International Day of Non-Violence 2023: Join Cubans' non-violent movement for restoring democracy and human rights to Cuba

 "Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer, and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it." - Mohandas Gandhi

"Era tanto el hambre que nos comimos el miedo." - "The hunger was so much that we ate the fear."

Juan Enrique Pérez Sánchez, father of four and former phone technician, was arrested and badly beaten on July 12, 2021 after participating in the 11J protests in Nueva Paz, Mayabeque. He carried a poster that read "Down with the dictatorship" on one side, and "The hunger was so much that we ate the fear."  Juan Enrique was sentenced to eight years in prison on December 15, 2021. He suffers from asthma and a herniated disc. Reports emerged over social media that Juan Enrique sowed his mouth shut with a wire, as a sign of protest.

Today in Cuba there are thousands of Cubans, like Juan Enrique, jailed for their nonviolent demand for an end to the Castro dictatorship expressed most widely during the July 2021 protests. Over a thousand have been identified that were jailed or disappeared. It is known that some have resorted to going on hunger strike to protest their unjust imprisonment. This is part of the movement's repertoire of nonviolent tactics to resist the dictatorship in Cuba.

The men and women in Cuba who have led protests across the island have maintained their non-violent posture, continue to call for civic resistance as the method to challenge the dictatorship, and are asking for active nonviolent solidarity from people of goodwill living abroad. 

On July 27, 2021 the Christian Liberation Movement tweeted: "For solidarity with the freedom of Cubans. Eleven specific actions to isolate the regime."  This Cuban based movement, with its national coordinator, a former Amnesty prisoner of conscience living in Cuba, said that although statements criticizing the dictatorship are welcome that now is also the time for actions to isolate the Castro regime internationally, and sanction both on the dictatorship collectively, and individual bad actors in the regime are needed. These efforts to raise the cost of repression too are part of strategic nonviolence, and requires international solidarity. Please share and support this campaign with others.

Por la solidaridad con la libertad de los cubanos. Once acciones concretas de aislamiento al régimen. Movimiento Cristiano Liberación https://t.co/upvduDXpZu

— MCL (@oswaldopaya) July 27, 2021

This is a moment in which many that have not been following the resistance movement on the island are advocating to do business with the dictatorship, and the children of the nomenklatura. This will only prolong the life of the dictatorship, and increase the likelihood of violence, and Cuba bottoming out as a failed state.

It is important to revisit recent Cuban history.

The opposition in Cuba violently resisted the Castro dictatorship from 1959 to 1966.  In April of 1961 an expedition covertly supported by the United States was not provided sufficient air cover and support leading to their defeat, and the consolidation of communist rule in the island. Many of the Cubans who had fought alongside Castro, but felt betrayed when he installed a new dictatorship instead of restoring the democratic order, took up arms and went back into the hills. The new regime received counter insurgency forces from its Soviet allies that sent  to battle the Cuban resistance in the Escambray after years of struggle in 1967.

Eusebio Peñalver with machine gun and Joaquin Membibre, with M-1 carbin

Eusebio Peñalver (pictured above) opposed the Batista regime and fought with the rebel army to restore Cuba's constitutional democracy. Mary O'Grady wrote about him in 2013 and quoted the Cuban warrior. 

"But when Castro hijacked the revolution for himself, Peñalver broke ranks rather than 'sell my soul to the same devil that here on earth is Castro and communism.'" He took up arms against Castro's military in the Escambray Mountains, he was captured in October 1960. He spent 28 years in Cuban prisons and was banished from the island upon his release in 1988. "From exile in Los Angeles he wrote about the 'naked brutality' and round-the-clock beating and harassment that he had endured: 'They made the men eat grass, they submerged them in sewage, they beat them hard with bayonets and they hit them with fence posts until their bones rattled.'

Total number of dead in this phase of the resistance remains unknown, but tens of thousands were jailed for decades. On January 28, 1976, within the Cuban prisons, dissidents and former members of the resistance came together to found the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.  This initiative to document human rights abuses in Cuba, and report them to the international community marked  the start of a non-violent resistance to the Castro dictatorship.

 

Many movements would emerge over the next 47 years. It would be impossible to list them all. However, it would be worthwhile to highlight some that still exist today on the island. The Christian  Liberation Movement was founded in 1988, and in May 2002 with the Varela Project, a citizen initiative that thousands of Cubans signed, and led the Castro regime to change the constitution in an effort to block it, and brought international attention to Cuba's pro-democracy movement, and the democratic aspirations of the Cuban people.

Oswaldo Payá Antonio Diaz, and Regis Iglesias turn in petition

In 1991 the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement came into existence calling for free thought in Cuban education, and a return to university autonomy.

Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement

 In 1997 the Lawton Foundation was founded by Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and sought to educate Cubans on human rights and strategic non-violence, explicitly embracing the legacies of Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. 

