Remembering José Martí and his legacy on his 173rd birth anniversary both in Cuba and in exile

 "Freedom can not be fruitful for the peoples who have their forehead stained in blood." - José Martí*

José Martí, 28 January 1853 – 19 May 1895

 
He re-launched an independence struggle, but he did so without inciting hatred or dehumanizing his opponents. He was a fervent supporter of civil liberties, particularly the freedom of thought and expression. 

Additionally, he worked as a journalist and poet, having previously been imprisoned by the Spanish monarchy for his political views. 

 On this day in 1853 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?

Not the Cuban dictatorship.

Falsifying Martí 

Sadly, the Castro brothers over the past 67 years has been misrepresenting his writings with the assistance of international institutions such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). They have re-written the real Jose Marti in an Orwellian fashion to advance their totalitarian narrative.

This is not unique to the Marxist-Leninist regime in Cuba but a common practice among other totalitarian regimes to legitimize their rule.

Carlos Ripoll, an expert on the life and thought of Jose Marti in 1994 wrote in the journal Cuban Studies published by the University of Pittsburgh Press the article titled, "The Falsification of José Martí in Cuba" and provided an abstract of his argument:

"Marxist-Leninist governments have traditionally falsified history to justify their rise to power and the political systems they have imposed. In response to the worldwide collapse of Communism, Cuban authorities have intensified their adulteration of history so as to offer a nationalistic rationale for their continuation in power. The highest exponent of the revolutionary tradition in Cuba is José Marti and, therefore, the falsification of his thought and doctrines is the first priority of many historians and critics. They concentrate, in particular, on the Cuban Revolutionary party founded by Marti, which they misrepresent as a forerunner of the Cuban Communist party, the basic institution that holds the monopoly of power and consequently is responsible for all the misfortunes and injustices that afflict the country. This study shows some of the forms this falsification takes in Cuba, its objectives, and attempts to disprove the inconsistent and false arguments of those who purport to find similarities or coincidences between the free, democratic republic that Marti wished for his country and the totalitarian state there in existence." 

In a letter in 1988 to The New York Review of Books, Professor Ripoll revealed how José Martí in a letter to his friend, Valdes Dominguez, written just a year before Martí’s death, criticized the “arrogance and hidden rage” of “socialist ideology” whose adherents, “in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless.”

Seven months after the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Cuban independence leader, in 1953, a failed armed attack on the Moncada barracks by Fidel Castro and a group of revolutionaries, led the future Cuban dictator,  during his trial to declare José Martí the "intellectual author" of the attack.

Castro was lying.

In 1972, the Cuban dictatorship created the "Order of Jose Marti" and over the next  54 years awarded it to dictators and war criminals such as: Alexander Lukashenko, Jiang Zemin, Xi Jinping, Kim Il-sung, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Hugo Chávez, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Robert Mugabe, Erich Honecker, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, and Nicolas Maduro.

 

The modern counterparts of Martí 

There is a movement in Cuba that seeks to restore human rights and liberties using nonviolent means. 

There are courageous Cubans who risk everything standing up to dictatorship and some of them have been assassinated in the process and their families targeted for reprisals, and forced into exile.

They embrace the principle expressed by José Martí 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 new generations carrying on his legacy.

"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, December 17, 2002

"Those who steal the rights of others steal from themselves. Those who remove and crush freedom are the true slaves." -  Harold Cepero Escalante, November 3, 2002  

In their writings and in their lives, Oswaldo and Harold exemplified the best qualities of José Martí, rejecting hatred and continuing to defy injustice while pursuing liberation and national reconciliation. 

Cuban Martyrs: Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante,

 Oswaldo and Harold were leaders in the Christian Liberation Movement. They sought freedom for their fellow Cubans.

One of their most important efforts was the Varela  Project. 

The Varela Project, named after the Cuban Catholic Priest Felix Varela, sought to reform the Cuban legal system to bring it in line with international human rights standards. They had followed the letter of the law in organizing the campaign and yet the dictatorship's response to a nonviolent citizen's initiative was to first coerce Cubans into signing another petition declaring the Constitution unchangeable and quickly passed it through the rubber stamp legislature without debating the Varela Project, which according to the Cuban law drafted by the dictatorship meant that it should have been debated by the National Assembly. 

 

The Economist in its December 14, 2005 issue published a conversation with Oswaldo Paya titled "An unsilenced voice for change" that outlined what the Christian Liberation Movement had accomplished.

