"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’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Showing posts with label librado linares. Show all posts
Showing posts with label librado linares. Show all posts
Earlier today this blog published a reflection on the nationwide crackdown on Cuban dissidents that took place on March 18, 2003, and the execution of three young black men by firing squad on April 12, 2003 for hijacking a ferry to flee Cuba (no one was harmed during the incident that took place on April 2, 2003). This became known as Cuba's Black Spring.
75 of these Cuban dissidents were recognized as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International, spent years in prison, and the last were released eight years later in 2011. One of the last freed was Librado Linares, because he refused to go into exile.
This evening saw a video by Librado. This courageous man is speaking out about COVID-19, the economic crisis, and the failure of the elites in Cuba.
Below is the video ( in Spanish) of him speaking on these issues:
Banner reads: Vladimir Morera Bacallao is dying "Freedom"
On December 30, 2015 Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart was not allowed to give religious assistance to Vladimir Morera Bacallao while State Security carries out a campaign to discredit the political prisoner reports Cuban human rights defender Librado Linares. Nor can Bacallao's family be reached by phone. On the same day five MCR-MOJD activists were violently arrested at the provincial hospital when trying to visit Vladimir Morera reported Librado Linares in a tweet adding that "Isolation helps to discredit." The news today from Librado on December 31, 2015 is dire. "SOS Vladimir Morera is mentally incoherent. The lack of glucose and B complex has affected the brain or the bad intention [ of state security].
Yesterday over the Cuban Reflection Movement's youtube account a video of a group of three activists placing a banner on a fence with the message "Vladimir Morera Bacallao is dying Freedom" was uploaded.
1. Use the hashtag #SaveBacallao on social media and let others know about his plight. 2. Call the hospital where he is currently being held [ Tel: +53-42-271234
+53-42-271256
+53-42-20105/81] and express your concern on his health status. 3. Ask your elected representatives to contact the Cuban government and have them express their concern on the plight of Vladimir
Morera Bacallao directly. At the same time have them speak before their legislative body on the record regarding his plight.
Yesterday reproduced a more detailed post on his background and present predicament. Today I plead with you keep spreading the word. This is how New Years is celebrated in Cuba on the 57th anniversary of the nightmare known as the Cuban revolution.
Following a night in jail, former prisoners of conscience tweet about their detention and release
Librado Linares (left) and Ivan Hernandez Carillo (right) freed
First the good news, Sayli Navarro, the daughter who tweeted last night about her father's arbitrary detention at the hands of State Security, along with three other activists, has her dad back home tonight. Unfortunately, the news from the detained activists is not so good. Prison conditions continue to be poor, and nonviolent activists like themselves are housed in the same cell with murderers. Cubans are still being arrested and thrown into those same cells solely for trying to leave Cuba without the dictatorship's permission which in the regime's penal code is called "illegal exit" and runs afoul of international human rights standards, specifically Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Librado Linares over twitter reported: Felix Navarro, Ivan Hernandez Carillo, Guillermo Fariñas and I arrested in Matanzas for 24 hours after campaign meeting For Another Cuba. Ivan Hernandez Carillo offered a detail break down of what had taken place from his detention until being taken handcuffed to the point of his release from custody at 11:27am:
Just released, they have left me standing in a thicket in the middle of the highway that connects Matanzas with Limonar. They seized (stole) all that I brought with me: copies of El Nuevo Herald, literature, my phone book & news photocopiesWhen they took the phone, they had the audacity to erase many of the phone numbers in my contacts.I was locked up in 1 cell with 7 more where we didn't know whether it was day or night.All was wet, closed & with 1 bulb. Among those who they locked me up with was one of the criminals who murdered and burned a young car rental driver near Perico. In the cell also had 2 other Cubans imprisoned for "illegal exit" which had three days before attempted to escape. Felix Navarro remains detained, Librado Linares was released same as Guillermo Fariñas, Fariñas hasn't arrived home
Felix Navarro, Sayli Navarro, Sonia Generosa Álvarez Campillo,
Sayli Navarro reported a short time later that: They bring Felix Navarro handcuffed to Penas Altas and leave him abandoned there. By God's will four brothers arrested last night were freed. I APPRECIATE the concern of ALL and the support Congrats! :) My father @felixncuba just arrived home in Perico. @IvanLibre goes on to Colon. We'll continue struggling for another Cuba
Daughter tweeted tonight about her dad's arbitrary detention at the hands of State Security along with three other activists
Tonight Sayli Navarro reported on detention of four activists
The total number of Cubans arbitrarily detained in 2012 is greater than the totals for 2010 and 2011 combined. The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation on Tuesday reported a total of 6,035 detentions so far in 2012. The arbitrary detentions of nonviolent activists in Cuba can be expected to continue and increase as International Human Rights Day (December 10) approaches.