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet

In 2003 following a major crackdown on the opposition due to the Varela Project initiative and overall growth in the democratic resistance the Ladies in White came into existence and through non-violent actions challenged the Castro regime to free their loved ones and to change the totalitarian penal code that creates prisoners of conscience. In 2011 following his release from eight years in prison, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).  

In 2018, following the announcement that the Cuban dictatorship would further restrict artistic freedoms with Decree 349, a collective of artists formed the San Isidro Movement to campaign against the repressive law. 

Logo of the San Isidro Movement

What they all have in common is the decision to use nonviolent means and strategies to challenge the Castro dictatorship. However, they are not advocating collaboration or going into business with the oppressors.

Human action is a powerful force that must not to be underestimated, but to maximized it requires knowledge, strategic planning and courage. It also requires an understanding of the real nature of political power.

Professor Gene Sharp, a nonviolent theoretician who passed away on January 28, 2018, in his book, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential, recognized that political power is "the totality of influences and pressures available for use to implement, change, or oppose official policies for a society." This means that political power "may be wielded by the institutions of government, or in opposition to the government by dissident groups and organizations."

According to Gene Sharp the sources of political power include "authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, intangible factors, material resources, and sanctions."

If we look at Cuba, the communist dictatorship there uses propaganda claims, both internally and internationally, to assert that the regime has achieved successes in education and health care. These are pillars of legitimacy and authority for the Castro regime. The dictatorship has also trained and staffed a massive intelligence apparatus to monitor and surveil the populace in Cuba trained by the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB with 64 years of experience.

There is a large military that is heavily embedded in the Cuban economy, including tourism. In the area of skill and knowledge there is a dictatorship with 64 years of experience of imposing itself through violent means on the populace in Cuba, and overseas in places such as Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. They have had experience in carrying out mass killings that rise to the level of genocide to assist client regimes. These first generation leaders are dying out, but many remain, including Raul Castro that have this knowledge and expertise in repression and terror.

One must consider the best course of action with the greatest likelihood of success while taking into account conditions on the ground.

Conservative activist Morton Blackwell explained a truth often ignored by activists of all ideological stripes in a talk titled "The Real Nature of Politics," which is required reading and offers three conclusions.

"1. Being right in the sense of being correct is not sufficient to win.  You don't win just because your heart is pure, even if you can prove logically that you are right.

2. The winner in a political contest over time is determined by the number and the effectiveness of the activists and leaders on the respective sides.

3. The number and effectiveness of the activists and leaders on a given side in a political contest is determined by the political technology used by that side."

These conclusions work both in a political struggle within a democratic order, and in confronting a dictatorship that does not play by democratic rules.  

These three ideas need to be present when planning resistance to the dictatorship in Cuba.

Providing more resources and legitimacy to the dictatorship and their networks of supporters, while marginalizing democratic forces is a recipe, already witnessed in Communist China for strengthening and modernizing the dictatorship in Beijing that turned into a greater threat to the rest of the world, and did nothing to advance democracy.

Considering that the Cuban opposition in the island over the past 47 years decided to resist the Castro dictatorship using nonviolent means, that the democratic resistance today as evidenced by the start of the July 11, 2021 uprising did so non-violently, and that concrete calls for help from the island are asking for nonviolent solidarity both inside and outside of Cuba now is the time to step up with the support requested, and not resort to the siren call of embracing the dictatorship providing it with more resources and legitimacy that has failed in the past against this regime.

Today, October 2nd is the international day of nonviolence and the 154th birth anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi. On this day let us remember our nonviolent icons in Cuba and share their message with the world, and continue to carry out concrete actions to restore democracy, the rule of law, and isolation and accountability for those engaged in human rights violations.

 

"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 Payá Sardiñas

 

“If we must give our own lives in pursuit of the freedom of our Cuba, so be it.” - Laura Pollán

Join the non-violent movement for democracy and human rights in Cuba

"Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer, and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it." - Mohandas Gandhi

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara on day six of hunger strike in Cuba

Today in Cuba there are thousands of Cubans jailed for their nonviolent demand for an end to the Castro dictatorship expressed during the mid July 2021 protests. Hundreds have been identified that were jailed or disappeared. It is known that some have resorted to going on hunger strike to protest their unjust imprisonment. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is on a hunger strike that he began on September 27, 2021 and is still weak from a bout of COVID-19, and prior hunger strikes. This is part of the movement's repertoire of nonviolent tactics to resist the Castro regime.

Over the past few months some voices emerged in the diaspora calling for: a military response from external powers, the diaspora to arm themselves and invade Cuba or Cubans on the island to rise up violently against the dictatorship. The men and women in Cuba who have led protests on the island have maintained their non-violent posture, continue to call for civic resistance as the method to challenge the dictatorship, and are asking for active nonviolent solidarity from abroad. 