Between 2001 and 2004, Mr Payá's movement gathered 25,000 signatures in a vain attempt to persuade Cuba's National Assembly to change the constitution to allow multi-party democracy. Activists of his Christian Liberation Movement made up more than two-thirds of the 75 dissidents and journalists rounded up and jailed for long terms in April 2003. [...] Spain is “complaisant” with Mr Castro's regime, Mr Payá says. “We need a campaign of support and solidarity with peaceful change in Cuba” of the kind that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa and to the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

 Oswaldo and Harold were assassinated by Cuban government agents on July 22, 2012.

Today in Cuba over a thousand Cubans are jailed for calling for freedom, and an end to dictatorship. 

This tradition also exists in exile, and was best reflected by Brothers to the Rescue.

How and why Brothers to the Rescue formed
In February of 1991 news accounts of the death by dehydration of 15-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo, a rafter fleeing Cuba, as U.S. Coast Guard officials tried to save his life shocked the moral imagination of several pilots. 

This was not an isolated event. Academics Holly Ackerman and Juan Clark, in the 1995 monograph The Cuban Balseros: Voyage of Uncertainty reported that “as many as 100,000 Cuban rafters may have perished trying to leave Cuba.” Anecdotal evidence documents that some of them were victims of the Cuban border patrol using sand bags and snipers against defenseless rafters.

Gregorio Perez Ricardo

It was within this context that on May 13, 1991 Brothers to the Rescue was founded with the aim of searching for rafters in the Florida Straits, getting them water, food, and rescued. In December of 1993 Brothers to the Rescue inaugurated their permanent hangar naming it after Gregorio.

Brothers to the Rescue by November of 1995 was collaborating with the Florida Martin Luther King Institute for Non-violence and took part in the King Day parade in 1996. On February 8, 1996 The Miami Times reported “that this group has come around to the belief that change can be brought about in Cuba in the same way that it was brought about by Dr. King in the United States.” The Miami Times concluded in the editorial “Spreading King’s Message” that “In throwing Dr. King's principle into the volatile mix of Cuban exile politics, Brothers to the Rescue is showing a willingness to be creative.” 

Brothers to the Rescue logo

 

They risked their lives in the Florida Straits to rescue Cuban rafters and at the same time Brothers to the Rescue challenged the Cuban exile community to abandon both the failed violent resistance and appeasement approaches in order to embrace strategic nonviolence.  This path followed the way of Martin Luther King Jr. with both civil disobedience and a constructive program. What was the end result? Brothers to the Rescue saved more than 4,200 men, women, and children ranging from a five-day old infant to a 79 year old man, and rescued thousands more during the 1994 refugee crisis.

One year after the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre in which 37 men, women and children were killed Cuban exiles organized a flotilla to travel in a civic non-violent manner to the spot six miles off the Havana coastline where the "13 de Marzo" tugboat had been attacked and sunk to hold a religious service for the victims. The Brothers to the Rescue overflight of Havana, where they dropped bumper stickers in Spanish that read "Comrades No. Brothers" was in response to Cuban gunboats ramming the lead boat of the flotilla.

Brothers to the Rescue also served as a bridge between a nonviolent civic movement inside of Cuba and an exile community seeking a different approach. Cuban dissidents announced on October 10, 1995 the intention to hold a national gathering of the opposition in Cuba on February 24, 1996. The coalition of over a 160 groups named themselves the Cuban Council. Brothers to the Rescue in an open and transparent manner sent $2,000 of privately raised assistance to this coalition on February 13, 1996. In the days leading up to February 24 over a 180 dissidents were imprisoned in a nationwide crackdown. 

 

Coretta Scott King and Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue

 

They risked their lives to serve a great idea, and paid the ultimate price thirty years ago on February 24, 1996.

 

 

On February 24, 1996 at 3:21pm and 3:27pm two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by two Cuban MiGs over international airspace killing four. Two more MIG’s chased a third plane to within three minutes of downtown Key West, but that plane made it back and provided critical information on what had occurred.

 

  

The four men who were killed represented all aspects of the Cuban diaspora: Armando Alejandre Jr, a child who arrived with his parents from Cuba in 1960, Carlos Costa, born in Miami Beach in 1966 and Mario Manuel de la Peña, born in New Jersey in 1971 the children of Cuban exiles. Pablo Morales was born in Cuba in 1966, raised there and was saved by Brothers to the Rescue when he was 26 years old while fleeing the island on a raft. Two were from Havana, one was from New Jersey and the other from Miami Beach. 