Sayli with her dad Felix Navarro who is in jail tonight
Librado Linares and Ivan Hernandez Carillo detained with Sayli's dad
Sayli would learn from opposition activist, Jorge Luis Artiles Montiel, that 3 Ladies in White along with six other activists had initiated a sit-in in front of the Third Union of Santa Clara to protest the arrest of the four activists.
An hour later Sayli tweets that Jesus Hernandez has told her that a State Security official in Villa Clara who goes by the name of Pablo Hechemendia is confirming that the four dissidents have been detained in Matanzas.
Finally, in her last tweet at 10:26pm Sayli reports that the state security agent Lieutenant Colonel Pablo Hechemendia assures that tomorrow at 8:00 am the four detainees will be released.
Cuba was once a prosperous nation that counted on democratic institutions and a flourishing economy when it was compared to the rest of the world. The communist dictatorship destroyed not only its economic foundations, but also its moral structures. Now, a new generation of Cubans are proposing to dismantle this opprobrious system and the build a new nation founded on the recognized universal principles of peace, liberty, and the well being of all her sons and daughters.
FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY
The Cuban communist regime is a military dictatorship that has maintained power for more than fifty years through the use of terror, intimidation, lies, disinformation, demagoguery, political opportunism, and violence against its adversaries and even its own people.
The Castro hierarchy—first under the sole direction of Fidel Castro and later his brother Raul—has not only assumed political power, it has also extended its control to all spheres of national life, from the social to the economic. Everything is done to ensure the Cuban nation is a highly militarized society where no one is allowed to breathe even the most minimal vestige of liberty.
The Castro tyranny’s policy can be described without fear of exaggeration as one of genocide, which seeks the total extermination of its adversaries. Its actions speak for themselves:
—It has carried out hundreds of extrajudicial executions of its opponents and thousands more after trials without due process.
—It has imprisoned and arbitrarily repressed hundreds of thousands.
—It has violated individual rights enumerated in its own constitution.
—It has illegally confiscated without compensation hundreds of thousands of private properties.
—It has persecuted, imprisoned, and forcibly exiled hundreds of religious individuals of different beliefs.
—It has illegally abolished the Democratic Constitution of 1940 and has imposed the monstrous Communist Constitution of 1976.
—It has dismantled all the democratic institutions created by the nation during more than fifty years, and has violated the population’s most elemental civil and human rights.
—It has committed barbaric acts such as the sinking of the 13 de Marzo tugboat where dozens of men, women, and children were murdered.
—It executed three young men only for attempting to leave the country, and it criminally shot down two airplanes over international waters carrying four human rights activists on a mission to save lives in the Florida Straits.
—It has imprisoned dozens of peaceful opposition members, among them several intellectuals, journalists, and independent librarians during the Black Spring of 2003.
—It has used inhumane and degrading torture and cruelty against defenseless political prisoners in the country’s prisons.
—It has carried out massive arrests, beatings, and even assassinated those who opposed them, including women and children.
This has been the absurd panorama and the widespread injustices which the people of Cuba have struggled against, almost always alone, since 1959. To finally put an end to this lamentable state of affairs, arises at this moment a strong, non-violent civic movement has set out to reestablish civil society and gain the rights and liberties of our people.
