Regime agents brutalize 60 year old woman activist in Cuba

At 12:11pm today, December 17, 2012,  independent journalist and civic activist, Ivan Hernandez Carillo, began to tweet photos of disturbing images of Marina Montes Piñón, a 60 year old woman and long time opposition activist, who had been badly beaten by regime agents on December 15 in Cuba. Ivan reported over twitter on how she ended up in such a state. Independent journalist Juan Carlos Linares Balmaseda initially broke the story, disclosing the assault on Marina Montes Piñón and Ivan got the word out through the twitterverse.

Marina Montes Piñón: Assaulted by Regime Agents on 12/15/12

That is how the regime's State Security left opposition activist Marina Montes Piñón this past December 15.

Three deep wounds in the skull and a hematoma in the right eye made by Gisela Espinosa to opposition activist Marina Montes

Marina Montes Piñon has been a member of the November 30th Party, Leonor Perez Mothers Committee, CAPPF and is an active member of: "Those who do not shut up"

With a blunt object, Gisela Espinosa, came from State Security and attacked opposition activist Marina Montes Piñón who is 60 years old.

Almost 30 stitches in total for deep wounds in skull given to Marina Montes Piñón by a State Security  sponsored attack.

New violent attack orchestrated by political police and State Security against another regime opponent:  Marina Montes Piñón.

From Cuba: The People's Path

In Cuba, July 13, 2011.


Dear Cubans and friends from around the world:

Full of hope we present this document that will now be open for those that make it their own to sign it all who identify with its contents. The limitations of mobility and communication that are imposed and repression, have not allowed us to reach all our brothers in the struggle to present it to them, so we decided to go public before it is aborted. We believe that the document expresses the views of many members of the Cuban democratic movement, also called opposition or dissidence and the majority of Cubans, who now identify as their own. We present The People’s Path


THE WAY OF THE PEOPLE

This is the proposal and the purpose for the people of Cuba of the Cuban democratic movement, also called peaceful opposition and dissidence:

We work and struggle with love for Cuba and hope in the capabilities, value and goodwill of all Cubans, without classifying and dividing them by their ideas, beliefs, race or political positions, we are all Cuban and we are all brothers. And everyone, without exception, living in or out of Cuba, we will now be protagonists of the changes to freedom and peace here in this beautiful land that God gave us all as Country and Home.


VISION

It only corresponds to us Cubans to define and decide on the changes our society needs and fulfill our national project. But for citizens to be able to truly design, decide and build their future, they must be guaranteed by law their rights and an environment of trust and respect for all achieved In this way we can make a genuine national dialogue and begin the process of legal changes without exceptions, for the people to keep everything positive that they have created and change exercising their sovereignty what they decide to change.


BASIC PROPOSAL

The essential components of the transition for which we struggle peacefully and we now present the Cuban people are:

1. Changes in the laws that guarantee freedom of speech, press, association and religion, the right of Cubans to settle in any part of our country where they prefer to live, the right of Cubans to freely leave and enter Cuba freely, the right of all Cubans to have business and private enterprise in our country, all workers' rights, the right of Cubans to elect and be elected to public office by a new electoral law, the end to all discrimination against Cubans in their own country and the release of all those jailed for political reasons.

2. Achieving spaces that open participation with these changes in law and practice in respect of the rights of citizens, to convene a national dialogue and free elections for all offices and for a Constituent Assembly.

3. All Cubans without exclusions, without hatred, or vengeance, to make this transition in the way of truth and with transparency, reconciliation, liberty, solidarity, fraternity and peace, building a more humane and more just society in our sovereign and independent Homeland.


STEPS FOR THE CHANGE

Create a national commission composed of members of the government and the democratic opposition and other components of civil society, including representatives of trade unions, churches and fraternities, which guarantees the right to access, with equal opportunities, to diffusion in the mass media, of all Cubans individually, of their opinions and ideas, political and civic groups, churches, fraternities, social organizations and citizen groups. Free Internet access for all citizens and to foreign and national information by all technological means.

