"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)
Jorge Luis García Pérez (better known as “Antúnez”) reported over Facebook the extrajudicial killing of Alejandro Pupo Echemendía, a 46 year old Cuban national by the Revolutionary National Police on August 9, 2018.Antúnez also posted the testimony of Elizama Mujica Cabrera, the wife of the victim.
On the night of this Thursday, August 9, the walls of the cells of the police unit in Placetas, Villa Clara, were sprayed with the innocent blood of 46-year-old Alejandro Pupo Echemendía, who died as a result of the beating of clubs. batons, blows of night sticks, kicks, thrown to the ground that gave him the police there, while Pupo Echemendia convulsed product of a nervous breakdown that he suffered as a result of being the victim of an unfair accusation.
This moving testimony is from his wife Elizama Mujica Cabrera given within a few hours of the horrendous crime. In the next few hours we will publish important proofs of the murder, such as images and testimonies during the funeral, and the most shocking still, the overwhelming testimony given to us by one of the people who claimed to have witnessed the events, that is, from having seen how, when, why and who murdered Alejandro Pupo Echemendía.
Photos show Alejandro's body covered in bruises and eyewitness accounts hold the agents of the Castro regime responsible.
Below is another photo revealing the physical harm visited on Alejandro Pupo Echemendía by regime officials.
"Children, I will endure everything they are doing to me." - Ebert Hidalgo Cruz
Ebert Hidalgo Cruz with his wife and children in happier times
Cuban opposition activist Ebert Hidalgo Cruz, who was detained together with José Daniel Ferrer Garcia on Friday, August 3, 2018, following a traffic incident in Palmarito de Cauto that involved a State Security agent, is being mistreated by Cuban officials.
Ebert was seen five days later on August 8th for ten minutes by his family. They
were threatened and told not to speak of what they saw, but they refused to be silent. They
saw their father with a blood stain on his shirt, injuries to his head,
his hands and feet trembled, and he teared up. He told them to remain
united and said: "Children, I will endure everything they are doing to me." Ferrer has still not been seen.Ebert's daughter Haydeé Hidalgo posted a video denouncing, in Spanish, the torture of her dad.
An updateDr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción is a prisoner of conscience who has been unjustly imprisoned since being beaten up and taking into custody by the political police on November 30, 2016 for speaking critically of Fidel Castro. He was also stabbed in prison in late December 2017 in an attack engineered by regime agents. Dr. Cardet is a medical doctor and also the national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, a Cuban dissident movement that seeks a nonviolent transition to democracy in Cuba. Rosa Rodríguez explained that on April 5, 2018 she and her husband Alejandro Febles were detained for 24 hours and regime officials seized 10,000 signatures by Cuban citizens petitioning for the freedom of Eduardo Cardet that the Christian Liberation Movement had collected and planned to publicly deliver to the government.
Wife and husband: Yaimaris Vecino and Eduardo Cardet
In the midst of the bad news there has been something positive to report. In a phone call from prison on July 28th, Dr. Cardet told his family that the Bishop of Holguín had visited him, and had helped him a lot. Eduardo said he was fine, and that the biopsy of the skin lesion was negative. After months of uncertainty, he was finally given the results of the exam. Meanwhile on the international front the Spanish NGO Paz y Cooperación called on the government of Spain to intercede in Eduardo Cardet's case to obtain his freedom. The Christian Liberation Movement garnered press attention calling on the French Foreign Minister, who was visiting Cuba to lobby for the freedom of Dr. Cardet.
Human rights situation worsening in Cuba The human rights situation in Cuba is worsening. The plight of high profile opposition activist José Daniel Ferrer, who was taken by the political police on the evening of Friday, August 3, 2018 and has still not been seen by his loved ones five days later is cause for great concern. As is the campaign of slander against the two men carried out over social media by regime agents. The U.S. State Department on the morning of August 8, 2018 called on the Cuban government to account for their whereabouts:
We urge the Government of #Cuba to account for whereabouts of Cuban democracy activists Jose Daniel Ferrer and Ebert Hidalgo Cruz of #UNPACU, who were detained August 3rd, and to release all political prisoners.
Opposition activist Ebert Hidalgo Cruz, who was detained together with José Daniel on Friday, was seen today for ten minutes by his family. They were threatened and told not to speak of what they saw. They saw their father with a blood stain on his shirt, injuries to his head, his hands and feet trembled, and he teared up. He told them to remain united and said: "Children, I will endure everything they are doing to me"
Ebert Hidalgo Cruz wearing a hat with his wife and kids
There are at least 120 identified political prisoners in Cuba. The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported in June 2018 that there were 120 political prisoners in Cuba with some the longest serving in the Western Hemisphere. Twenty one of them have served between 15 and 27 years in prison.This does not take into account the far larger number of Cubans arrested for social dangerousness. Eduardo Cardet Concepción, José Daniel Ferrer, and Ebert Hidalgo Cruz are but the tip of the iceberg. In 2018, Cuba remains a tropical gulag archipelago.
Castro regime tried giving Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia the death penalty in 2003 for his role in a petition drive.
They have not been seen since August 3, 2018
Activists not seen since Friday, August 3rd
On the night of August 3, 2018 Castro agents detained Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, the leader of the Eastern based Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), at the organization's principle headquarters in Altamira, Santiago de Cuba, reported his sister Ana Belkis Ferrer Garcia over twitter.
Liettys Rachel Reyes, Ferrer Garcia's wife, reported over Facebook that Dainier Suárez Pagá, a Cuban state security agent with a violent history was involved in an incident involving a car. Later it was learned that Jose Daniel was detained along with fellow UNPACU activist Ebert Hidalgo.
State Security agent and repressor Dainier Suárez Pagan
Ana Belkis identified a second regime agent named Dairon who lead a dozen Castro sicarios, in their two patrol cars in an operative against Jose Daniel on Friday night during the detention.
Three days have passed and neither Jose Daniel or Ebert has been seen by friends or relatives. They are concerned that they have been beaten up or worse. Liettys Reyes over twitter has demanded her husband, the father of her daughter, be immediately released.
An opposition family
One must review the historical record to understand the special animosity that the Castro regime has for the Ferrer Garcia family. José Daniel Ferrer García, his brother Luis Enrique Ferrer García and sister Ana Belkis Ferrer García have a long history of opposition activism.
The Ferrer Garcia Family: Luis Enrique, Ana Belkis, and Jose Daniel
They were born into a working class family in the neighborhood of
Manganeso in Santiago de Cuba. Both brothers began their activism in the opposition in the Movimiento Cubano de Jóvenes por la Democracia (Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement), and by the mid nineties had become members of Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (Christian Liberation Movement).José Daniel emerged as a leader in Santiago de Cuba and Luis Enrique in Las Tunas.
Both Jose Daniel and Luis Enrique were regional leaders who also became
regional organizers of the Varela Project. They both persuaded and organized other Cubans to knock on
doors and get their fellow citizens to sign their names and giver their
identity numbers in a petition demanding democratic and human rights
reforms to the Cuban Constitution. On May 10, 2002 the first batch of 11,020 signatures
were turned into the National Assembly. Less than a year later the
majority of the organizers of this initiative were rounded up beginning
on March 18, 2003. Seven months later more than another 14,000 signatures were turned in.
Both Ferrer Garcia brothers would face summary trials and a hostile
courtroom. Both men demonstrated their courage during their respective
political show trials.
During Luis Enrique’s show trial on April 3, 2003
in Las Tunas, the tribunal asked him if he had anything to say in his
defense. He stood up and explained to the regime’s representatives what
the Varela Project consisted of: an independent citizen initiative that
sought a referendum to reestablish basic rights. At the end of his
explanation he invited them to sign the petition stating, “Because this
is a project open to all Cubans.”
Luis Enrique Ferrer received the longest prison sentence of all of those
arrested in the March 2003 crackdown.
He was sentenced to 28 years’ imprisonment. He was transferred from "El
Típico" provincial prison in Las Tunas to the Combinado del Este prison
after being involved in a protest with other activists caught up in the
March 2003 crackdown.
With both brothers in prison their sister Ana Belkis Ferrer García
became active in the Ladies in White, a group of women that came into
existence during the 2003 Black Spring and sought the freedom of their
imprisoned loved ones. Confronting violent mobs with nonviolent
resistance and persistence in regular protests and actions to demand
their freedom. She would engage in solidarity hunger strikes when her brothers had gone on hunger strike due to some mistreatment they were suffering in order to highlight their plight.
His brother, Luis Enrique Ferrer García, campaigned for his release from exile and spoke at an international human rights conference in Geneva
calling for his brother’s freedom. This also led to Jose Daniel's wife
frustrated and outraged undergoing a hunger strike to demand her
husband’s freedom. More than four months after the deadline he was
finally released after more than eight years.
Since the latest detention of José Daniel Ferrer García on April 2, 2012,
his brother Luis Enrique has organized a campaign for his release and
is tweeting both from his own account and his brother’s twitter account
to raise awareness and solidarity.
UNPACU founded in August of 2011
Birth of UNPACU
On August 24, 2011 Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia founded together with other opposition
activists who desire to finalize the democratic process in Cuba, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) that has as its principal objective the massive growth of the nonviolent struggle for democracy. It is an organization that describes itself as nonviolent but not passive.
In the midst of the descriptions of violence and repression visited on
Cuban pro-democracy activists by agents of the regime
in Cuba, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia made the following call to action for a free Cuba over twitter in 2011:
To democratize Cuba we
should obtain the massive growth of the resistance. For the resistance
to become massive we need rapid and effective communication with the
populace.
To achieve change in Cuba, we have to reach the people. For rapid communication with the populace, we need the technical means.
We cannot advance more in the democratization of our homeland for lack of technical means and the resources for them.
There is no struggle for the good without loses and without risks.
Who fears the risks never will achieve any advance in the struggle.
Being careful is one thing, not risking is something very different.
Great achievements are not obtained without great sacrifice.
Jose Daniel and the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU)
are right solidarity with those risking everything inside of
Cuba is needed along with the willingness of people of good will to take
risks for freedom on the island. Twitter Campaign
Today there will be a twitter campaign for the release of Jose Daniel and Ebert using the hashtags #FreeFerrer #FreeEbert #FreePoliticalPrisoners. I would also add #FreeEduardoCardet.
Neutralizing the Ortega regime's repression strategy.
Non-violent protesters are identified with the blue and white colors of the national flag.
The consolidation of Nicaragua's Ortega regime into a totalitarian regime continues. A new "anti-terrorism" law has been passed that targets students and demonstrators who take part in street protests. College students in Nicaragua are being treated like terrorists, complete with waterboarding.
Marco Noel
Novo, a
26-year-old student and an active participant in Nicaragua’s protests who helped occupy a
university, was captured by pro-government paramilitaries subjected to regular beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, waterboarding and being
sodomized with a metal mortar tube over the course of seven days. The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights reports that some 600 people have been captured by armed groups and disappeared. Hundreds have been killed.
Marco Noel
Novo, age
26, torture victim
Nicaraguan democrats need to up their game in this deadly struggle for the future of their country. There has been a predominantly non-violent resistance to the Ortega regime that has been a spontaneous reaction to the violence of the regime.
#SOSNicaragua: Ortega regime brands doctors as "terrorists" for treating injured student protesters. “The government said the wounded should not get treatment because they were delinquents,” declared Dr. Carlos Duarte, who was forced to flee the country. https://t.co/UT0LBhA28o
Now is the time to double down, develop a non-violent strategy and plan the exit of the Sandinista regime from Nicaragua's political life. There are numerous resources out there but one that would be a useful starting point is A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle by the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an organization made up of members of the Serbian nonviolent student movement, who successfully overthrew Slobodan Milošević.
The level of repression and mass killings necessitates a strategic focus on how to counter repression and CANVAS has a publication, Making Repression Backfire, that is a good starting point for developing a plan to neutralize the Ortega regime's repression strategy.
Make no mistake the violence taking place in Nicaragua is a strategic effort to counter the mass mobilization of the population with terror to generate fear and bring an end to the mass protests that began on April 18, 2018.
The extreme violence does not only want to plant terror and fear but also hatred in order to get the resistance movement to abandon its nonviolent stand thus making it easier to crush.
This is why it is important for activists to understand the nature of repression and the reaction sought by the regime. CANVAS compares repression in the midst of a struggle as the equivalent of rain. Something that maybe unavoidable in a struggle for political change but that can be prepared against.
CANVAS calls on activists to learn as much as they can about the regime's repression strategy and develop an opposition strategy with the goal of winning over oppression and capacitating your "troops" to confront repression. Victory is defined as oppression negatively impacting the oppressors and not the opposition movement.
This is accomplished by responding with speed, making accounts of repression public, surrounding the police station or detention center were activists are held, and backing activists during judicial proceedings. The operative rule is that no one be left behind.
This necessitates constructing a message and a narrative. Reporting repression to the whole world, and identifying martyrs making their stories known everywhere. Finally, naming and shaming the oppressors.
There is much more in the guide and it necessitates group strategizing with a focus on the Nicaraguan context, but now is the time to do it.
It also necessitates friends of freedom around the world being in solidarity with free Nicaraguans and not their oppressors.
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