These four men, and many other members of Brothers to the Rescue who volunteered their time to save lives, were living out the values and example of Jose Marti in exile. 

"Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life, observed Marti." 

 They, both inside and outside of Cuba, are the direct heirs of José Martí. Let us continue to honor and remember them, and Cuba's apostle in campaigning for their freedom, and for the liberation of Cuba from the present communist dictatorship.

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

On this day in 1895 José Martí was killed by Spanish troops in Cuba. The struggle for Cuban freedom continues. #JoséMartí130

"There is no forgiveness for acts of hatred. Daggers thrust in the name of liberty are thrust into liberty's heart." - José Martí

 

 #JoséMartí130

José Julián Martí Pérez: 28 January 1853 – 19 May 1895

 José Julián Martí Pérez was killed 130 years ago today in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on May 19, 1895. He is buried in the Santa Efigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba. Cubans the world over honor his memory and Cuban independence follows a day later. Seven years and one day after Martí's death Cuba formally obtained its independence on May 20, 1902. Cuban historian Dr. Jaime Suchlicki in his essay "The Death of a Hero" describes him as Cuba’s greatest hero and most influential writer.

Yesterday, a modern José Martí, marked four years in prison. Maykel Castillo Pérez "Osorbo" is an artist, husband, father, and an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience who has spent 48 months separated from his family for "the crime" of exercising his fundamental rights. He is a rap artist,  like Martí a poet, a defender of human rights, and imprisoned for his defense of Cuban sovereignty residing among the Cuban people.  

Cuban prisoner of conscience: Maykel Castillo Pérez "Osorbo"

The Cuban dictatorship jails minors for expressing themselves, in an action reminiscent of the Spanish colonial government's targeting of the future Cuban independence leader when he was a child. On October 21, 1869, José Martí, then 16, was jailed and accused of sedition for a letter he wrote to a friend criticizing his decision to join the Spanish colonial army.

Cubans across the ideological divide claim José Martí as their own. The claims of the dictatorship, led by the Castro family, that Martí is the intellectual author of their political project is ironic considering that the life and writings of this Cuban journalist, poet, and independence leader are the antithesis of the Castro dictatorship. The late Cuban scholar Carlos Ripoll is required reading to understand the thought of José Martí.

The Institutional Repository of Florida International University’s Digital commons offered the following description of two videos examining the work of Carlos Ripoll on May 10, 2017.

Carlos Ripoll (1922-2011) was a Cuban scholar who lived in the U.S. for close to half a century, during which he carried out outstanding research on several Cuban historical, literary, and political topics. Chief among them was Ripoll’s life-long interest in the life and work of Jose Marti. Based on personal acquaintance with Ripoll, reading of his works, and a survey of Martiana donated by Ripoll himself to the FIU library upon his death, Dr. Santi will explore Ripoll’s reading of Marti, is legacy and, in particular, what Ripoll called repeatedly “the falsification of Jose Marti in present-day Cuba.”

 Dr. Enrico Mario Santí in this 2017 presentation hosted by the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University discussed his relationship with Carlos Ripoll’s and his view of Martí, describing a Martí who “was not a Marxist, but he was a radical revolutionary. On the one hand Martí was not a socialist, but Martí was very interested in pursuing a revolution after the War of Independence. In other words there were no easy political solutions that Ripoll was advocating, but on the contrary was asking us to think through these issues and to be very careful about the facts of Cuban history, and the way Cuban history was being manipulated.”

For Spanish language readers, Professor Santí recommends reading Ripoll’s essay “La noble intransigencia de José Martí” which is available online, among other works.

Both José Martí’s writings and actions taken by him in life point to a man who prized liberty, independence based in popular sovereignty, and freedom of speech, thought and association as fundamental to his sense of being. He was a prisoner of conscience, before Amnesty International coined the term, jailed for writing a disapproving letter to a classmate for joining the Spanish colonial army.

Under the Castro regime freedom of expression can end in prison for engaging in “enemy propaganda,” and freedom of thought can also lead you to prison for the crime of “dangerousness.” This is an affront to José Marti’s belief that “liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy, under the Castro regime, is a currency for survival.