Members of the Cuban democratic movement propose this transition path demand space in the mass media, which costs are shouldered by the people of which we form a part, to present our proposals, ideas and criticisms that the people can judge for themselves and the right of all Cubans to establish private and social broadcasting media.

Decriminalization of opinion. Changes in the Criminal Code and other laws that guarantee freedom of expression and other rights. Ban all the mechanisms of surveillance, classification and repression against citizens.

Facilities, spaces, and respectful environment for students, workers, neighbors, farmers and other groups can meet and organize democratically. Legalization of civic movements, political parties, human rights organizations and all associations of citizens who request it legally. Promote a new Law of Associations to ensure this right without any ambiguity.

Removal of all restrictions on Cubans right to travel freely and end the requirement for "exit permit" for all citizens, including doctors, professionals, artists, technicians and the religious. End of confiscating property to those that emigrate and of the restrictions and need for permits for Cubans living abroad to be able to enter their country. End of the category of "final exit" and of charging in foreign currency documents of all kinds. Recognition of all citizens’ rights to all Cubans, living inside or outside of Cuba. Every Cuban is entitled to continue living in their home and no one can evict them, or strip them or deprive them of property or legally dwelling on their property, nor claim any compensation on account of being their former owner.

Removal of all restrictions on Cubans to travel within the national territory or settle in a different province to that in which they reside. Prohibition of persecution, abuse, humiliation and deportation to citizens exercising this right.

New electoral law that guarantees the exercise of popular sovereignty, so that all voters can be nominated for all elective offices, directly by citizens without candidacy commissions, so they can freely and democratically elect their representatives for each position. Creating a new National Electoral Commission composed of citizens proposed by the government, the democratic opposition and other members of civil society.

That the rights to free health care and education for all Cubans remain guaranteed, but without political and ideological conditions.

We demand fair wages and pensions, and prices commensurate with wages to reduce and eliminate the enormous difference between these and prices. Cubans live sentenced to poverty with no chance to overcome it. Low wages, restrictions of all kinds, prices and disproportionate taxes covertly hidden in dual currency and the poverty suffered by the people, makes it really the people who subsidize the government, its inefficiency and its privileged and not government that subsidizes the people. This abuse must be overcome immediately.

To avoid corruption, the so-called piñatas, privileges, abuse and benefit of those who hold positions of economic and political power, the exclusion of the majority of the poor and uninformed and increasing the already large economic differences and to begin a new stage Building sustainable and integrated development, deeper economic changes should be made only under the control of citizens through democratic institutions.

Cuba's natural resources, the work of its citizens, all that the people have created with love and effort throughout its history should not be, either privatized or subjected to investors, or sold or traded without the consent of people. But there can be no consent if there is not even knowledge, or mechanisms of citizen control, nor for the people to decide for itself.

Thus the profound changes that generate justice and equality for the benefit of all Cubans, of the integral development of the ecological health of the national independence, social justice and raising the quality of life for all must be realized once the Cubans have in the law all the rights and free elections so that a sovereign people, who knows best and judges for his own sake, to discuss, review and decide on their national economic project. Cuba can not be auctioned or distributed as a cake. Cuba is home and source of wealth for all Cubans.

The right to free employment of workers and respect for their rights and eliminating companies that rent the Cuban labor force to foreign companies and retain much of the earnings that belong to the workers. Laws should ensure for all Cubans the right to establish their own enterprises and private businesses and to hire workers respecting all their rights.

We draw the attention of all governments, unions of states, international organizations, employers, churches and individuals so that any dialogue, negotiation and agreement with the Cuban government be carried out with transparency and never behind the backs of the people nor without dialogue with the Cuban democratic opposition and other sectors of civil society, if they want to cooperate with peaceful change and not encourage exclusions and injustices that will only bring more pain to Cuba.

