Repression Weekend in Cuba

Reports of yet another weekend of repression arrive via twitter stream along with audio and video recordings. Reports appeared on Friday that more than 30 Cuban dissidents had been detained to prevent them from carrying out a nonviolent march. Guillermo Fariñas who was released after 25 hours in custody in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba said that more than 40 dissidents had been detained in the province of Villa Clara. The Latin American Herald Tribune placed the detentions in their context:

According to the independent journalist, more than 40 people in Santa Clara and other towns in Villa Clara province, as well as in the nearby provinces of Sancti Spiritus and Cienfuegos, were arrested after planning to participate in a peaceful march.

The title given to the protest made reference to two late dissidents – Pedro Luis Boitel and Orlando Zapata – who died in 1972 and 2010, respectively, after lengthy hunger strikes behind bars.

An SOS from Jorge Garcia Perez "Antunez" over twitter on Saturday to people of goodwill from around the world is extremely worrying in which he asked: "raise your voice for Yris, she is imprisoned in bad health, chest & stomach swollen, vomiting."

Earlier this summer, on July 6, 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued precautionary measures for Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera: as a result of a new attack she suffered on May 25, 2011, she is suffering from cervical trauma, memory loss, and headaches, and has not been provided with the medical treatment she needs. The Inter-American Commission asked the State of Cuba to adopt any necessary measures to guarantee the life and physical integrity of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera; to reach agreement with the beneficiary and her representatives on the measures to be adopted; and to inform the Commission about the actions taken to investigate the facts that led to the adoption of precautionary measures.

Following the denunciations of her health situation and unjust imprisonment on Saturday, some good news received today, Sunday, that although both in poor health and physically deteriorated, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera had been released along with Donaida Pérez Paseiro:



Also on Saturday, youth leader Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina tweeted that "various activists had been detained today in Bayamo when attempting to carry out the March for Liberty Boitel and Zapata Live!

Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia on Sunday uploaded compelling video footage from the island demonstrating organized acts of repudiation against the Ladies in White from their last visit to the Cathedral in Santiago, Cuba two Sundays ago and tweeted, "Ladies in White persecuted by Castro repressors upon exiting Cathedral in Santiago" with a link to the following video:



Under the video description in Spanish an explanation of what is taking place and where and when is given:

"This video is from the last Sunday that they marched in the streets of Santiago upon exiting Mass in the Cathedral. Both this Sunday and last they did not assist mass because they were occupied organizing assistance to the families of more than a dozen who were detained in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba. Once the detained and their families have a better coordinated and more efficient assistance, they will return to attend Mass and ask for political prisoners and the respect for human rights."

However, the verbal and physical attacks against dissidents continued on Sunday and video footage was captured of an act of repudiation which Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia manage to post on youtube and twitter:



Jose Daniel analyzes what is taking place in the video above and its significance stating,

"In it you see and hear the Castroite mobs offending with obscene language nonviolent opposition activists that are victims of a fascist act prepared by the political police of the dictatorship of Raul and Fidel Castro. These are the famous revolutionaries of the Castros, the vulgar and aggressive fruit of the moral degradation engendered for more than half a century by the communist dictatorship. To those with a good understanding this video is sufficient for them to know the essence of the Castro dictatorship."

Since the month of July every weekend has been one of repression in Cuba but increasingly one is seeing that resistance is on the upswing in Cuban society and the increasingly desperate nature of the repression is a sign that the dictatorship fears that they are losing control.

The bitter fruits of appeasement

Appeasing totalitarian tyrants has a long losing track record

Alan Gross: American held hostage in Cuba since 2009

While reading the September 15, 2011 New York Times article on what Governor Richardson and the Obama Administration were willing to offer the dictatorship in Cuba in order to obtain the release of American hostage Alan Gross, I had a sense of deja vu. The Administration dangled several offers to the Castro regime and made a unilateral concession:

• Take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
• Waive probation for one of five Cuban agents convicted of espionage in the United States that planned at least one terrorist attack in the United States and provided intelligence that led to the downing of two US civilian planes over international airspace on February 24, 1996 killing four.
• Cuba democracy programs would no longer be about promoting democracy but "building civil society."
• The White House and Senator John Kerry pushed to unilaterally cut money for the democracy programs and freeze their funding.

Now that these offers have failed, another is floated:

• Get the European Union to changes its common policy limiting relations with Cuba because of human rights concerns.

