejo de Estado el poder de dictar pautas e imponer decisiones sobre el Poder Judicial. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha desconocido la voluntad popular y limitado la libertad ciudadana al subordinar a ella las Asambleas Locales del Poder Popular. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha estipulado que la Asambleas Locales del Poder Popular están subordinadas al Consejo de Estado. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha asfixiado la libertad de expresión, asociación, palabra y prensa a los que no se alineen a la política e ideología del Estado. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha otorgado al gobierno la potestad de despojar de su ciudadanía a cubanos nacidos en nuestro territorio nacional. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, al no objetar las medidas del Consejo de Estado que han hundido en la miseria y la desesperación a nuestro pueblo, se ha hecho cómplice de esa infamia. 

Por Cuanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ha exaltado a un Partido por encima del estado y de la nación.



Por Tanto: Declaramos que estas leyes, compiladas en la Constitución de 1976, constituyen un abuso de poder que viola flagrantemente la dignidad de los ciudadanos cubanos. 

Por Tanto: La Constitución de 1976, modificada en el 2003, institucionaliza de manera permanente al régimen comunista de Cuba.

Por Tanto: La Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular carece de toda validez y deja de ser la expresión de la voluntad del pueblo al otorgarle al Consejo de Estado todas las prerrogativas consagradas en la Constitución Cubana.

Consideramos que la vigente Constitución comunista viola la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos y los Pactos de Derechos Humanos Civiles y Políticos de las Naciones Unidas. 

Concordamos en declarar ilegitima a la Constitución Comunista y a la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular con sus órganos de poder del Estado. 

Convocamos al pueblo cubano a que suscriba este proyecto para dar pasos hacia una Cuba soberana, democrática, libre y justa. 

Proclamamos que el nuevo Parlamento democrático y libre surgido de estas exigencias se declare en Constituyente; y rubrique una Constitución que respete la dignidad de todos los cubanos.

Insistimos en que esta Constitución contenga las bases de la democracia y la libertad por la que han luchado y ofrendado sus vidas tantos de nuestros compatriotas desde nuestras guerras de independencia. 

Demandamos que el ordenamiento jurídico de nuestra patria tenga como base los principios democráticos que predominan en otras naciones del mundo civilizado. Estos son: Soberanía del pueblo, gobierno basado en el consentimiento de los gobernados, gobierno de la mayoría, derechos de las minorías, garantía de los derechos humanos básicos, elecciones libres y transparentes, igualdad ante la ley, debido proceso judicial, límites constitucionales al gobierno, equilibrio de poderes independientes, pluralismo social, económico y político; así como los valores de tolerancia, pragmatismo, cooperación y compromiso.

Por desgracia, hemos visto a través de más años de los que quisiéramos recordar como el régimen comunista de Cuba no ha concedido ni un átomo de libertad y ha resistido de manera rígida y arbitraria cualquier cambio que garantice una vida digna para nuestro pueblo. 

Por consiguiente, no nos queda otra alternativa que poner en marcha el desafío político no violento para hacer realidad la libertad de nuestro pueblo. Para ello, suplicamos la asistencia y la protección de Dios, así como le pedimos al Creador que nos guie en esta justa causa para lograr la libertad y la prosperidad del pueblo cubano. 

¡VIVA CUBA LIBRE! 

Dado en La Habana, República de Cuba, el 9 de enero de 2013

Fuente: Blog Punt de Vista