WE WILL PROMOTE


The conduct of a plebiscite for the sovereign people to decide on changes.

The call for changes in laws and all projects and peaceful initiatives which are designed to achieve democracy, human rights, freedom, reconciliation and popular sovereignty.

The participation of citizens in this path of change through the demanding of their rights and the dialogue that is respectful of diversity.

FINAL MESSAGE

Among those of us who peacefully struggle for democracy in Cuba there is wide diversity and richness of ideas and projects. This document contains our common ground, our position and common determination to defend the most legitimate interests of the Cuban people and their rights. Governments, institutions and peoples of the Americas, Europe and the world, if they want to support the Cuban people respecting their right to self determination, support and take as a reference this common base of the Cuban democratic movement. If we are together in anything it is in love for Cuba and the objective of achieving all rights for all Cubans, liberty, reconciliation, peace and true democracy for the people to exercise their sovereignty and choose their projects, the changes and their future.

FOR THIS WE CREATE THE PATH TO PEACEFUL CHANGE: THE PEOPLE’S PATH

The Cubans have a right to their rights.

Lets make the path of the people.

Original document in Spanish here.

In defense of the Church and the Democratic Opposition in Cuba

Sanctions, Catholic Social Doctrine, and Cuba’s Democratic Opposition

“The violent and tragic events that led to the sinking of a ship where many of our brothers lost their lives are, according to survivor accounts, of a rawness that can hardly be imagined. The sinking of the boat, which was also carrying women and children, and the difficulties of the rescue of the survivors do not seem in any way to be by chance, and this adds to the pain a sense of stupor and a demand of transparency and those responsible identified." […] That the facts are clarified, to establish the truth with justice, but that hate result the loser ... Love and justice are not opposed, but hatred and injustice can go hand in hand."

- Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, in July 1994 speaks on "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre

Ladies in White going to attend mass

Fifty years of totalitarianism preceded by seven years of an authoritarian left-wing dictatorship have left profound scars on Cuba’s political culture. The monopolization of politics over culture under the Castro regime means that damage has been done over the entire culture including profound harm to the basic social unit of society in Cuba: the family. The regime also marginalized the greatest defender of the family which historically has been the Catholic Church, but the Cuban Church did not go down without a struggle.

The Catholic Church in Cuba was attacked; many of its clergy and religious figures exiled or sent to work camps such as Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino. Being a practicing Catholic would mean being blacklisted from certain professions such as teaching. Christmas was ended as a national holiday in 1970 and replaced with holidays celebrating the 1959 communist revolution. This means that the ability to separate the political from the personal and the religious has been undermined and atrophied under the dictatorship of the Castro brothers. Therefore the charge made in a recent letter that the Cuban Church over a half century has collaborated with the totalitarian dictatorship, that until 1992 was officially atheist, is not true.

One can disagree with specific actions of the Catholic Church in Cuba in its dealings with the dictatorship trying to create a space for Cuban Catholics and at the same time maintain its humanitarian tradition with the Cuban people. The Church in Cuba has suffered greatly over 50 years of communism and at key moments has spoken out for the victims of the regime. That cannot and should not be ignored. Cuba is at a crossroads either Cuba’s democratic opposition begins the long road of healing these scars; restoring the natural relationship between politics, culture, and religion or one can expect another half century of more of the same. Recognizing that in a healthy society politics does not monopolize culture or matters of the faith is an important first step on the path, and the ability not to demonize those who you have disagreements with but share the same end goal is another important step towards a free society.

The Cuban Catholic Church is not perfect, no institution composed of human beings can be, but over the past fifty years it has stood up time and time again for the dignity of the Cuban people and paid for it with prison, exile, and repression. The Church is not a political organization nor should it be held to political standards. Its purpose is to spread the message of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal life for those who follow his path, and to alleviate human suffering.