This policy approach has been tried before in Cuba, North Korea, Libya, China, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany with disastrous results. Historian Paul Kennedy has described "as the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous."

The approach has often failed when dealing with totalitarian regimes of the right and the left because they often refuse to maintain a clear eyed vision of who the adversary is. In the case of Nazi Germany this failure led to WWII, the Holocaust and over 40 million dead.

On the other hand consider for a moment the example of Ronald Reagan who in 1980 brought an end to the policies of appeasement and detente championed by the American political establishment. However, President Reagan did engage in dialogue and negotiation but with a sense of realism of who and what he was dealing with stating in 1983:

During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas -- that's their name for religion -- or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930's. We see it too often today.This doesn't mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them.

Secondly he identified the adversary's ideological framework as morally repugnant in the same speech but separated their humanity from that framework:

Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness -- pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

Because Reagan refused to mince words and had a clear eyed sense of the adversary and pursued policies in defense of American interests and values he achieved great successes without any major wars on his watch and millions were freed of decades of oppression. 

Since then, even those like George W. Bush, who claim to be the heirs of Reagan have fallen far short in what amounts to appeasement. The Bush Administration continued the policy of appeasement of the Clinton Administration on North Korea. In October of 2008 they took North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism without any improvement in its behavior in an attempt to obtain a deal to stop the regime's nuclear weapons program. It only encouraged more aggressive behavior by North Korea that perceived the US concession as a sign of weakness. On the other hand, what was described as a great success in the Bush Administration, the normalization of relations with Libya is now a source of shame. Qaddafi's regime murdered hundreds of American citizens and despite that, in exchange for a pay out, were also taken off the list of state sponsors of terror and apparently collaborated with the torture of detainees sent there by the Bush Administration. In the case of China, the communist dictatorship receives US development aid to build "civil society" controlled by the dictatorship while dissidents are left in the cold to fend for themselves.

Now the Obama Administration continues this failed approach with Cuba and because of the perception of weakness projected to the totalitarians in Havana now has an American hostage that has been unjustly imprisoned since December 2009. If instead of making unilateral concessions in the first months of his presidency he had demonstrated an understanding of nature of the regime and its fundamental systemic immorality then Alan Gross would not be an American hostage in Cuba today.

Its not only government policy but also at the level of civil society. For example when the Latino and American Students Organization at American University invite the Cuban ambassador to speak in a propaganda exercise to white wash the crimes of Cuban state security agents that planned terrorist acts on US soil that sends a message of weakness and encourages these types of regimes to continue their activities in the United States.

Historically, the fruits of appeasement when practiced with ideologically committed totalitarian regimes have been extremely bitter. De-linking human rights concerns from overall policy concerns has been a disaster for human rights in China and would also be a disaster for them in Cuba. Altering the designation of a state that sponsors terrorism in an effort to appease there conduct elsewhere is a dangerous policy that undermines a national commitment to hold as pariahs those regimes engaged in such practices. All too often throughout history appeasement has ended in armed conflicts that were more expensive, bloody and dangerous where a more principled and tough foreign policy would have avoided it.

Father Miguel Angel Loredo: “I enjoy this life. It all has been a blessing.” requiescat in pace

“I discovered St. Francis of Assisi when I was 16 years old and realized this is what I wanted for my life.” - Father Miguel Angel Loredo, Holy Name Province Today Newsletter August 18, 2010

Father Miguel Angel Loredo (1998)

First learned about the case of Father Miguel Angel Loredo when I saw the 1987 documentary Nobody Listened co-directed by Néstor Almendros and Jorge Ulla and at 8 minutes and 13 seconds in the video below you can listen to an excerpt of his testimony in a parallel forum in Geneva from that documentary.



Eleven years later four days prior to Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with Father Miguel Angel Loredo over the course of a weekend of conferences and activities to highlight the voice of the Cuban dissident movement in a gathering titled "L'altra Cuba: le voci della dissidenza" org. dalla Associazione Cuba Libera" [The other Cuba: the voice of the dissidents organized by the Cuba Libera Association]. Over the years I was blessed to run into him at different Cuba venues and engage him in conversation.

The gatherings were usually with other former political prisoners and within a context of advocating for Cuban freedom. However, it was at that first meeting where Father Miguel Angel Loredo together with Mario Chanes de Armas and Ricardo Bofill sat down with Dariel Alarcon Ramirez a.k.a "Benigno", the man who had been their jailer in Cuba. These men led by Father Loredo offered an example of true reconciliation. Experiences were exchanged, injustices highlighted and the brutal history faithfully reconstructed by all parties. It was a painful process but one in which truth was highlighted and at the same time all of them signed onto a petition requesting that Pope John Paul II intercede on behalf of Cuba's political prisoners.