On July 27, 2021 the Christian Liberation Movement tweeted: "For solidarity with the freedom of Cubans. Eleven specific actions to isolate the regime. Christian Liberation Movement."

Por la solidaridad con la libertad de los cubanos. Once acciones concretas de aislamiento al régimen. Movimiento Cristiano Liberación https://t.co/upvduDXpZu

— MCL (@oswaldopaya) July 27, 2021

They said that although statements criticizing the dictatorship are welcome and needed that now is also the time for actions to isolate the Castro regime internationally, and sanction both the dictatorship collectively, and individual bad actors in the regime. These too are part of nonviolence, and requires international solidarity. Please share and support this campaign.

On August 25, 2021 the San Isidro Movement tweeted: "Help Civil Society - Look at the manual for non-violent struggle" and provided a link to their documents on strategic nonviolence, and how people of good will can help.

Ayuda a la Sociedad Civil - Mira el manual de la lucha no violenta. https://t.co/zbIqx4VpWv#EstamosConectados

— Movimiento San Isidro (@Mov_sanisidro) August 25, 2021

This is a moment in which many that have not been following the resistance movement on the island may believe that a quick violent action can remove this entrenched dictatorship. The opposition that has taken to the streets in Cuba does not advocate this, but are asking for supporters to be non-violent.

The rest of this essay seeks to provide an overview of the opposition's decision to opt for nonviolence, and how adopting violent resistance plays into the hands of the Castro regime.

The opposition in Cuba violently resisted the Castro dictatorship from 1959 to 1966.  In April of 1961 an expedition covertly supported by the United States was not provided sufficient air cover and support leading to their defeat, and the consolidation of communist rule in the island. Many of the Cubans who had fought alongside Castro, but felt betrayed when he installed a new dictatorship instead of restoring the democratic order, took up arms and went back into the hills. They were defeated by the regime and its Soviet allies that sent counter insurgency forces to battle the Cuban resistance in the Escambray after years of struggle in 1967.

Eusebio Peñalver with machine gun and Joaquin Membibre, with M-1 carbine

Eusebio Peñalver (pictured above) opposed the Batista regime and fought with the rebel army to restore Cuba's constitutional democracy. Mary O'Grady wrote about him in 2013 and quoted the Cuban warrior. 

"But when Castro hijacked the revolution for himself, Peñalver broke ranks rather than 'sell my soul to the same devil that here on earth is Castro and communism.'" He took up arms against Castro's military in the Escambray Mountains, he was captured in October 1960. He spent 28 years in Cuban prisons and was banished from the island upon his release in 1988. "From exile in Los Angeles he wrote about the 'naked brutality' and round-the-clock beating and harassment that he had endured: 'They made the men eat grass, they submerged them in sewage, they beat them hard with bayonets and they hit them with fence posts until their bones rattled.'

Total number of dead in this phase of the resistance remains unknown, but tens of thousands were jailed for decades. On January 28, 1976, within the Cuban prisons, dissidents and former members of the resistance came together to found the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.  This initiative to document human rights abuses in Cuba, and report them to the international community marked  the start of a non-violent resistance to the Castro regime.

Many movements would emerge over the next  45 years. It would be impossible to list them all. However, it would be worthwhile to highlight some that still exist today on the island. The Christian  Liberation Movement was founded in 1988, and in May 2002 with the Varela Project that thousands of Cubans signed onto forced the regime to change the constitution to counter it, and brought international attention to Cuba's democratic opposition. 

Oswaldo Payá Antonio Diaz, and Regis Iglesias turn in petition

In 1991 the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement came into existence calling for free thought in Cuban education, and a return to university autonomy. In 1997 the Lawton Foundation was founded by Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and sought to educate Cubans on human rights and strategic non-violence, explicitly embracing the legacies of Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. 

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet

In 2003 following a major crackdown on the opposition due to the Varela Project initiative and overall growth in the democratic resistance the Ladies in White came into existence and through non-violent actions challenged the Castro regime to free their loved ones and to change the totalitarian penal code that creates prisoners of conscience. In 2011 following his release from eight years in prison, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).  

In 2018, following the announcement that the Cuban dictatorship would further restrict artistic freedoms with Decree 349, a collective of artists formed the San Isidro Movement to campaign against the repressive law. 

What they all have in common is the decision to use nonviolent means and strategies to challenge the Castro dictatorship.

Human action is a powerful force that must not to be underestimated, but to maximized it requires knowledge, strategic planning and courage. It also requires an understanding of the real nature of political power.

Professor Gene Sharp, a nonviolent theoretician who passed away on January 28, 2018, in his book, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential, recognized that political power is "the totality of influences and pressures available for use to implement, change, or oppose official policies for a society." This means that political power "may be wielded by the institutions of government, or in opposition to the government by dissident groups and organizations."

According to Gene Sharp the sources of political power include "authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, intangible factors, material resources, and sanctions."