Democracy is not a chimera, but a tangible reality that the Cuban people can obtain through non-violent civil struggle supported by ideas and procedures meticulously formulated by outstanding contemporary academics. The same give peaceful weapons to the population for resistance against tyrannies, both current and future, and for the defense of their liberties.
This method utilizes psychological, social, economic, and political weapons to free the citizens from submission and obedience, allowing them to suppress the dictatorial government’s sources of power.
Simply put, the non-violent civic struggle is the massive defiance to the regime, and therefore presupposes the unity of democratic forces and those forces with the people.
The Fundamental Principles of this Declaration are:
Work towards a change to a democratic system based on a true State of Rights, and with a modern economy that is developed and highly efficient.
Achieve a transition based on constitutional norms that leads to the reestablishment of our traditional democratic institutions and all universally recognized liberties.
Strengthen the struggle for the respect of human rights, and achieve a society free of political prisoners.
Respect the fundamental rights established by the International Pact for Civil and Political Rights, as well as the right to life and the freedom of thought.
Encourage and strengthen unity among Cubans, regardless of where they live, based on fraternity and ethics as well as their individual relationships and the struggle we have before us.
Advocate and strengthen among the citizenry the method of non-violent civic struggle.
Create a free Cuba without ties to our recent past by the disintegration of the regime, and the eradication from the minds of our people the complacent attitude that has been predominate these past 52 years of tyranny.
Increase international solidarity with the Cuban people and support for its just struggle for the reestablishment of democracy.
Reaffirm that the Cuban people deserve a dignified life, where they can enjoy the liberties and the good things that complete happiness offers. This will only become reality when we all incorporate ourselves into the struggle for democratic change.
The signers of this declaration consider it a first step towards a definitive consolidation of the unity that will make possible an integral project for a new nation.
Look to the Cuban people with the objective of carrying out a nation project that represents the most longed for aspirations of its heroes and martyrs throughout its history.
In this quest we are inspired by our faith in a Higher Being, our love for our beloved Cuba, and deep and unequivocal patriotism; in addition, absolute respect for our flag, for our national anthem, for other patriotic symbols, and for the heroes and martyrs of our struggle for the liberty and independence of our country throughout its entire history.
Original Spanish text taken from Penúltimos Díasreproduced below:
Principios para una nueva nación
[Llamado a la unidad presentado por varios miembros de la disidencia interna el 4 de octubre de 2011, en La Habana.]
Cuba era una nación próspera que contaba con instituciones democráticas y una floreciente economía cuando se le comparaba con el resto del mundo. La dictadura comunista destruyó no solo sus cimientos económicos sino sus estructuras morales. Ahora, una nueva generación de cubanos nos proponemos desmantelar este oprobioso sistema y construir una nueva nación sobre principios universalmente reconocidos con paz, libertad y bienestar para todos sus hijos.
De la dictadura a la democracia
El régimen comunista cubano es una dictadura militar que se ha mantenido en el poder durante más de cincuenta años por medio del terror, la intimidación, la mentira, la desinformación, la demagogia, el oportunismo político y la violencia contra sus adversarios y hasta contra su pueblo. La jerarquía castrense —bajo la dirección unipersonal primero de Fidel Castro y, después, de su hermano Raúl— no sólo ha asumido el poder político sino que ha extendido su control a todas las esferas de la vida nacional desde lo social hasta lo económico. Todo esto ha hecho de la nación cubana una sociedad altamente militarizada donde no se respira el más mínimo vestigio de libertad.
La política de la tiranía castrista puede ser catalogada sin temor a caer en exageración de un genocidio que se propone el total exterminio de sus adversarios. Y prueba al canto:
—Ha fusilados extrajudicialmente a centenares de sus oponentes y a miles más tras juicios sin garantías procesales.
—Ha encarcelado y reprimido arbitrariamente a centenares de miles.
—Ha violado las garantías individuales contenidas en su propia Constitución.
—Ha confiscado de manera ilegal y sin compensación alguna centenares de miles de propiedades privadas.
—Ha perseguido, encarcelado y expulsado del país a centenares de religiosos de distintas denominaciones.