Father Miguel Angel Loredo with Pope John Paul II

In Matthew 7:15-7:16 the Gospel states "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits." From the very beginning, truth has often been a casualty of the communist regime in Cuba. In addition to fabricating falsehoods against Father Loredo the communists also distorted and twisted the life of a catholic martyr. Five years prior to Loredo's arrest on September 10, 1961 a catholic youth, Arnaldo Socorro, age 20 , was shot in the back by a member of the communist militia in front of the Church of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre in Havana as he carried an image of the Virgin of Charity. But in order to fool public opinion at the time, the regime buried him with the honors of a communist militant.

Father Miguel Angel Loredo is a formal adversary of the dictatorship in Cuba because he understands that one of the most formidable weapons against injustice is objective truth. In an excellent article in El Nuevo Herald by Juan Carlos Chavez, this man of the cloth explained the importance of objective truth within human rights reporting:

"I believe we should denounce the evils of both the right and the left. I find selective denuncation, that has political roots repugnant. If you believe in the integrity of the human being you must believe deeply in objective denunciation. Without objectivity, there is no hope.

EWTN published the following brief account of the life of Father Miguel Angel Loredo in English:

Fr. Loredo was born in Havana in 1938. When Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, young Miguel Angel had already decided to become a priest. He traveled to Spain where he was ordained on July 19, 1964.

One month later he returned to Cuba, where the tense relations between the Church and new Communist government resulted in the expulsion of 131 priests in 1961.

Fr. Loredo was sent to the Church of St. Francis in Havana. He was also pastor in the city of Guanabacoa. However, his fiery sermons against atheism and Communism enraged Cuban officials who accused him of being a spy for the CIA, hiding weapons and participating in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. He was arrested in 1966.

Fr. Loredo always maintained his innocence, but after a fraudulent trial he was sentenced to 15 years. He spent time in numerous prisons, where he underwent forced labor and beatings for not accepting the “re-education” that the government tried to force upon him.

In a letter dated June 11, 1968, Fr. Loredo told Msgr. Cesar Sacchi, at the time the representative of the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana, that he felt “proud to participate in this struggle with thousands of men of great courage and patriotism like those in this Cuban prison. … I also want to tell you that I am sorry to see how the free West has forgotten us, how everyone is silent and indifferent, except for the complaints of helpless loved ones.”

On February 2, 1976, he was released and ordered not to speak in public or give interviews to the press. However, the government would not accept his appointment as professor of theology at the Seminary of Sts. Charles and Ambrose in Havana, and he was exiled to Rome in 1984.

In 1987 he moved to Puerto Rico, where he continued his ministry, with Cuba and the struggle for human rights always present in his work. In 1991 he was sent to the Church of St. Francis in New York.

In 1998, Fr. Loredo was chosen to be part of a group of priests who would travel to Cuba for Pope John Paul II’s visit. However, the Cuban government refused to allow him to enter the country.

Abel Nieves Morales, one of many prisoners who shared a cell with the priest, said Fr. Loredo “was a very courageous man, firm in his principles and in his faith, and who never ceased to raise his voice to denounce the horrors … in the prisons of Cuba.”

The EWTN article got one fact wrong, although an understandable error considering that Miami is the capital of the Cuban exile community. They reported that Father Loredo had passed away in Miami, when in fact he had passed away in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of 73.

Diario Las Americas reports that on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 8:00pm a Eucharist will be celebrated at Our Lady of Charity (La Ermita de la Caridad) located at 3609 South Miami Avenue Miami, FL. 33133. Family members, friends and all those who admire and celebrate his life and his commitment with God and with a free Cuba are invited to participate. What better way to remember him?

requiescat in pace

Despite Repression National ‘Zapata and Boitel Live’ March for Freedom Goes On

In the midst of threats and arrests activists carry on in Cuba

Boitel-Zapata National March for the Freedom of Cuba underway

Moments prior to his arrest Cuban blogger Luis Felipe Rojas managed to send out two tweets on the morning of September 12, 2011 the first announced: The national march for the freedom of Cuba Boitel-Zapata has commenced from Duaba Beach in Baracoa. 26 activists, Roberto Gonzalez detained.