If we look at Cuba, the communist dictatorship there uses propaganda claims, both internally and internationally, to assert that the regime has achieved successes in education and health care. These are pillars of legitimacy and authority for the Castro regime. The dictatorship has also trained and staffed a massive intelligence apparatus to monitor and surveil the populace in Cuba trained by the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB with 62 years of experience.

There is a large military that is heavily embedded in the Cuban economy, including tourism. In the area of skill and knowledge there is a dictatorship with 62 years of experience of imposing itself through violent means on the populace in Cuba, and overseas in places such as Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. They have had experience in carrying out mass killings that rise to the level of genocide to assist client regimes. These first generation leaders are dying out, but many remain, including Raul Castro that have this knowledge and expertise in repression and terror.

One must consider the best course of action with the greatest likelihood of success while taking into account conditions on the ground.

Conservative activist Morton Blackwell explained a truth often ignored by activists of all ideological stripes in a talk titled "The Real Nature of Politics," which is required reading and offers three conclusions.

"1. Being right in the sense of being correct is not sufficient to win.  You don't win just because your heart is pure, even if you can prove logically that you are right.

2. The winner in a political contest over time is determined by the number and the effectiveness of the activists and leaders on the respective sides.

3. The number and effectiveness of the activists and leaders on a given side in a political contest is determined by the political technology used by that side."

These conclusions work both in a political struggle within a democratic order, and in confronting a dictatorship that does not play by democratic rules.  

These three ideas need to be present when planning resistance to the dictatorship in Cuba. 

The decision to confront with a violent strategy a regime with 62 years of expertise in exercising violence as an instrument of control with overseas experience in carrying out mass killings that rise to the level of genocide is a brave but foolish stand with little if any chance for success.

University academics and nonviolent theoreticians Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.

Even the 26% figure needs to be looked at in the Cuban context.

The above mentioned Stephan, Chenoweth study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.” This depends on the nonviolent opposition movement having a strategic vision and maintaining its non-violent posture even under the worse repression. However, according to Stephan and Chenoweth, the more brutal the regime the better the results with nonviolent resistance and the worse the outcomes with violent resistance. 

Long time Castro ally Bashar Hafez al-Assad with Raul Castro

This can be seen in Syria with long time Castro ally Bashar Hafez al-Assad. The uprising against Assad in 2011 was initially nonviolent and despite brutal repression by the Syrian regime the nonviolent opposition registered great victories. However, when elements of the Syrian military defected and the resistance abandoned its nonviolent posture in the belief that violent resistance would achieve change faster. The end result, rather than undermine the Assad regime, changed the entire dynamic of the struggle to a terrain favorable to Bashar Hafez al-Assad. The body count of the opposition skyrocketed, popular mobilization evaporated, Al Qaeda inflitrated the ranks of the opposition leading to international support drying up, and the Syrian dictatorship consolidated its rule.

Considering that the Cuban opposition in the island over the past 45 years decided to resist the Castro dictatorship using nonviolent means, that the democratic resistance today as evidenced by the start of the July 11, 2021 uprising did so non-violently, and that concrete calls for help from the island are asking for nonviolent solidarity both inside and outside of Cuba now is the time to step up with the support requested, and not resort to the siren call of violence that has failed in the past against this regime.

Today, October 2nd is the international day of nonviolence and the 152nd birth anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi. On this day let us remember our nonviolent icons in Cuba and share their message with the world, and continue to carry out concrete actions to restore democracy, the rule of law, and accountability for those engaged in human rights violations.

"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 Payá Sardiñas

“If we must give our own lives in pursuit of the freedom of our Cuba, so be it.” - Laura Pollán

 

 

Requiescat in pace Sir Roger Scruton: Remembering a great man of letters who has been called home.

“I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.” - Russell Kirk, "Why I Am a Conservative," Confessions of a Bohemian Tory: Episodes and Reflections of a Vagrant Career (1963)

Requiescat in pace, Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020)

Sir Roger Scruton died today, at age 75, and the world is a lesser place with his absence. A one paragraph press statement on his website announced the death of the writer, philosopher, husband, father, and brother following a six month battle with cancer.

Sir Roger was a courageous man who in the midst of the Cold War traveled behind the Iron Curtain into Poland and Czechoslovakia to meet with dissidents, and demonstrate his solidarity with them, while risking prison himself.  He helped create "a pool of light" in which they could converse in freedom. He would continue this kind of work for the rest of his life.

I was introduced to who many describe as "the greatest conservative of our age" around 15 years ago by my friend Aramis Perez, and am grateful for it. In 2013 had the opportunity to meet the conservative writer and philosopher at a Forum 2000 gathering in Prague.  He was gracious, down to earth, and demonstrated his solidarity with Yris Perez Aguilera, a Cuban dissident attending the meeting.