—Ha abolido ilegalmente la Constitución Democrática de 1940 e impuesto el adefesio de la Constitución Comunista de 1976.
—Ha desmantelado todas las instituciones democráticas creadas por la nación durante más de cincuenta años y conculcado los más elementales derechos civiles y derechos humanos de la población.
—Ha cometido actos de barbarie como el hundimiento del remolcador “13 de Marzo”, en que asesinaron a decenas de hombres, mujeres y niños.
—Ha fusilado a tres jóvenes por el sólo hecho de intentar salir del país y derribado criminalmente en aguas internacionales a dos avionetas en las que viajaban cuatros activistas de derechos humanos en la misión de salvar vidas en el Estrecho de la Florida.
—Ha encarcelado a decenas de opositores pacíficos entre quienes se encontraban numerosos intelectuales, periodistas y bibliotecarios independientes durante la Primavera Negra de 2003.
—Ha aplicado torturas y tratos crueles, inhumanos y degradantes contra indefensos presos políticos en las cárceles del país.
—Ha llevado a cabo arrestos masivos, golpizas y hasta asesinatos contra sus contestatarios, incluidos jóvenes y mujeres.
Este ha sido el panorama alucinante y las injusticias generalizadas contra las que ha luchado, casi siempre a solas, el pueblo de Cuba desde 1959. Para poner fin a este lamentable estado de cosas, surge en este momento un fuerte movimiento civilista no violento que se propone restablecer la sociedad civil y conquistar los derechos y libertades de nuestro pueblo.
La democracia no es una quimera sino una realidad tangible que el pueblo cubano puede alcanzar mediante la lucha cívica no violenta sustentada en criterios y procedimientos detalladamente formulados por destacados académicos contemporáneos. Los mismos dan armas pacíficas a la población para la resistencia contra las tiranías, tanto presentes como futuras, y para la defensa de sus libertades.
Este método utiliza armas psicológicas, sociales, económicas y políticas para liberar a los ciudadanos de la sumisión y de la obediencia; así como para suprimir las fuentes de poder del gobierno dictatorial.
Dicho en pocas palabras, la lucha cívica no violenta es el desafío masivo al régimen y por tanto presupone la unidad de las fuerzas democráticas y de éstas con el pueblo.
Los principios fundamentales de esta declaración de unidad son:
Trabajar por el cambio hacia un sistema democrático basado en un verdadero Estado de Derecho y una economía moderna, desarrollada y altamente eficiente.
Lograr una transición sobre normas constitucionales que conduzcan al restablecimiento de nuestras tradicionales instituciones democráticas y a todas las libertades universalmente reconocidas.
Reforzar la lucha por el respeto a los derechos humanos y alcanzar una sociedad libre de presos políticos.
Respetar los derechos fundamentales establecidos por el Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos como son entre otros el derecho a la vida y a la libertad de pensamiento.
Fomentar y consolidar la unidad de los cubanos, con independencia de su residencia, sobre la base de la fraternidad y la ética tanto en sus relaciones individuales como en la lucha que tenemos por delante.
Propugnar y consolidar entre los ciudadanos el método de la lucha cívica no violenta.
Crear una Cuba libre sin ataduras a nuestro pasado reciente por medio de la desintegración del régimen y de la erradicación de la mente de nuestro pueblo del criterio de acomodación que ha predominado durante estos 52 años de tiranía.
Incrementar la solidaridad internacional con el pueblo cubano y el apoyo a su justa lucha por el restablecimiento de la democracia.
Reafirmar que el pueblo cubano merece una vida digna en el disfrute de las libertades y de los bienes que le ofrezcan una felicidad plena. Esto sólo se convertirá en realidad cuando nos incorporemos todos a la lucha por los cambios democráticos.
Los firmantes de la presente declaración la consideramos como el primer paso hacia la definitiva consolidación de la unidad que hará posible un proyecto integral por una nueva nación.
Consultar al pueblo cubano con el objetivo de elaborar un proyecto de nación que represente las más anheladas aspiraciones de sus héroes y mártires a través de toda nuestra historia.
En esta idea nos animan la fe en un Ser Supremo, el amor por nuestra querida Cuba y un profundo e inequívoco patriotismo; así como el absoluto respeto a nuestra bandera, al himno nacional, a los demás símbolos patrios y a los héroes y mártires de la lucha por la libertad e independencia de nuestro país a lo largo de toda su historia.
"Centralization as a system is inconsistent with non-violent structure of society." – Mohandas Gandhi
Cuban regime equated Liu Xiaobo with Cuban dissidents like Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet
Upon learning that the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo had won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize the official press of the Cuban regime equated Liu Xiaobo with Cuban dissidents like Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and Librado Linares on the island and declared the Nobel Prize “anti-Nobel”. [1] It is not surprising that the Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese dictatorships or that the regime in Venezuela are not attending the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. However, according to Amnesty International: Afghanistan, Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Ukraine have declined to attend according to the Nobel Committee due to a “combination of political pressure and economic blackmail” exerted by China [2].
On Tuesday, December 7, 2010 in Stockholm, Sweden the 2010 Nobel Laureate in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa described the present challenges facing the international community in his Nobel Lecture: “Every day, all over the world, countless victims are sacrificed by those who feel they possess absolute truths. With the collapse of totalitarian empires, we believed that living together, peace, pluralism, and human rights would gain the ascendancy and the world would leave behind holocausts, genocides, invasions, and wars of extermination. None of that has occurred. New forms of barbarism flourish, incited by fanaticism, and with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we cannot overlook the fact that any small faction of crazed redeemers may one day provoke a nuclear cataclysm.”[3]
The French philosopher, André Glucksmann, in his essay “The Velvet Philosophical Revolution” described both how Western intellectuals had believed that the world was “fated” to be Communist but when it imploded intellectuals abandoned their belief in the inevitability of communism and replaced it with other inevitable visions “the triumph of universal democracy” and “the end of history” in a “peaceful postmodern promised land.”[4] There is nothing inevitable about the course of history because human beings have free will. This is demonstrated by the life of Mario Vargas Llosa, who as a young man was a Marxist and sympathizer of the Cuban revolution who later became disillusioned with communism and dictatorship recognizing the desirability of democracy. Vargas Llosa had been free to choose and also to change his mind when observing the results of the model he sympathized with.
Mario Vargas Llosa went on to explain in the Nobel Lecture that his struggle against the Peruvian dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori was based in his “conviction that a dictatorship represents absolute evil for a country, a source of brutality and corruption and profound wounds that take a long time to close, poison the nation’s future, and create pernicious habits and practices that endure for generations and delay democratic reconstruction. This is why dictatorships must be fought without hesitation, with all the means at our disposal, including economic sanctions. It is regrettable that democratic governments, instead of setting an example by making common cause with those, like the Damas de Blanco in Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition, or Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, who courageously confront the dictatorships they endure, often show themselves complaisant not with them but with their tormenters. Those valiant people, struggling for their freedom, are also struggling for ours.”[5]
Centralizing power into international structures after they failed at the national level has not brought about the results desired.
The Historical Context
In the aftermath of WWII with the horrors of the Holocaust in Germany still fresh; Josef Stalin still in power in the Soviet Union having butchered millions of civilians in peacetime and allying with Adolph Hitler to divide Poland and start the war; and Mahatma Gandhi recently assassinated a few months earlier on January 30, 1948 while on a walk at Birla Bhavan by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse. The middle of the twentieth century was in the midst of a profound spiritual and moral darkness.
It was in the aftermath and in the midst of these horrors that the Latin Americans took the lead in pressing for an international bill of rights. Led by Chileans, Panamanians, and Cubans representing democratic and constitutional republics, they wrote the first drafts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Latin American region led the efforts to produce a universal human rights declaration. The final document was recognized by Cuban diplomats as one that would have been “accepted by that generous spirit who was the apostle of our independence: Jose Marti, the hero who -- as he turned his homeland into a nation -- gave us forever this generous rule: ‘With everyone and for the good of everyone.’”[6]
The nations of the world horrified by the horrors of the holocaust and the brutality of war achieved a consensus and signed the thirty articles that would make up the Declaration on December 10, 1948. Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School said that “it is fair to refer to Latin America as the forgotten crucible of the universal human rights idea.”[7]
Nevertheless, since the signing of the Declaration six decades ago in 1948 genocide and political mass killings have not ended but continued in huge numbers. More than 72 million have died as a result of government organized mass killings. Two members of the UN Security Council (China and the Soviet Union) alone accounted for 57 million of the dead post 1945. Ironically the 1936 Soviet Constitution offered a long list or rights and freedoms that were completely ignored in practice.
Not lived up to its utopian promise
Mary Robinson who was United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 1998, when the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was celebrated and now co-chairs the new organization, Agenda for Human Rights funded by the Swiss government says the world has not lived up to the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “A reality that shames us frankly, that is not acceptable. If the world had taken seriously the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we would have a world where no parents would see their children waking up in the morning crying of hunger, dying from preventable diseases," said Robinson.[8] "There would not be more than half a million mothers dying giving birth. We would have a different world and it would be a much more secure world, of course."[9] Can a utopia be achieved where no child would ever go hungry or die from a preventable disease from a document that lists human rights?
Economic rights as a siren call to government control
Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights from 2004 to 2008 is quoted in the December 22, 2008 edition of The Nation magazine article “The Battle for Human Rights” by Barbara Crossette stating: “[The West] has been the champion of civil liberties--of freedom from fear--but freedom from want was meant to be achieved by a healthy marketplace not a place for governments to play too large a role. The developing countries--and whether they are doing that in bad faith or good faith is not for me to pass judgment--are doing exactly the opposite.” Both Louise Arbour and The Nation argue that the West is mistaken in this emphasis but it was not always so.
In the 1920s and 1930s Europe sought leaders to address economic problems and made the same argument that many are making again today that economic development should take precedent over civil and political rights. The answers were to be found in Stalin’s industrialization and agricultural collectivization programs in the Soviet Union and Hitler’s fascist economic program which dramatically reduced unemployment, a government guaranteed minimum standard of living and the government directed building of the first freeway system in the world: the autobahn. In Italy Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship claimed that by 1935 three quarters of Italian businesses were under government control. Nevertheless ignoring civil and political rights to accelerate or focus on economic development left Europe a burnt out cinder as these totalitarian regimes murdered tens of millions and plunged the continent into another world war.
There is also ample evidence that to achieve sustained economic and social development over the long run depends on a system based in the rule of law and respect by government and the citizenry for fundamental rights and duties within a sound moral-ethical framework. There can be a huge explosion of economic growth in the short term as was seen in the German example but in the long run it is not sustainable unless backed up with an engaged and responsible citizenry and a sound political base as was the case for Germany under Konrad Adenauer and the economical miracle that saw Germany’s economy rise out of the rubble of WWII.
The continuing call for more government
The call for more laws and more government to address these problems from the League of Nations following WWI to the United Nations following WWII and now the International Criminal Court in light of the continuing genocides today has led to another round of new laws and new institutions to attend to old evils. Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Investigator on Torture, makes the case for an international human rights court stating: “We would go beyond the powers of regional courts, by in particular taking into account that in a global world, we have global responsibilities that go beyond State responsibilities but also holding accountable intergovernmental organizations or transnational corporations or others that violate human rights.”[10]
The argument is being made for world government. Thomas Fleming in The Morality of Everyday Life asks: “If rights are claims to be enforced by government, then what are ‘international human rights’ if not the theoretical justification for world government?”[11] It has been demonstrated that governments have a history of mass killing. Why should one think that a world government would be any better? Mahatma Gandhi looked upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although it appeared to be doing good by minimizing exploitation, it did the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality.[12]Furthermore Gandhi believed that: “Centralization as a system is inconsistent with [a] non-violent structure of society.”[13] One can draw the conclusion that world government would be taking that inconsistency to its greatest extreme.
Civil Society and Individuals
Gandhi feared the expansion of the state and with good reason, but he also believed in the power of individuals, families, and local communities to live in freedom and expand freedom. Over the past sixty years we have seen how individuals and non-governmental organizations have defended human rights and exposed the crimes of the State. This has been carried out in a decentralized and non-violent fashion. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights First, Reporters without Borders, and other non-governmental organizations have operated at the international level in collaboration with national human rights organizations. At the national and local level groups of individuals organizing and challenging brutal and murderous regimes such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina against a military junta that disappeared 30,000 Argentines in 1970s and early 1980s and today in totalitarian Cuba the Ladies in White demand freedom for their imprisoned relatives with open non-violent displays of defiance pressuring dictatorships to meet their demands.
The road to making human rights a reality
Prior to his assassination Mahatma Gandhi responded to the 1948 United Nations Committee charged with drafting what would later become the human rights charter stating: “All rights to be deserved and preserved come from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this fundamental statement perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of man and woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for.”[14]
Gandhi’s idea on liberty and license is in sync with traditional Christianity that you do not have a right to do anything you want but to do what is good: “Liberty cannot be secured merely by proclaiming it. An atmosphere of liberty must be created within us. Liberty is one thing, and license another. Many a time we confuse license for liberty and lose the latter. License leads one to selfishness whereas liberty guides one to supreme good. License destroys society, liberty gives it life. In license propriety is sacrificed; in liberty it is fully cherished."[15]
Furthermore Gandhi’s experiments with truth and obtaining true freedom are similar to catholic moral teaching and impact his concept of what are rights: “Fundamental rights can only be those rights the exercise of which is not only in the interest of the citizens but that of the whole world… Rights cannot be divorced from duties. This is how satyagraha was born, for I was always striving to decide what my duty was.”[16]
Obtaining real freedom is within you denying vices, resisting temptations, and engaging in self denial a person obtains liberty and avoids what Gandhi described above as license which Catholic teaching below describes as resulting in slavery: “In proportion as a man habitually yields to intemperance or some other vice, his freedom diminishes and he does in a true sense sink into slavery. He continues responsible in causa for his subsequent conduct, though his ability to resist temptation at the time is lessened. On the other hand, the more frequently a man restrains mere impulse, checks inclination towards the pleasant, puts forth self-denial in the face of temptation, and steadily aims at a virtuous life, the more does he increase in self-command and therefore in freedom.”[17]
Judith Brown in Gandhi and Human Rights: In Search of True Humanity quotes Gandhi’s response to a list of human rights sent to him by H.G. Wells where he countered that it would be better to: “Begin with a charter of Duties of Man…and I promise the rights will follow as spring follows winter. I write from experience. As a young man I began life by seeking to assert my rights and I soon discovered I had none not even over my wife. So I began by discovering performing my duty by my wife, my children, friends, companions and society and I find today that I have greater rights, perhaps than any living man I know.”[18]
Brown concludes that: “This tradition could produce something that superficially looks like a ‘right,’ such as the apparent right to resist an unjust king. On deeper exploration it is clear that this resistance is not a right but application of duty, the duty of subjects to remove a ruler who is failing in his particular duty to guard his people and uphold the moral order."[19]
Resistance to evil, although it may appear as an act of rebellion when dealing with an unjust ruler, it is in reality engaging in one’s duty. In the same manner that battling your own vices and appetites may appear to be self-denial but in reality is an act of self-liberation. .The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a guideline that can help us on our path toward justice and truth but it is not the road itself.[20]Although this guideline terrifies dictators because it allows individuals a chance to read in a succinct format a basic outline of their fundamental rights and challenge whatever unjust paradigm the regime is trying to impose. Article 29 of the declaration informs that all have duties to the community but without further defining the rights and freedoms of their family, friends, countrymen, and fellow human beings it can easily be manipulated as a call to obedience to the governmental authorities. The misery experienced over the past sixty years serves as a challenge to due one’s duty in defense of what is right and a warning of what awaits if it is shirked.
There are choices to be made: freedom or repression; empathy or apathy; compassion or cruelty and they will have a profound impact on human existence. During the 1990s in the heart of Europe the world saw that a country that chose freedom, empathy and compassion could have a “velvet divorce” and both new nations would continue along a path of development and freedom while at the same time in the Balkans others chose repression, apathy and cruelty as policy and old communist apparatchiks became ultranationalist war criminals.
Erazim V. Kohák in his book Jan Patočka: philosophy and selected writings refers to Patočka’s “solidarity of the shaken” as a community freed “from the preoccupation with the pursuits of peace and prosperity that inevitably lead to war and turn it instead to the pursuit of the Good, the care of the soul” that is “living with a clear conscience, living in truth, or in far older terms, seeking first the Kingdom of God.”[21]
Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, Liu Xiaobo in China, the Ladies in White in Cuba and the student movement in Venezuela have all demonstrated this “solidarity of the shaken.” Their respective commitments to pursue the good and living with a clear conscience have led them all to suffer great persecution but that is the price they are paying in “assuming the responsibility of freedom” and in exercising that responsibility challenging tyrannical regimes.
Liu Xiaobo has no guns, bombs, or weapons and he does not recognize the Chinese regime as an enemy but nevertheless the Chinese communist leadership fears him. They have sentenced him to 11 years in prison because of his writings in favor of democratic reforms within the system and are now expending both economic and political capital in an effort to diminish this Chinese dissident’s international stature. The same kind of reaction has been observed against these other leaders and movements mentioned in the previous paragraph in their respective countries. These fearful reactions by despotic regimes to non-violent adversaries “living in truth offers a measure of what former Czech dissident and play write Vaclav Havel has referred to as the “power of the powerless.”
[18] Brown, Judith M.“Gandhi and Human Rights: In Search of True Humanity” Parel, Anthony J. editor Gandhi, Freedom, and Self-Rule Lexington Books 2000 pg. 89
[19] Brown, Judith M.“Gandhi and Human Rights: In Search of True Humanity” Parel, Anthony J. editor Gandhi, Freedom, and Self-Rule Lexington Books 2000 pg. 89
[20] Fleming, Thomas The Morality of Everyday Life pg. 234
[21] Kohák, Erazim V.Jan Patočka: philosophy and selected writingsUniversity of Chicago Press, 1989 pg. 131
How to brutalize the mother of a murdered prisoner of conscience, increase repression while deporting human rights defenders and cover it up with good press
Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger with photo of her son Orlando Zapata Tamayo
It is an effective strategy that needs to be challenged for the sake of Cuban civil society, the remaining prisoners of conscience and the nonviolent opposition. Now is the time for all persons of good will to spread the word on what is happening in Cuba and not allow themselves to be distracted. The dictatorship in Cuba for over half a century have been masters at the art of distraction. It is time for Cuban democrats and those in solidarity with them to look beyond the distractions and remain focused on the human rights situation on the island.
These men are heroes in the mould of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. refusing exile after seven years in brutal conditions that have destroyed their health and led to the death of one of their brothers in the struggle: Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
However at the same time that the campaign for their release and that of the other political prisoners that remain incarcerated continues there remains the fact that as long as the laws are not changed or revoked that these freed prisoners will only make room for a new crop of prisoners of conscience.
Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina
Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, a grouping of Cuban human rights and pro-democracy groups in the East of the island, reports that Raudel Avila Lozada,Yoandri Montoya Aviles, Lester Mora Carbonell in Santiago de Cuba, Jorge Corrales, Rogelio Tavìo Jr., Gerardo Rodriguez, Yoandri Beltràn, Isael Poveda, Francisco Manzanet and Roberto Gonzales have all been detained by Cuban state security and were in custody as of November 20, 2010. Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia, the latest Cuban prisoner of conscience to arrive in exile in Spain, sick and physically run down expressed his sadness that there was no real political opening in Cuba but a "political white wash operation." The first winner of the Sakharov Prize, Anatoli Marchenko offered great wisdom when he observed: "I am convinced that publicity is the sole effective means of combating the evil and lawlessness which is rampant in my country today."
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