That said the Church does have a profound impact on political life, despite its apolitical nature, and it has steadfastly opposed worldwide all economic sanctions that impact entire populations. This is a different position than that taken by the dictatorship in Havana that just recently with its allies in Caracas attempted to strangle the people of Honduras with sanctions in an effort to coerce the Honduran government. The Catholic Church was against that embargo as it was against the embargo on South Africa during Apartheid, and against sanctions on the people of Iraq during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. It is a position that is part of the compendium of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and should be respected although not accepted as dogma. It states:

Sanctions, in the forms prescribed by the contemporary international order, seek to correct the behavior of the government of a country that violates the rules of peaceful and ordered international coexistence or that practices serious forms of oppression with regard to its population. The purpose of these sanctions must be clearly defined and the measures adopted must from time to time be objectively evaluated by the competent bodies of the international community as to their effectiveness and their real impact on the civilian population. The true objective of such measures is open to the way to negotiation and dialogue. Sanctions must never be used as a means for the direct punishment of an entire population: it is not licit that entire populations, and above all their most vulnerable members, be made to suffer because of such sanctions. Economic sanctions in particular are an instrument to be used with great discernment and must be subjected to strict legal and ethical criteria.[1066] An economic embargo must be of limited duration and cannot be justified when the resulting effects are indiscriminate.[1]

The Holy See is opposed to unilateral sanctions in principle and argues against international sanctions that target entire populations. Its opposition to US sanctions on the Cuban dictatorship is not a special case, but one of many. Nevertheless, there is a reasonable case to be made on behalf of economic sanctions on the Cuban regime.

First, the Castro regime since 1959 has violated the rules of peaceful and ordered co-existence with its attempts to subvert other governments sponsoring and training guerrillas and terrorists around the world. The Tricontinental meetings in Havana, Cuba plunged a whole continent into generations of political violence and terrorism. Producing and translating urban guerrilla manuals with a chapter on terrorism with the aim of overthrowing governments around the world and taking part in genocide. The United States considers the Cuban regime to be a state sponsor of terrorism in 2010. Secondly, Fidel Castro ended private enterprise in Cuba and placed the economy and civil society under control of the dictatorship. At the same time international human rights standards have been systematically violated both in practice and after 1976 in the Cuban Constitution. Freedom of religion, speech and association were banned whenever it came in conflict with the aims of building a communist state. Dissent was and remains outlawed.

On the other hand the economic sanctions placed on Cuba beginning with the Eisenhower Administration in 1959 have not been static and have been subject to both evaluation and debate within the United States Congress and at times such as these in national debates. The dictatorship speaks of a “blockade” but that term can only apply to a brief period of time during the Kennedy Administration when a naval blockade was placed on Cuba during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Since 2000 the United States government changed its sanctions policy and the U.S. became the top seller of food and agricultural products to the Cuban dictatorship. Pharmaceutical goods are also available for sale. Cuban exiles, since the Cuban dictatorship allowed it, have sent annually hundreds of millions of dollars in remittances to their families on the island making it one of the main sources of income.

The greatest argument against economic sanctions on Cuba is that they have been maintained over half a century without achieving the end of the dictatorship, but that is not why they were imposed in the first place. The aim was containment limiting the spread of communism via armed guerrilla movements in the hemisphere, and with the exception of Nicaragua and the Sandinistas this was a success. The path to power for “socialists of the 21^st century” has been through the ballot box although Cuban officials have never, despite these successes, discarded armed struggle.

Finally, the greatest argument in favor of maintaining economic sanctions on the Cuban dictatorship is what has happened in China. Unlike other regimes, communist dictatorships that maintain monopoly control over the economy and civil society has led to democracies that trade with them collaborating with them as part of the price of doing business. Economic engagement with communist regimes has meant in practice assisting in the repression of entire populations. Principled and targeted sanctions offer greater hopes of opening up these regimes to negotiation and dialogue despite the dictatorship’s howls to the contrary.

The issue of economic sanctions is part of an overall debate and dialogue on how best to achieve a non-violent democratic transition in Cuba. The democratic opposition has an overall consensus on non-violent means seeking a democratic end in which human rights and freedoms are restored in Cuba. Although it maybe counter-intuitive it is important to reflect on Mohandas Gandhi’s principle that the “means are the ends,” because democracy is a process not a fixed endpoint. The manner in which the opposition is able to reconcile different tactics and ideas or agree to disagree but still work together in service of a common objective without demonizing the other will greatly determine when democracy will finally return to Cuba.

The Catholic Church, although not a political entity, has offered its services as a mediator and has a positive track record around the world and has now facilitated the transfer of 26 prisoner of conscience rotting in Cuban prisons for over seven years into exile. Is this a victory of the opposition? Yes, it is. Did the dictatorship prefer dealing with the Church than recognize the opposition? Yes. Without the Church’s participation there were only two options open: keep the prisoners locked up and continue beating up the Ladies in White or engage the opposition. The record over the past 50 years is that the regime would let the prisoners rot and would continue to terrorize the women in Havana as they were still doing to Reina Luisa Tamayo in Banes, but the Church offers a face saving alternative.

The Church intervened on Reina's behalf and today after many months she was a able to march without a mob of government agents blocking her path to attend mass and visit her son's grave. Reina Luisa Tamayo gave thanks today to the Catholic Church's intervention on her behalf.

When the opposition makes the case for these prisoners of conscience to be freed in their homeland and not exiled they are engaged in a sacred duty of the opposition, but that does not necessitate attacking or defaming the Cuban Catholic Church. You can disagree with specific actions without demonizing the institution, and engage it in dialogue to try to persuade it.

---

[1] Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Catholic Church. Pontificium Consilium de Iustitia et Pace Compendium of the social doctrine of the church Chapter 11 The Promotion of Peace. 507d. Measures against those who threaten peace.

Cuba and the democratic opposition by Carlos Alberto Montaner

As the 50th anniversary of the arrival of totalitarianism to Cuba draws to a close it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the alternative that has emerged in Cuba: the nonviolent democratic opposition. The following is the presentation made by Carlos Alberto Montaner earlier this year, along with video footage in Spanish from February 3, 2009 and from December 28, 2009. It is a time for reflection in order to prepare for action.

Cuba and the democratic opposition

Carlos Alberto Montaner

Cuba, two perspectives: The European Union and Cubans
Association of Ibero-Americans for Freedom
Casa de América, Madrid, Feb. 3, 2009

The Association of Ibero-Americans for Freedom, presided by Dr. Antonio Guedes, has asked me to share with you some reflections about the Cuban democratic opposition. I accept the challenge but begin by saying that I cannot speak on behalf of the dozens of organizations that, inside and outside the island, have their points of view and strategies, as befits a complex society with a certain degree of sophistication, although I believe I maintain excellent relations with most of their leaders. Therefore, my opinions should be accepted only as the personal criteria of someone who, for the past several decades, has not ceased to pay attention and give aid to those groups intent on achieving the establishment in Cuba of a pluralistic political regime that respects individual freedoms and human rights.

In any case, this seems to me to be an extremely important topic, given that the Cuban dictatorship, as part of its strategy of immobility, insists on picturing the opposition as a pitiful gang of fascists at the service of the United States, for the purpose of demonstrating that there is no better option to the communist government and that the Cubans on the island do not want it. Such statements run headlong against reality. The truth is that, within the democratic opposition, one can find all the factors of knowledge, moderation and common sense that will contribute very constructively to the transition to freedom.