Sir Roger Scruton together with Cuban dissident Yris Perez Aguilera at Forum 2000

Sir Roger's writings on beauty, morality, politics, environmentalism, democracy and education, and the importance of tradition are required reading with both a depth and breadth of knowledge  reminiscent of Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke.

This blog has quoted this man of letters on several occasions over the past ten years, and been influenced by him.  Sir Winston Churchill observed that it was beneficial to read books of quotations, and that in doing so would spark interest in reading more of the person cited. Below is the full quote.

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.” - Winston Churchill

In the spirit of wanting to encourage others to read the works of Sir Roger Scruton and share his views with others, below are some quotes of his that have impacted me over the years. Thanks to the internet some of these quotes are also linked to the essays from which they were excerpted.

"Without tradition, originality cannot exist: for it is only against a tradition that it becomes perceivable. Tradition and originality are two components of a single process, whereby the individual makes himself known through his membership of the historical group" - Roger Scruton, 2000. Modern Culture

"Rights are not secured by declaring them. They are secured by the procedures that protect them. And these procedures must be rescued from the state, and from all who would bend them to their own oppressive purposes." - Roger Scruton, October 16, 2004, "The State Can't Set You Free", The Spectator

"Hayek’s theory of evolutionary rationality shows how traditions and customs (those surrounding sexual relations, for example) might be reasonable solutions to complex social problems, even when, and especially when, no clear rational grounds can be provided to the individual for obeying them. These customs have been selected by the ‘‘invisible hand’’ of social reproduction, and societies that reject them will soon enter the condition of ‘‘maladaptation,’’ which is the normal prelude to extinction." - Roger Scruton "Hayek and conservatism", in Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (2006)

"For art cannot live in the world of kitsch, which is a world of commodities to be consumed, rather than icons to be revered. True art is an appeal to our higher nature, an attempt to affirm that other kingdom in which moral and spiritual order prevails. Others exist in this realm not as compliant dolls but as spiritual beings, whose claims on us are endless and unavoidable. For us who live in the aftermath of the kitsch epidemic, therefore, art has acquired a new importance … That is why art matters. Without the conscious pursuit of beauty we risk falling into a world of addictive pleasures and routine desecration, a world in which the worthwhileness of human life is no longer clearly perceivable." -Roger Scruton, May 5, 2009, Beauty

"I argue that environmental problems must be addressed by all of us in our everyday circumstances, and should not be confiscated by the state. Their solution is possible only if people are motivated to confront them." - Roger Scruton, December 4, 2012, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism 

"When we ask questions like this, are we naturally democratic? And what is the place of the democratic ethos in education? We realize that we are pulled between two competing forces. “Competition it seems to me has two different forms, one the natural form, the other the artificial form that we are all hoping for. The natural form of competition is that in which one person strives to dominate the rest and that person, if he succeeds, will then impose upon the rest his view of things. However, we hope for another form of competition, a non-natural form of competition in which the person who succeeds doesn’t want to dominate but simply to be heard. That you compete in politics for example in order that your voice should be heard and then you make room for the voices of others, that it seems to me is what the democratic instinct is."- Roger Scruton, September 13, 2015 "Are we naturally un-democratic" Forum 2000

My colleague Aramis Perez noted over social media that Sir Roger Scruton died on the same day Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke was born 291 years ago today. This day will now be marked as one to remember and honor two conservative icons.

Requiescat in pace, Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020)

Cuban dissident sent to the madhouse of death for defying regime

The price of dissent in totalitarian Cuba today

Daniel Llorente running with an American flag chased by secret police on May Day

On May Day 2017 Daniel Llorente Miranda (age 52) a Cuban dissident unfurled an American flag and ran in front of the official gathering in Havana, Cuba. The image captured by international media captured the imagination of many around the world. It was a symbol of freedom and of defiance by a Cuba who understands that "Freedom begins in the mind and that is something that has to change in Cubans, they are afraid to tell the truth. The truth is that in Cuba there is a system where the biggest beneficiary is the government. The people work and benefit the State." Moments later he was tackled down by state security agents and quickly whisked away.

Daniel Llorente knocked down by political police and about to be roughed up

He was charged with "public disorder and resistance" and was initially held at the Technical Department of Investigations of the Police in 100 and Aldabó and the official media slandered his courageous action as an "annexationist dialogue." 

Things took a more sinister turn when over three weeks ago Daniel Llorente Miranda was transferred to the Comandante Dr. Bernabé Ordaz Ducungé Psychiatric Hospital better known by its pre-revolutionary name Mazorra.

Using psychiatric facilities to torture dissidents is a practice that originated in the Soviet Union but was adopted early on by the Castro regime's intelligence services. In the Cuban case Mazorra is a madhouse of death were patients have died by the score from exposure to the elements and neglect by hospital staff.

Cuba's National Psychiatric Hospital "Mazorra"

Daniel Llorente Miranda has been terrorized, responded by going on hunger strike and is now requesting to be exiled. This is the price of dissent in totalitarian Cuba. When you defy the dictatorship you risk: arbitrary detention, death or exile.

Daniel is imprisoned and his life is in danger. He carried out a series of protests and risked all to try to raise the conscience of Cubans and their desire for freedom. The price he is paying is a steep one and he is asking for international solidarity and asylum.

Three of 26 patients who died of exposure in 2010 in Cuba

 
 

How Google is helping the Castro regime turn the internet into a Trojan Horse against Cubans

How Google's technology is empowering Castro's secret police

Photo credit: Fox News/Marta Dhanis

The reality that Google's deal with the Castro regime and how it benefits the dictatorship while harming Cubans has made it into a major news story. Marta Dhanis, a news correspondent, who visited Cuba to see first hand if there has been an improvement in internet access found that it continues to be "extremely limited."  She dug a little deeper into the cliched feel good news about Google's partnering up with the Cuban dictatorship and talked to Cubans inside the island and the result is the article titled "Google entering Cuba is 'Trojan Horse' that could reinforce regime, residents say." In the article the perspective from an academic points to something far more sinister:

“We call the internet a ‘Trojan Horse.’ The success of this government has been possible thanks to the people’s lack of information,” said a 57-year-old retired professor who requested anonymity for fear of retribution by the communist regime. “I would have a patrol car at my door tomorrow to monitor my life,” he said. On the other hand, he and others contend, this Trojan Horse is also providing the communist regime with technology that will empower the secret police with detailed reports of the users’ searches and profiles, right down to their location.

We have documented on this blog how Google in Cuba has collaborated with the Cuban intelligence services and how the Castro regime's tech monopoly ETESCA is blocking the e-mails of the Ladies in White. This has led to a coalition of Cubans to condemn Google at a gathering in Puerto Rico in 2016, But what is being prepared with this deepening of relations between Google and the Castro regime is a nightmarish scenario that we have already seen played out in China where dissidents were rounded up, some jailed, and some tortured with the aid of American technology companies like Yahoo.

In 2006 Amnesty International released a report exposing the practices of American tech companies including Google titled "UNDERMINING FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN CHINA. THE ROLE OF YAHOO!, MICROSOFT AND GOOGLE."  In the report Amnesty International stated that  "Google has come closest to acknowledging publicly that its practices are at odds with its principles."

Tragically, a decade later the pattern is repeating itself in Cuba.

This New Year they remain imprisoned for acts of conscience

Honoring the courageous

Seven years ago on Christmas day in Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, a prominent intellectual and long time activist, to eleven years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power." His "crime"? Organizing a petition drive in China calling for democratic reforms in 2008. 2016 marks the seventh anniversary of his unjust sentencing and the sixth anniversary of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

PEN America's case history on this courageous Chinese dissident reveals that he could have stayed in the United States where he was a visiting scholar in the United States in 1989 but returned to China after the start of the Tiananmen uprising:

"Liu Xiaobo is a renowned literary critic, writer, and political activist based in Beijing. He served as president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center from 2003 to 2007 and now serves as an honorary president. He was a professor at Beijing Normal University and was a visiting scholar at several universities outside of China, including the University of Oslo, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia University in New York City.  In the spring of 1989, Liu Xiaobo left his post at Columbia University and returned to Beijing to play a crucial role in the spreading pro-democracy movement..."

Unfortunately, the situation in China has not improved and international solidarity has receded over an economically and militarily ascendent China. Nevertheless in China activists took to the streets and risked their freedom to demand the release of Liu Xiaobo.

Cuba is a long way geographically from China but the trends in the island nation have also been in the wrong direction in terms of regime behavior and the international environment. However Cubans like the Chinese understand this and while many flee the country, some remain and risk everything for their homeland.

Last year was at the King Mango Strut with Cuban dissidents lampooning the Castro regime and the Obama administration. Among the revelers was Danilo Maldonado, also known as "El Sexto" an artist who desires to live in freedom, in Cuba. Under the Castro brothers that is not an easy feat and Danilo has already been declared an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience after a prolonged detention in December of 2014 for trying to carry out a performance art piece mocking the Castro brothers.

This Christmas finds him behind bars for tagging a wall with the phrase "Se fue" [he left] referring to the death of Fidel Castro on November 26, 2016. Beaten up and arrested Danilo has spent Christmas and New Years behind bars.

El Sexto is not alone, also arrested in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's death was Eduardo Cardet, the spokesperson of the Christian Liberation Movement. Cardet who is also a beloved medical doctor and family man respected in his community. While traveling abroad his wife was detained and warned that upon his return they would lock him up for 15 years in prison for having met the wrong people during his travels. Despite the threat Eduardo Cardet returned home to a brutal beating, incarceration and trumped up charges. He has also spent Christmas and New Years imprisoned and separated from his family.

Liu, Danilo and Eduardo could have easily stayed in the United States as political refugees, but made the courageous decision to return to their homeland and continue the struggle for freedom.

Today as we are about to celebrate the New Year and celebrated Christmas let us take a moment to reflect upon these three courageous men and their profound sacrifices for liberty

Pope Francis and his Visit to Cuba: A Conversation

Miami's Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Dagoberto Valdés discuss the visit of Pope Francis to Cuba

Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Dagoberto Valdés

This morning had the pleasure to attend a gathering to discuss the recent visit of the Pontiff to Cuba at St. Thomas University. Unexpectedly the press was on hand and a reporter for El Nuevo Herald immediately asked me for a comment, even before the event had started. I explained that I had come to listen, but he insisted that I provide a comment on my opinion on the Pope's visit to Cuba and I expressed my disappointment in the silence surrounding the repression of dissidents during his visit, including of those invited to meet Pope Francis who were prevented from doing so twice by Cuban regime officials.  According to a tally prepared by journalist Marc Masferrer, at least 238 Cuban dissidents were arrested during the Pope's visit to Cuba. Three Cuban dissidents who were able to to get within earshot of Pope Francis before being tackled by Cuban state security remain jailed and the Human Rights Foundation is calling for their release. 

Taken from Dagoberto's power point presentation

Archbishop Wenski made some brief remarks on the visit and apologized for the hoarseness in his voice acquired with the heavy travel itinerary with Pope Francis first in Cuba and then later in the United States. Dagoberto Valdés Hernández, founder of Convivencia magazine and the Civic Education Center in Pinar del Rio gave a detailed analysis of what went on during the visit and the themes touched on by Pope Francis and the impact the visit was having in Cuba. Below are video excerpts from Dagoberto's presentation (In Spanish).

Pope Francis in Cuba Day 2 the halfway point: A Call to Service in the Midst of a Crackdown

"Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people" - Pope Francis, Homily in Havana, September 20, 2015

Pope Francis officiates Mass in Havana, Cuba today

Tonight the Associated Press reported that the Vatican spokesman confirmed that some dissidents were called and invited to events where they would receive a greeting from Pope Francis. "Monsignor Federico Lombardi says no formal meeting was planned. Lombardi says the dissidents never showed up but he cannot confirm that it was because they were arrested." Over twitter Marta Beatriz Roque and Miriam Leiva both informed through their respective accounts that they had been invited and the circumstances surrounding their arrests by Cuban state security. This is the second time that dissidents have been invited to an event to meet the Pope and been detained.

The regime's resistance to change was on display yesterday when opposition activists that His Holiness wanted to meet with privately were arrested outside their homes while trying to reach the Apostolic Nunciature. Today scores of activists were rounded up to prevent them from attending the Holy Mass with Pope Francis at 10:30am. Nevertheless four opposition activists were caught on film, with one of them able to reach Pope Francis and receive a blessing before the three were taken away by state security agents. Univision managed to catch the whole affair on film and it is embedded below and is a visual testament to the totalitarian nature of the regime.


Meanwhile although His Holiness has not addressed the repression committed against dissidents on the island, Pope Francis has continued his pastoral mission. The excerpt of the Homily given by Pope Francis at the Holy Mass in Havana at the Plaza of the Revolution today, Sunday, September 20,  2015 focused on the nature of service and is a powerful reflection that merits being studied and prayed upon:

The call to serve involves something special, to which we must be attentive.  Serving others chiefly means caring for their vulnerability.  Caring for the vulnerable of our families, our society, our people.  Theirs are the suffering, fragile and downcast faces which Jesus tells us specifically to look at and which he asks us to love.  With a love which takes shape in our actions and decisions.  With a love which finds expression in whatever tasks we, as citizens, are called to perform.  People of flesh and blood, people with individual lives and stories, and with all their frailty: these are those whom Jesus asks us to protect, to care for, to serve.  Being a Christian entails promoting the dignity of our brothers and sisters, fighting for it, living for it.  That is why Christians are constantly called to set aside their own wishes and desires, their pursuit of power, and to look instead to those who are most vulnerable.

There is a kind of “service” which truly “serves”, yet we need to be careful not to be tempted by another kind of service, a “service” which is “self-serving”.  There is a way to go about serving which is interested in only helping “my people”, “our people”.  This service always leaves “your people” outside, and gives rise to a process of exclusion.

All of us are called by virtue of our Christian vocation to that service which truly serves, and to help one another not to be tempted by a “service” which is really “self-serving”.  All of us are asked, indeed urged, by Jesus to care for one another out of love.  Without looking to one side or the other to see what our neighbor is doing or not doing.  Jesus tells us: Whoever would be first among you must be the last, and the servant of all”.  He does not say: if your neighbor wants to be first, let him be the servant!  We have to be careful to avoid judgmental looks and renew our belief in the transforming look to which Jesus invites us.