The Castro regime's celebration of José Martí is doubly ironic because both Francisco Franco's father and Fidel and Raul Castro's father had been soldiers who fought in Cuba to preserve its colonial status within the Spanish empire. Castro's father, Angel, according to the 2016 documentary, "Franco and Fidel: A Strange Friendship", had a photo of Franco on his nightstand. This historical link translated into a "special relationship" between the two dictators and is available online.

Cuba under the Castros is not the vision advanced by Cuba’s greatest hero. This tradition of freedom and respect for freedom of thought and speech exists among Cuban dissidents, and on more than one occasion cost the lives of other heroes to defend. One of Martí's modern day counterparts is Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who addressed the European Parliament on December 17, 2002:

“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 was extra-judicially executed by the secret police on July 22, 2012.  International human rights body's have recognized that this murder was a political assassination.

Other counterparts of Martí are found among the Cuban artists, journalists and intellectuals that nonviolently gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture to read his works on January 27, 2021, and were beaten up by the Castro dictatorship’s Minister of Culture, and arrested by the regime’s political police.

José Martí with shirt of stars by Camila Ramírez Lobón

 Today we remember and honor José Martí and his modern day counterparts risking all for Cuba to be free, and hope that their authentic history will reach a wider audience to counter the disinformation spread by the Cuban dictatorship, and others.

"I think they kill my child every time they deprive a person of their right to think." - José Martí 

35 years ago on November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall did not fall, it was torn down by free Germans

  "It is your duty to use your combat … skills in such a way as to overcome the cunning of the border breacher, to challenge or liquidate him in order to thwart the planned border breach... Don’t hesitate to use your weapon even when border breaches happen with women and children, which traitors have often exploited in the past.” Order to Border Guards October 1, 1973.

"If we get shot, will you write about us?" - E. German Student, demonstrating against GDR regime 

Tearing down the Berlin Wall in November 1989

Thirty five years ago tomorrow the Berlin Wall began to be physically torn down. It was a great day for freedom and the triumph of long years of nonviolent resistance throughout Eastern Europe.

The Berlin Wall had been constructed beginning on August 13, 1961. with barbed-wire fence followed by a 100-mile wall and more than 300 watchtowers to spot and shoot escapees and the East German communists called it the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart." Minefields were laid in some sectors.

The destruction of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 was not inevitable. It did not fall down. It was torn down.

With their courage & desire for freedom, the people of the #GDR brought down the #BerlinWall-which we will be celebrating tomorrow! The division of #Germany 🇩🇪 is history. The commitment to #freedom is more important today than ever. Freedom cannot be taken for granted.… pic.twitter.com/gRmhbR9VmF

— GIC Africa (@GermanyInAfrica) November 8, 2024

Remember that between 1961 and the very year it was torn down, at least 140 Germans were extrajudicially executed by the East German border guards for trying to cross the Berlin Wall to freedom. There is the Berlin Wall Museum, which offers a complete listing of the 140 known victims with details about them and their deaths.

We should also remember those who celebrated or ignored this scar that ran through the heart of Germany for 28 years and defended or rationalized the murder of unarmed civilians while hobnobbing with the East German leadership. What is their moral responsibility for these horrors?

Fidel Castro on the Berlin Wall in 1972

Fidel Castro's first visit to Berlin began on June 13, 1972 and at various points, the Cuban dictator addressed the border guards that policed the Berlin Wall to prevent East Germans from escaping to the West. At Brandenburg Gate on June 14 in the afternoon (pictured above), he addressed the men charged with shooting East Germans fleeing to West Germany as "the courageous and self-denying border guards of the GDR People's Army, who stand guard in the front line of the entire-socialist community." Later in the evening, Premier Castro addressed the Nikolay Bezarin Barracks in East Berlin:

It is very important to know that the people of the GDR have great confidence in you, that they are truly proud of you. The comrades of the party and the citizens of socialist Berlin have told us with great satisfaction about the activity of the border troops, speaking with great admiration for you and for your services.

Later in the same speech Mr. Castro offered his take on what he saw there and the prospects for the future:

We have no doubt that a great political and revolutionary victory has been won in the GDR. You have created the foundations for the future, a truly revolutionary state, a border state to whom the future belongs. You are the new generation, which will continue this work.

He spent most of his time there, accompanied by Erich Honecker, who, as Central Committee secretary for security matters in 1961, was in charge of constructing the Berlin Wall and, by 1971, had become the dictator of East Germany through a power struggle and Soviet support the de facto head of state.

Erich Honecker and Angela Davis in 1972

Angela Davis also paid visits to East Germany (in 1965 and 1972).  During her 1972 visit, she was received by Erich Honecker. She celebrated the East German communist regime and refused to criticize, or recognize its shortcomings on human rights. She refused to make any mention of the Berlin Wall in her autobiography.

This practice extended beyond East Germany.

Angela Davis also visited Cuba in 1972, and Fidel Castro made her an honorary member of the infamous Committee in the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). Neighborhood committees that spied on Cubans to ensure their loyalty to the dictatorship.

Innocent people were being killed in Germany until 1989, and are still massacred in Cuba today.

 

Chris Gueffroy killed at the Berlin Wall on Feb 5, 1989

 

One of the last victims, Chris Gueffroy, was born on June 21, 1968, and shot dead by East German border guards on February 5, 1989, while trying to cross on the Britzer Zweigkanal, near the small garden colonies "Harmonie" and "Sorgenfrei" on the sector border between Berlin-Treptow and Berlin-Neukölln. At the age of 20, he was executed for the crime of wishing to live in freedom. 

A memorial column in memory of Chris Gueffroy was erected at Britzer Zweigkanal in Berlin-Treptow in 2003 in honor of his 35th birthday. A biography and account of the circumstances that led to his death and the aftermath are available online.  

Memorial Column for Chris Gueffroy

The process of the Berlin Wall being torn down was both a struggle of ideas, nonviolent resistance, and international solidarity. Germans crossed the wall seeking freedom in an act of nonviolent defiance. Many escaped, but others paid the ultimate price for freedom. The Order to Border Guards from the East German regime was clear:

"It is your duty to use your combat … skills in such a way as to overcome the cunning of the border breacher, to challenge or liquidate him in order to thwart the planned border breach... Don’t hesitate to use your weapon even when border breaches happen with women and children, which traitors have often exploited in the past."

Thirty five years have passed, and the words of the late Czech dissident Vaclav Havel remain relevant for our times, and in defiance of the inhumanity represented by the Berlin Wall. In 2003, he addressed a gathering at Florida International University that was prescient.

"Our world, as a whole, is not in the best of shape, and the direction it is headed in may well be quite ambivalent. But this does not mean that we are permitted to give up on free and cultivated thinking and to replace it with a set of utopian clichés. That would not make the world a better place, it would only make it worse. On the contrary, it means that we must do more for our own freedom, and that of others."

The legacy of the Berlin Wall reverberates strongly among Cubans because, since 1959, the Florida Straits have been turned into a killing zone by the communist regime in Cuba, along with the border with the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base.  

Finally, let us denounce the watery Berlin Wall in the Florida Straights created by the Castro regime that continues to kill Cubans seeking freedom. Less than five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on July 13, 1994, thirty-seven Cubans were massacred for trying to flee Cuba. The most recent massacre in Cuba occurred a little over two years ago, on October 28, 2022, killing seven Cubans, including a two-year-old.

 

However, we must commemorate the tremendous days of liberation that took place in the heart of Europe in 1989, the winds of change that emancipated tens of millions of people, and the fact that these free societies are still flourishing in freedom after 35 years.

While honoring and remembering tomorrow the events and heroes of November 9, 1989, I will also remember the struggle for liberty and justice never ends.  

From Ukraine, to Taiwan, to Venezuela, to Cuba, and too many other places around the world the struggle for freedom continues. 

On this day in 1895 José Martí was killed by Spanish troops in Cuba. The struggle for Cuban freedom continues.

 

"There is no forgiveness for acts of hatred. Daggers thrust in the name of liberty are thrust into liberty's heart." - José Martí

José Julián Martí Pérez: January 28, 1853 - May 19, 1895

José Julián Martí Pérez was killed 128 years ago today in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on May 19, 1895. He is buried in the Santa Efigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba. Cubans the world over honor his memory and Cuban independence follows a day later. Seven years and one day after Martí's death Cuba formally obtained its independence on May 20, 1902. Cuban historian Dr. Jaime Suchlicki in his essay "The Death of a Hero" describes him as Cuba’s greatest hero and most influential writer.

 

Maykel Castillo Pérez "Osorbo"

Yesterday, a modern José Martí, marked two years in prison. Maykel Castillo Pérez "Osorbo" is an artist, husband, father, and an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience who has spent 48 months separated from his family for "the crime" of exercising his fundamental rights. He is a rap artist,  like Martí a poet, a defender of human rights, and imprisoned for his defense of Cuban sovereignty residing among the Cuban people.  

The Castro regime jails minors for expressing themselves, in an action reminiscent of the Spanish colonial government's targeting of the future Cuban independence leader when he was a child. On October 21, 1869, when he was just 16 years old, José Martí was jailed,and accused of sedition for a letter he wrote criticizing a friend for joining the Spanish army.

Cubans across the ideological divide claim José Martí as their own. The claims of the dictatorship, led by the Castro family, that Martí is the intellectual author of their political project is ironic considering that the life and writings of this Cuban journalist, poet, and independence leader are the antithesis of the Castro regime.

Killed 128 years ago today riding into battle on horseback.

 

It is doubly ironic because both Francisco Franco's father and Fidel and Raul Castro's father had been soldiers who fought in Cuba to preserve its colonial status within the Spanish empire. Castro's father, Angel, according to the 2016 documentary, "Franco and Fidel: A Strange Friendship", had a photo of Franco on his nightstand. This historical link translated into a "special relationship" between the two dictators and is available online.

Both José Julián Martí Pérez's writings and actions taken by him in life point to a man who prized liberty, independence based in popular sovereignty, and freedom of speech, thought and association as fundamental to his sense of being. He was a prisoner of conscience, before Amnesty International coined the term, jailed for writing a disapproving letter to a classmate who joined the Spanish army.

Under the Castro regime freedom of expression can end in prison for engaging in "enemy propaganda," and freedom of thought can also lead you to prison for the crime of "dangerousness." This is an affront to José Marti's belief that "liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy." Hypocrisy, under the Castro regime, is a currency for survival.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Cuba under the Castros is not the vision advanced by Cuba's greatest hero. This tradition of freedom and respect for freedom of thought and speech existed during the Republic (1902 - 1952) and still exists today, underground, among dissidents in the island, and on more than one occasion cost the lives of other heroes to defend. One of Marti's modern day counterparts is Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who addressed the European Parliament on December 17, 2002:

"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 was extra-judicially executed by the secret police on July 22, 2012. Other modern counterparts can also be found in the 27N and San Isidro movements, and the artists, journalists and intellectuals that nonviolently gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture to read the works of José Martí on January 27, 2021, and were beaten up by the Castro dictatorship's Minister of Culture, and arrested by the regime's political police.

The Cuban dictatorship has managed to exceed the Spanish colonial authority by jailing a parent for speaking up for their imprisoned child. Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro, jailed at age 17 for nonviolently protesting during the 11J protests, is serving an unjust five year prison sentence with forced labor. His father, Rolando Castillo, was subjected on May 18, 2022 to an "express trial" without an attorney and sentenced to two years in prison, with less than two hours notice is also serving out his prison sentence today.

Father and Son: Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro and his dad Rolando Castillo

 

The legacy of José Martí in Cuba today is found among the persecuted dissidents defending free speech, freedom of association and demanding a free and independent Cuba. Although the Castro regime uses the name and image of the Cuban journalist and poet they have done everything to pervert and destroy his true message of liberation.

"I think they kill my child every time they deprive a person of their right to think." - José Martí 

 

Burial site of José Martí

 

Remembering Basilio Guzmán Marrero on the one year anniversary of his passing

Basilio Guzmán Marrero April 15,1937- April 13, 2022

 

Today has special significance for Cuban exiles. One year ago today on April 13, 2022 Cuban exile, former prisoner of conscience and Plantado Basilio Guzmán Marrero passed away after a long illness. He was 84 years old.

Basilio Guzmán Marrero, who was jailed for 22 years, and tortured for most of that time in Cuban prisons, refused his whole life to cooperate with evil, and remained committed to a free Cuba. He fought against the dictatorships of Fulgencio Batista, and Fidel Castro.  

Canadian Professor Peter McKenna characterizes most Cuban exiles as being "anti-Cuba" because of their opposition to the Castro dictatorship. Professor McKenna's claim is at best Orwellian, and at worse perverse. 

The pro-Castro crowd repeats a regime narrative about their opponents that is often an exercise in projection. 

Basilio Guzmán Marrero's life is a refutation of the regime narrative. 

On July 11, 2021 despite poor health Basilio Guzman picketed the Cuban Embassy in DC.

 

Basilio was born on April 15, 1937 into a humble family in the countryside of Havana province near Campo Florido. When he was seven years old his family was evicted from their home.

He had fond childhood memories of spending time at Guanabo Beach.

Shortly after Fulgencio Batista overthrew Cuba's democracy on March 10, 1952, Basilio Guzmán joined the resistance against Batista while still a teenager, and joined the Directorio. He was part of the struggle for a free Cuba.

During these years, he also became a carpenter.

Soon after the revolutionary victory in 1959 he joined with Cubans who felt betrayed by Fidel Castro. They had fought for the restoration of democracy and the 1940 Constitution.

Instead they witnessed the Soviet model imposed in Cuba. Press censored and taken over by the new regime. Forced labor camps modeled after the gulags in the Soviet Union, political show trials and firing squads.

Basilio joined the Frente Nacional Democratico (National Democratic Front) , a resistance movement against Castro.

Basilio's movement was infiltrated, and he was identified, arrested, and in 1962 jailed. He would spend the next 22 years in a Cuban prison.

He was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

He was a Plantado, a group of prisoners that refused to take part in any re-education plans, or cooperate with the dictatorship in any way.

Basilio Guzman was freed and exiled in 1984, after 22 years in prison, and flown to the United States along with 25 other Cuban political prisoners with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who had petitioned for their release when he visited Cuba.

Basilio Guzman resuming his carpentry career in 1985 (Barbara E. Joe)

Pamela Doty, an Amnesty International volunteer who focused on Cuba, met Basilio when he arrived at the airport in Washington, DC in 1984 and they eventually married, and had a daughter together who grew up to be an art historian.

Over the next 33 years Basilio resumed his vocation in carpentry, and built a successful business in Northern Virginia, but he never forgot Cuba.

Basilio Guzman would take part in public protests against the Castro dictatorship, looked out for other political prisoners, and was a friend to the Center for a Free Cuba board and staff.

Basilio published an autobiography in 2020 “DESPUÉS DE LA NOCHE: Mis 22 años en el Presidio Político de Cuba” [ AFTER THE NIGHT: My 22 years in the Political Prisons of Cuba ] and gave an extensive interview about his life to Voces de Cuba in January 2022. 

Basilio was not "anti-Cuban" but he was profoundly anti-dictatorship and openly hostile to any manifestation of injustice, especially against the Cuban people. 

Frank Calzon, Sirley Ávila León, Basilio Guzmán, Raudel Bringas, & others carried out a vigil for "13 de marzo" tugboat victims.

Thankfully others in the Canadian academy challege the pro-Castro regime false narrative. Professor Yvon Grenier in his OpEd ”Since when are Cuban exiles anti-Cuba?” published in the Saltwire Network on April 15, 2022 sets the record straight.

In his April 5 opinion piece entitled “Sixty years of a misguided U.S. blockade of Cuba,” Prof. Peter McKenna characterizes many of the 1.3 million Cuban-Americans as being “anti-Cuba.” Do we ever say, by way of comparison, that members of Afghan or Guatemalan exile communities are “anti-Afghanistan” or “anti-Guatemala”? No government is its people — especially when the government is not chosen freely by its citizens.

Opposing the Castro dictatorship is thoroughly pro-Cuba. Bishop Agustín Román in a talk he gave on "The importance of the current internal dissident movement in Cuba" on December 16, 2006 argued love is the driving force to seek change in Cuba.

"If what we do for Cuba, we do not do for love, better not do it. If all of us who want the good of the nation, of the important internal dissident movement and the persevering of exile arm ourselves with these virtues, we will be effective. If we are committed to not let personalism, or the passions dilute them, we will have won. If we keep them and transmit them to all our people, we will have secured for Cuba a happy future."

Basilio would protest the new injustices occurring in Cuba after his release and exile in 1984, the massacre of 37 men, women, and children on July 13, 1994 by Castro agents for trying to leave Cuba on the 13 de Marzo tugboat, the killing of four Brothers to the Rescue members on February 24, 1996 shot down in international airspace, and the killing of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante on July 22, 2012. These are three of many examples.

On Feb 20, 2020 outside Cuban Embassy in Wash DC vigil for Orlando Zapata Tamayo & 4 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down martyrs. Basilio Guzmán Marrero held a poster of Mario De La Peña.

Today it is up to the living to continue Basilio's legacy of integrity, love of country, desire for justice and pursuit of freedom for the Cuban homeland.