The revolutionary tradition
An inevitable observation ab initio is that the experience of half a century of communist dictatorship has totally changed the political behavior of the Cuban opposition. During the 57 years of our short republican experience, from the establishment of an independent state in 1902 until the collapse of the Batista dictatorship on Jan. 1, 1959, Cubans resorted to violence to solve their political crises or impose the will of the caudillos. This pushed us into abortive civil wars in 1906, 1912 and 1917, to the revolution of 1933, the military coup of 1952, and finally to the triumph of the revolution in 1959, with Fidel Castro as the country's "Maximum Leader," a title with which he was unctuously baptized at the time.

That tradition of violence continued during the early years of Castroism, when the opposition, through inertia and habit, attempted to halt the enthronement of the communist dictatorship by resorting to the conventional means of struggle that society used to practice and with which it had just liquidated Batista: armed landings, such as the one at Bay of Pigs in 1961; guerrilla uprisings, such as those on the Escambray mountain range (1961 to 1966); military conspiracies, sabotage and terrorist acts. None of this was surprising for the Cubans, given that a good many leaders of the struggle against communism were veterans of the war against Batista: Huber Matos, Manuel Artime, Humberto Sorí Marín, Manuel Ray, David Salvador, Porfirio Remberto Ramírez, Aldo Vera and a very long etcetera [2] that might include dozens of notable personalities who directed the early confrontations against Castroism.

This violent effort to forcibly replace the dominant elite (which, it must be said, left absolutely no space for civic struggle) lasted until approximately 1966, when the last foci of peasant guerrillas on the central mountains were exterminated. During that period, the government efficiently mounted an enormous repressive apparatus, a carbon copy of the Soviet model, which made it practically impossible for its enemies to turn to armed resistance for the purpose of overthrowing it.

A change in vision and behavior
During the following decade, under the distant influence of the civil-rights struggle in the United States and the peaceful resistance of dissidents in communist Europe, a slow ideological and strategic evolution began in the ranks of the Cuban democratic opposition, which came to a notable turning point: the rise to power in Washington of President Jimmy Carter and his defense of human rights as the banner of U.S. foreign policy, in the spirit of the Helsinki Accords signed in the mid-1970s.

That pacifist and rational atmosphere, which rejected violence and vindicated democratic methods, led some oppositionists to realize that perhaps it was a historic error for Cubans to resort to force to try to solve their political crises. It might have been more sensible, they thought, to follow the road of negotiation and the search for mechanisms of consensus that might save the institutions from the shoals without the need to periodically topple the republican structures.

Finally, in 1976, half a dozen Cuban oppositionists with leftist backgrounds were summoned by professor Ricardo Bofill [3] and founded in Havana the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, the first political organization in the nation's history to expressly renounce violence as a method of struggle. The group decided to abide by the rule of law to reclaim the rights quashed by the dictatorship. Meanwhile, in exile in Washington, about the same time, Mrs. Elena Mederos, former minister in the revolutionary government, and activist and politologist Frank Calzón, founded Of Human Rights with the same objective: to defend, by peaceful and legal means, persecuted individuals, dissidents and political prisoners in Cuba.

That aggiornamento of the Cuban democratic opposition, which put it in step with the major civic-struggle movements that existed worldwide, had as a corollary another predictable evolution: the opposition began to move closer to the paradigms and political discourses of the main ideological currents that spread through the contemporary world, somehow evading the autochthonous political roots and the harmful dichotomy of "revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries."

Precisely in Madrid in 1990, a few short months after the toppling of the Berlin Wall, three political groups of exiles with some internal ramifications, steeped in a civic spirit and internationally linked to their respective party families, created the Cuban Democratic Platform [4] to try to propitiate a peaceful change to democracy. Shortly thereafter, this new ideological vision of political struggle began to propagate inside the island.



An opposition similar to that in the rest of democratic world
In fact, the Cubans who today live in Cuba or abroad, display all the ideological hues that one might find in the parliaments of any Western country, except that the Cubans on the island must endure the constant harassment of the political police, while the exiles can defend their ideas without any fear. Roughly speaking, the current opposition has an abundance of Christian democrats, social democrats, liberals and conservatives. There are Green oppositionists, who are very concerned by the environmental destruction seen in their country; there are oppositionists who are deeply committed to the protection of respect for human rights, and there are union-minded oppositionists who vindicate the rights granted to workers.

Which of these tendencies is the most powerful? It may be futile to speculate on this issue. More than true political parties, what exists inside and outside Cuba are currents of opinion and some small structural streams that will eventually evolve into true, multitudinous political formations. In addition, these tendencies have effected a certain international linkage with similar parties and ideological institutions, the so-called "internationals," which helps develop clear ideological paradigms and public-policy recipes that are perfectly reasonable. All this will somehow guarantee the foreseeable evolution of post-Castroism.

This observation is very interesting because it belies the theory that the end of the communist dictatorship will lead to great political and economic chaos. That's not true. Most probably, the same theoretical schemes we saw in the countries that abandoned communism in eastern Europe will be reproduced in Cuba. The lectures and debates so common among opposition democrats point in that direction: they not only want to spur the end of communism but also have a very clear idea of the direction in which the country should move in a peaceful manner. Practically all of them think of a political model characterized by pluralism, tolerance, alternation in power, and subordination to the rules. What has disappeared from the Cubans' ideological mindset are veneration for caudillos and the cult of revolution.

The frozen regime
Lamentably, the healthy evolution undergone by the democratic opposition is not present in the behavior of the dictatorship. Over and again, the government of the Castro brothers reiterates the hard line of the early days of the revolution, as if the world had become frozen in the schemes of the Cold War. As far as the ruling cupola is concerned, the Berlin Wall was never toppled, Marxism-Leninism remains in effect, and the entire propaganda efforts of its huge disinformation machine (endowed with the obscene language of the rankest Stalinist lineage) insists on picturing the democratic opposition as an artificial appendix created by the United States, and opposition leaders as "the Miami mafia," composed of terrorist gangs in the service of the CIA.

Nevertheless, there is very clear evidence that, under the surface, the attitude that really prevails among government supporters, many of them in the ruling class, totally diverges from the official line. In this regard, the recent statements made by singer-composer Pablo Milanés [5] to a Spanish newspaper, as interpreted by the finest experts in the intricacies of Cuban society and the doublespeak used in Cuba, [6] constitute a lot more than an isolated opinion; they represent the point of view of a huge majority of the Cuban Communist Party, whose most important segment acknowledges -- to varying degrees -- what we might call a "willingness to reform." Among many of them, that attitude does not exclude political pluralism and an end to Marxist-Leninist collectivism, as shown by a survey [7] done last November by the party at the University of Havana, but never published. The survey revealed that only 8 percent of all professors and barely 22 percent of the students espouse the orthodox point of view propounded by Fidel and Raúl Castro.


The end of an era
How will the Cuban dictatorship end? Probably the way it happened in several countries that managed to orderly bury their old and obsolete dictatorships: through a reform inside the very structure of power, a reform that quickly and gradually will broaden the channels of societal participation, until the old regime is peacefully dismantled through various democratic procedures. That's what happened in Spain, Hungary, Poland and most communist countries in eastern Europe. There is a high probability that something similar will occur in Cuba.

When? The first step will be the burial of Fidel Castro, the true obstacle to any symptom of sensibility and common sense. The second will come with the enactment of the reformist moves that will presumably be advocated by Raúl Castro at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, scheduled for the second half of 2009. [8] The third will come when the democratic opposition can begin to act with greater freedom inside the country. From that time on, it is very likely that events will precipitate in ways that today are unpredictable but that will eventually fling the dictatorship into the dustbin of history. What seems unquestionable is the fact that Cuba can no longer remain a Marxist-Leninist exception in an era when that option was totally forsaken as a consequence of its errors, abuses and legendary unproductivity.

The same, or something very similar, will happen in Cuba. And when we do a balance sheet on the effects of this nigh-eternal nightmare, we might come to the conclusion that so much sacrifice has brought us an unexpected gain: we Cubans have learned that revolutionary violence, caudillism and intolerance always lead to the worst of all possible fates. Fortunately, the time to rectify these nefarious behaviors is close at hand.

NOTES

1. Carlos Alberto Montaner is a writer and journalist. He is president of the Cuban Liberal Union and vice president of the Liberal International. He has published some 25 books and hundreds of articles. His latest title, released in 2008, is “Cuba: The battle of ideas.”

2. Dr. Huber Matos (teacher and commander in the Sierra Maestra campaign); Dr. Manuel Artime (physician and lieutenant in Sierra Maestra; later, civilian chief of the Brigade 2506 expeditionists who landed in Bay of Pigs); Humberto Sorí Marín (lawyer and commander in Sierra Maestra, author of the text of the first agrarian reform carried out by the revolution; he was executed by firing squad in April 1961); Manuel Ray (engineer and Minister of Public Works in the first revolutionary Cabinet; chief of Civic Resistance, an organization in the service of the 26 July Movement; later, creator of the People’s Revolutionary Movement, which opposed communist dictatorship); David Salvador (labor leader of the 26 July Movement and, after the triumph of the revolution, Secretary General of the Federation of Cuban Workers; when he turned against communism, he created the 30 November Movement); Porfirio Ramírez (student leader and captain in the rebel army during the struggle against Batista; he led the Federation of University Students in Las Villas before being executed by the government in 1960); Aldo Vera Serafín (police commander in Havana after the triumph of the revolution; former chief of Action and Sabotage in Havana. He was assassinated in Puerto Rico in 1976 by the Cuban intelligence services.)

3. Bofill had been a member of the Communist Party but had landed in prison after a trial called “the microfraction,” accused of conspiring to limit the authority of Castro supporters. The other five members were Adolfo Rivero Caro, Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz, Edmigio López Castillo, Enrique Hernández Méndez and Dr. Marta Frayde. A short while later, the group was joined by brothers Gustavo and Sebastián Arcos, prestigious figures in the struggle against Batista. All of them were sentenced to long prison terms.

4. The three political groups that formed the Cuban Democratic Platform were the Christian Democratic Party (linked to the Christian Democratic International), represented by its president, José Ignacio Rasco; the Social Democratic Coordinator (with some incipient links to the Socialist International), represented by Enrique Baloyra; and the Cuban Liberal Union, a member of the Liberal International, headed by Carlos Alberto Montaner. Other, non-political groups were also present at the event.

5. See Público.es, Dec. 29, 2008, (http://www.publico.es/culturas/186756/socialismo/cubano/estancado),
an interview done by journalist Carlos Fuentes. In it, Pablo Milanés not only criticizes the government openly but also declares his total mistrust of the gerontocracy that rules the country.

6. A few months after Milanés’ statements, the so-called “war of the e-mails” broke out. A group of writers and artists who belonged to the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) utilized the Internet to harshly reproach two former functionaries in the culture sector – Luis Pavón and Jorge “Papito” Serguera – for their cruelly repressive acts during the so-called “Gray Quinquennium” in the first half of the 1970s. In reality, the rebuke was a shot fired in the air to complain about the current situation without running great risk, because the desire for deep changes felt by the intellectuals is practically unanimous.

7. The results of the survey remain unpublished but have been learned abroad thanks to the cooperation of European embassies accredited in Havana. As interesting as the overwhelming number of reformers who express their disconformity with the system is the fact that most of them are not satisfied with reforming the regime -- they believe in the need for a radical change in the system.

8. In the extended discussions prior to that long-awaited Congress (the last one was held in 1997 and culminated in enormous frustration), the criticism against the government and the clumsiness of the public administration has been copious and has been heard throughout the island.

http://www.firmaspress.com/983.htm