This caring for others out of love is not about being servile.  Rather, it means putting our brothers and sisters at the center.  Service always looks to their faces, touches their flesh, senses their closeness and even, in some cases, “suffers” in trying to help.  Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people.

Jonathan Watts, of The Guardian, spoke with Angel Moya who described how at least 31 activists had been detained from attending the Mass this morning, but that was not the complete number and he was still obtaining further information. Here is an excerpt of Mr. Watts's report:

I just spoke to Angel Moya, a prominent activist who said at least 31 people were detained this morning to prevent them from attending the pope’s mass. “They are the ones we know of, but we are still counting,” he said. Moya was among them. After being held in a police station from 5am to 11:30, he said he was picked up along with his wife, Berta Soler – the leader of the Damas do Blanco (Ladies in White) group that campaigns for prisoner releases. With more than 20 other activists from the group who were gathered ahead of their planned journey to Revolution Square, when the police moved in with what he described as a “repressive, aggressive operation that was specifically targeted to prevent us from attending the public mass.”

The world has been opening to Cuba and Cuba would like to open to the world, but a dynastic totalitarian dictatorship is unwilling to do anything that would endanger the continuation of its 56 years in power. The image of the Maoist mass murderer Ernesto "Che" Guevara casts a shadow not only over the Plaza of the Revolution in Cuba but the world in general, and it is a legacy of bloodshed, terrorism and war in the pursuit of ideological ends. This includes resisting an authentic opening in Cuba where Cubans are the authors of their own destiny and imposing that model in Venezuela. Refusing to recognize this difficult reality will have dire consequences for the region.

Tiananmen Square Protests started 25 years ago this month

Strategic Blunders in China

25 years ago on April 27, 1989 soldiers try to strop students entering Tiananmen Sq.

On April 26, 1989 the People's Daily ran an editorial with the objective of frightening students into submission that had the opposite effect enraging them instead and mobilizing many more to go and protest in Tiananmen Square.  It was a strategic blunder of the first order carried out by the highest levels of the Chinese Communist regime.

Imagine for a moment that for 51 days of demonstrations beginning on April 15, 1989 thousands of students gathered nonviolently to protest and demand reforms. Protests had taken place before in China in 1986, but had not been sustained.  This time, in part due to the regime's demonizing of the student demonstrators, the protests grew and did not dissolve.

Unfortunately, the student opposition also had its issues with strategy. Gene Sharp in the documentary How to Start a Revolution described what he witnessed during his visit to China in the summer of 1989:

I’d gone to Beijing after the Tiananmen Square protests were well underway. That whole event, which it should be remembered, was not just in Beijing, but reportedly in 350 other cities of China, similar protests were going on, but they were not planned. They were not prepared. There was no strategic decision. There was no advanced decision how long you stay in the square and when you leave. What became very clear to me in retrospect was that the students in the square were operating with great commitment and bravery, but they really didn’t know what the hell they were doing. The students had no plan. They were improvising all the way through, and later on we know that many of those Chinese people who were out on the streets, in another day, were shot and killed. The attitude that you simply improvise and improvisation will bring you greater success is nonsense. Exactly the opposite – that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re likely to get into big trouble.

Michael Nagler, in his recently published handbook on nonviolent action wrote about specific tactical mistakes made by the Tiananmen Square student demonstrators. Back in 2011 when advising members of the Occupy Wall Street Movement he touched on the danger of hanging on to symbolic spaces indefinitely:

This struggle is not about particular pieces of real estate but the institutions that may be associated with them—iconically, of course, Wall Street. And it would be a bad strategy—it’s always bad strategy—to hold on to symbols, especially when they make you an easy, concentrated target.

The Metta Center for Nonviolence has a working definition of nonviolence that emerges from first principles:

Nonviolence is a compelling force that works in the social field to draw people together, often by courageously resisting injustice on one hand, but refusing to inflict suffering, on the other hand. This force, accessible to each one of us by virtue of our human being is engaged whenever we resist but do not repress a separating drive like fear or anger.

Effective nonviolent action is about identifying the pillars of power of a regime along with existing injustice and designing a strategy with the appropriate tactics to end the injustice and usher in social change that respects the dignity and rights of all persons. The Albert Einstein Institute explains how it works within a strategic mindset:

Nonviolent action works by getting a population to withdraw its support and obedience from the opponents. By getting key groups to withdraw their consent, nonviolent action is able to remove the sources of power for a regime or opponent group.

At the height of the student movement in China, over one million people marched in the streets of Beijing. This movement ended with the government's crackdown and the Beijing massacre of June 4. Below is the documentary, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, that captures the days of protest leading up to the crackdown and the massacre. Nonviolent resisters should learn as much as they can about this important movement both its successes and failures. Finally, the struggle for a free China continues to the present day and needs our solidarity.