Immediately following the above tweeted message Luis Felipe sent another which was just a url that linked to the picture he had taken and posted (reproduced above). The young man wearing the yellow hat and sporting the sunglasses is opposition youth leader Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina.

The Cuban Democratic Directorate interviewed Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina, prior to his Monday detention, and obtained an official statement outlining the purposes of this march, which is still ongoing:

"The idea is to transit along the same paths that Maceo did in the invasion from East to West, but in this case, we will send a message of peace, hope, freedom and claim to those who have misgoverned us over half a century. In a peaceful manner, we will convey the spirit that today, in these times, the Cuban people and the nation are calling for a space that is democratic and of liberty. "

The National March for Freedom "and Zapata Boitel Live" will take as its route the central highway and has no end date.

"The flame should be taken to Mantua, at least, Pinar del Rio, in western Cuba," Rodriguez said Lobaina.

The objectives of the march are:

1) that the regime in Cuba respect, promote and publish the universal declaration of human rights, ratifying international covenants of these rights.

2) That it cease the repression against the opposition and the people of Cuba.

3) Freedom without exile for all political prisoners, repeal of the legal framework that fosters these imprisonments.

Originally the march had been planned for September 8 but organizers and participants began to be detained by State Security agents the day before.

On hunger strike: Ramón Velásquez Toranzo

One of the activists detained and held over the weekend, for wanting to march, was former prisoner of conscience Ramón Velásquez Toranzo. He declared himself on hunger strike the moment he was arrested and even though he is now been released continues refusing to eat food. His daughter, Rufina Velázquez @RufiVCuba, has tweeted her father's demands:

Threatened again with imprisonment if he dares to step outside his home. He has decided to go on hunger strike. Principal points of his protest, respect for all human rights. Respecting right to walk freely for our country.Respect for the right to request respect. Respect for the democracy that on one day you signed. Respect that we are humans that we are nonviolent pacifists. That a UN representative visit the island and interview Cubans in order to measure and document human rights violations committed each day.

These detentions did not end the march but delayed its start by four days. Although the participants were arrested moments later on the morning of September 12 they had achieved their aim: the march is underway in Cuba.

Many of the organizers and participants would again spend at least a night and jail subjected to threats of long term imprisonment. Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina @LobainaCuba tweeted that during his detention: "Political police threatened me with 20 years in prison according to them if I continue promoting peaceful marches. They fear the people will join."

Finally, Rolando asked for friends and followers to re-tweet the following message translated to English and reproduced below:

TR @LobainaCuba TO FRIENDS & FOLLOWERS I ask you to divulge this: We will continue taking to the streets and asking for freedom and rights in #Cuba

Another of the marchers Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia this evening reported on the fate of one of his compatriots who participated in the march and remains detained tonight:

TR @jdanielferrer Recently out of a cell yesterday Angel Moya was newly detained in Holguin. There he remains. What fear the tyranny has of a peaceful march!

Raul Castro is Fourth Among the Worst of the Worst Dictators in the World

Is he the next coconut to fall?

George Ayittey, a native of Ghana, is president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington. In the latest issue of Foreign Policy lists Raul Castro in fourth place among the worst of the worst dictators in the world in the article The Worst of the Worst: Revisited Who will be the next coconut to fall?

After 52 years under the rule of the Castro brothers, Cubans are stirring. On Aug. 23, a group of four women took to the steps of the capitol building in Havana chanting "freedom." The Castro security goons pounced, raining rocks and using iron bars on the unarmed ladies. The crowd that had gathered booed, hissed, and insulted the agents.

Things were already getting hot for Raúl prior to the Arab Spring. Cuba's socialist economy has been in the doldrums. On Sept. 13, 2010, Cuba announced it would lay off "at least" half a million state workers over the next six months and simultaneously allow more jobs to be created in the private sector as the socialist economy struggled to get back on its feet. The plan was part of a pledge to shed some one million state jobs, a full fifth of the official workforce. It increasingly looks like Raúl's plan is akin to Mikhail Gorbachev's "perestroika" -- sans "glasnost."

"Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities and services with inflated payrolls and losses that damage our economy and result counterproductive, create bad habits and distort workers' conduct," the CTC, Cuba's official labor union, announced. The Castro regime, which has for decades relied on its relatively generous welfare state to retain autocratic rule, will now have to rely entirely on state repression. It's a very fragile arrangement.

Listen to George Ayittey speak out on the challenges in Africa: