"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)
Miguel Díaz-Canel, Raul Castro’s handpicked president, denounced Israel on X,“We condemn the
cowardly targeted assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General
of Hezbollah, as a result of Israel’s attack on residential buildings in
the southern suburbs of Beirut, causing destruction and death of
innocent civilians.”
This is in sharp contrast to the Cuban government's response to Hamas' terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7.
This terrorist attack sparked a Middle East war that began between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist organization based in Gaza. The war expanded into Lebanon when Hezbollah, another Iran proxy, on October 8, 2023 began launching rockets into northern Israel.
Friends and allies of the Jewish people condemned the attack and mourned
the victims. International communist networks, led by the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Cuba took a different approach.
Cuban official media spokespersons Leticia Martinez, chief of communications for Miguel Diaz-Canel, and "El Necio" took to social media to celebrate a "Free Palestine" and justify terrorist attacks. He retweeted the People's Forum's genocidal call on October 8, 2023 to abolish the Israeli state, which included the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!"
On October 8, 2023, one day after the terror attacks in southern Israel, militant leftistsheld a protest in Times Square to commemorate the killings as an act of resistance, chanting anti-Semitic slogans, waving banners and posters. The Center for a Free Cuba was aware of the protest at the time, as well as the promotion of it by official Cuban media.
On October 8, 2023, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations published a statement criticizing Israel's "impunity," describing the Jewish state as an occupying force and the United States as historically complicit.
Dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Dictator Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua , President and former M-19 terrorist Gustavo Petro
in Colombia refused to condemn the terrorist attacks on Israel, while
calling for the end of the “illegal occupation of Palestine” on October 7, 2023.
On October 11, 2023, The People’s Forum (TPF) issued a statement defending their October 8th rally in Times Square, doubling down on their support for the terrorist attack.
The
group’s co-executive director, Manolo De Los Santos, is a longtime
researcher at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social
Research and was “based out of Cuba for many years,” where he “worked toward building
international networks of people’s movements and organizations,”
according to his biography at the anti-Israel group Black Alliance for
Peace.
On November 23, 2023, the Cuban dictatorship organized a 100,000-person pro-Hamas march with prefabricated banners, and posters featuring photos of Hamas militants such as Abu Obaida carried by Cuban youth.
In July 2022, Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, received De
los Santos and executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for
Social Research, Vijay Prashad with the aim of “elaborating a new
consensus, based on theory and according to the different experiences of
social movements and countries, on the path of socialism.”
Independent voices in Cuba that sympathize with the Israeli people threatened and silenced.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide in their 2024 Annual Report
on Cuba informed that "In the final months of [2023] numerous Protestant
pastors from both registered and unregistered religious denominations
across the island were summoned for interrogation in regard to comments
they had made about Israel.In each case, the pastors were told
that that expressing any kind of support for Israel was unacceptable,
they were ordered to stop praying for Israel or, in one case, for the
‘peace of Jerusalem’ and told that any commentary on the situation
must be in line with the position of ‘the Revolution and the CCP’ [
Cuban Communist Party].
Advancing antisemitic tropes, and the destruction of Israel
“When we finally deal that final blow to destroy Israel. When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism.”
On January 24, 2024 Manolo De Los Santos spoke the quiet part out loud
at The People’s Forum in New York City: “When we finally deal that
final blow to destroy Israel. When the state of Israel is finally
destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most
important blow we can give to destroying capitalism.”
“Money is the
Jealous God of Israel, beside which no other God may exist. Money abases
all the gods of mankind and changes them into commodities. The god of
the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of the world. In
emancipating itself from hucksterism and money, and thus from real and
practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself…by destroying the
empirical essence of Judaism, the Jew will become impossible.” Source
Karl Marx-Engels Collected Works (London 1975ff),vol. iii, pp146-74
“The People’s Forum” (TPF) is funded through Goldman Sachs
and linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Both its
executive directors Manolo De Los Santos and Claudia De La Cruz are PSL
members, and active supporters of the Cuban communist dictatorship. TPF
put out an advertisement in The New York Times in October 2022 that repeated numerous propaganda claims by the Cuban dictatorship, and was rebutted by the Center for a Free Cuba.
Prior to another Pro-Hamas
March in Havana on March 2, 2024, Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel in a video tweet on X accused Israel of a new genocide and operating an "extermination camp" in Gaza in which he said that five months ago, “humanity witnessed with horror a new holocaust.”
Remembering when Fidel and Raul Castro allied with Arab states, and militarily attacked Israel
Castro severed diplomatic ties with Israel on September 10, 1973, just
days before the Yom Kippur War began, fifty one years ago, on October 6th.
There were no outstanding bilateral issues between Cuba and Israel. During that war, 3,000
Cuban soldiers participated in the attack on Israel, alongside forces from
Egypt and Syria, and expeditionary forces from Saudi Arabia, Algeria,
Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia, Morocco, and North Korea.
Soldiers left Cuba bound for Syria, dressed in civilian clothes, with
forged passports identifying them as university students. Soviet
military equipment, including T-62 tanks and SAM rocket artillery, were
provided to them. Cuban tank crews fought alongside Syrian troops in their war of aggression.
According to Foreign Report, 180 Cubans were killed and 250 were
injured in that conflict.
Today, the Cuban dictatorship, both directly and through Venezuela, continues to provide support to Hamas, and Hezbollah as it has for decades. Cuba is a state supporter of terrorism all throughout the world, including in the Middle East, where it has long harbored animosity for Israel.
Free Cubans on the other hand recognize the historical facts, and today join with our Jewish brother, and sisters in remembering the atrocities committed on October 7, 2023, and call for the hostages to be freed, and the Islamic Regime of Iran, and their terrorist proxies to end their war against Israel.
6:29AM
October 7, 2023.
The moment time stopped.
Beeri. Nahal Oz. Nir Oz. Reim. The Nova Festival. Kfar Aza. Sderot. Ofakim. Nirim. Holit. Zikim. Ashkelon.
"Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies." - Mohandas Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, 155 years ago today, and his legacy continues to be passionately debated in India. The Economic Times,
based in India, in 2021 published an editorial titled "Continuing relevance of Mohandas Gandhi" that highlights the challenges to Gandhian
nonviolence today in his home country.
“Gandhi
is remembered for Ahimsa, non-violence. However, Gandhi’s Ahimsa was
not passive acceptance of violence, but its active resistance by the
force of moral purpose and mobilization of public opinion. Today, we
have elected representatives who venerate Gandhi’s assassin, but few
supporters who follow his example of opposing violence.”
Perhaps part of the reason for the lack of debate is that China and Vietnam are totalitarian dictatorships
where such debate is forbidden, and Pakistan has been divided between
periods of democratic and military rule in questioning the founder could
prove unhealthy. India on the other hand has been a democracy through
out its period of independence.
Gandhi liberated an entire subcontinent from imperial rule without firing a
shot. The United Nations, beginning in 2007, has designated his birthday, October 2nd, as
the International Day of Nonviolence. Nevertheless, he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized by the Nobel Committee as the "Missing Laureate."
He wasn't a rich man. He never held formal political office. He wasn't a
saint or divine figure. He was just a man. An attorney who had taken a vow of poverty and celibacy. His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Gandhi transformed himself into a principled
strategic non-violent activist in South Africa
at the end of the 19th century struggling against racist laws and
policies of the colonial authorities. An important
theoretical result of his South African campaign was the
development of Satyagraha.
Gandhi announced on September 11, 1906 in his newspaper Indian
Opinion a contest to submit names to describe this movement. The
final name was the fusion of two words
as explained by Gandhi: “Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness
(agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force…the
Force which is born of Truth and love or nonviolence.”
The socialists and communists say, they can do nothing to bring about
economic equality today. They will just carry on propaganda in its favor
and to that end they believe in generating and accentuating hatred.
They say, when they get control over the State, they will enforce
equality. Under my plan the State will be there to carry out the will of
the people, not to dictate to them or force them to do its will. I
shall bring about economic equality through non-violence, by converting
people to my point of view by harnessing the forces of love as against
hatred. I will not wait till I have converted the whole society to my
view but will straight away make a beginning with myself. It goes
without saying that I cannot hope to bring about economic equality of my
conception, if I am the owner of fifty motor-cars or even of ten bighas
of land. For that I have to reduce myself to the level of the poorest
of the poor.
It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by
violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will
fail to develop non-violence at any time. The State represents violence
in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as
the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to
which it owes its very existence. [...] It can be easily demonstrated
that destruction of the capitalist must mean destruction in the end of
the worker and as no human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption,
no human being is so perfect as to warrant his destroying him whom he
wrongly considers to be wholly evil.
This explains in large part the hostility from communists to
Mohandas Gandhi's social political agenda, and many on the Left who
share the Marxist belief in class struggle. However the legacies between
those who advocate class struggle and those who advocate nonviolent
resistance could not be more stark.
Mohandas Gandhi changed political protests and empowered millions with Satyagraha and the use of strategic nonviolence
to battle powerful and violent regimes and great injustices in an
effective manner that frustrates those who want to preserve or change
the status quo using violence.
Nonviolent resistance does not mean the absence of violence. It is a courageous decision to challenge the oppressors using nonviolent means. Telling the truth and resisting a violent adversary with nonviolent means is not without risk, but it has a greater chance of success than violent resistance. Oswaldo Payá spoke truth to power on July 20, 2012, denouncing the fraudulent change of the dictatorship and offering a vision of real change in Cuba.
"The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and the opposition do not kill, sabotage or exclude, everyone knows that. Our motto is Liberty and Life. We do not want power for ourselves; we want peace and civil rights for all, because where there are no rights there is no justice. We seek only the power of the people, popular sovereignty, as Martin Luther King did, remember? Power to the people!... We denounce institutionalized corruption. Those who have power declare us enemies and do not compete with the opposition but rather sentence it, stigmatize it and annihilate it." ... "The peaceful, logical and fair solution that can lead to change and genuine dialogue is to recognize these rights. Enough of reactionary justifications that say that the people are not ready, that they do not want change. Do you think that fifty-four years without freedom and without rights are not enough? Others say that the people do not want rights, what an insult! Others may say that many Cubans want this government. I do not believe it, but in any case no Cuban can decide what they want in this environment. With these laws and with this system, Cubans cannot choose who they want to govern them, what system to have. We demand rights for all, without hatred or offense, with justice. Everyone knows that not even the National People's Assembly can decide freely, it also receives orders. This will change only when they are elected by the people, only then will they obey the people. That is our demand. We continue to call on all Cubans, no matter how they think or where they come from, to be part of the solution and the changes. Only the people can do that. Why say no to our rights? Why elitism? Philosophies and theologies? What oppresses us is fear, intolerance and the determination of a group to maintain absolute power. Let us abandon pretense! Let us take the path of the people, which is the path of democracy."
This vision is still relevant today, and the price Payá had to pay for speaking the truth to power and acting accordingly cost him his life and Harold Cepero two days later, on July 22, 2012, when both were murdered by agents of the Cuban dictatorship. They were killed because with their truth telling and their non-violent resistance they threatened the continuity of the dictatorship.
Nonviolence
and it's culture of life is a force more powerful, and it offers an alternative to war that threatens humanity's existence with its culture of death.
Husband and wife: Miguel de
Venegas, Claudia von Weiss de Venegas
On November 20, 1999 Claudia von Weiss de Venegas,
disappeared while on holiday in Cuba. She left the hotel on a bicycle
with $500 and was never heard from again. Her husband, Miguel de
Venegas, circulated fliers about his missing wife in Cuba and for his
troubles was expelled from the country. Ten years later in a Hamburg news publication, Claudia's case resurfaced and her fate remains unknown but Miguel hopes one day to find out what had happened to his wife, but he has given up on finding her alive.
Her grave was apparently discovered in Cuba in December 2023, and an undertaker who buried her 24 years ago confirmed her identity, but Cuban officials barred an exhumation to confirm dental records, and DNA according to the report below.
Earlier this year Dark Curiosities provided an overview of Claudia's case, and the mystery that still surrounds it.
Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by morality police in Iran.
Morality police in Iran beat Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, to death for not complying
with Tehran's hijab regulations. Mahsa was arrested on September 13, 2022 badly beaten, left in a coma, and she died two years ago today on September 16th.
Mass protests erupted in Iran, the Iranian regime periodically shutdown the internet and carried out massacres,
and executions against demonstrators over the past two years. The world has
not forgotten, and songs continue to be sung by artists in remembrance
of Mahsa Amini.
The last time this happened in Iran was in 2019, when the Mullahs killed 1,500 people, and I didn't know about it. Images of nonviolent marches have dwindled, but some continue to appear, as have tales of the price protestors paid for their bold resistance. Their suppression was successful at the time, but let us do our part to ensure that the repression does not happen again without worldwide condemnation.
Please share the messages, videos, and hashtags of this Iranian freedom
movement that is also calling out democracies for falling short in
their solidarity.
Congress must strengthen our ability to fight authoritarian regimes’ efforts to attack and kidnap dissidents on US soil. | @AlinejadMasih https://t.co/8hdMbNFvnI
Listening to these Iranian activists take to task the Biden
Administration for enabling the Iranian oppressors gives me a sense of deja vu.
Dear friends of freedom reading this blog entry, please amplify these Iranian voices, let your elected representatives know that you are
watching, and that this is unacceptable.
This has been going on for far too long in Iran, and the terror tactics have been copied elsewhere with Iranian help.
Neda Agha-Soltan and Génesis Carmona shot in the head.
Note to Western policy makers: the regime's in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela are not your friends.
Cuba and Iran have regime's with different ideological formations. Cuba
has a communist dictatorship run by the Castros since 1959 and Iran has a
Islamist regime run by the mullahs since 1979. However they have two things in common:
a profound anti-Americanism that portrays the U.S. as the great Satan,
and a fossilized revolutionary tradition that systematically denies
human rights to their respective peoples.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with General Raul Castro (2016)
Robin Wright referred to Cuba and Iran
as "melancholy twins" in The New Yorker in 2015. They are both state sponsors of terrorism, and Iran has been linked to a mass killing of Jewish people in Argentina.
Venezuela is an off shoot of the Cuban revolution and shares both its anti-Americanism and warm relations with Tehran.
But beyond their similarities they also have a shared strategic outlook that is hostile to Western democracies.
The lateFidel Castro visited Iran
on May 10, 2001, four months before the September 11, 2001 attacks,
where he was quoted by the Agence France Presse at the University of
Tehran stating that "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with
each other, can bring America to its knees." ... "The U.S. regime is
very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up."
Eleven years later on January 12, 2012 in Havana, Cuba the controversial president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared "Our
positions, versions, interpretations are alike, very close. We have
been good friends, we are and will be, and we will be together forever."
Iran sought out asymmetric means to
achieve maximum damage against Israel through their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah killing over 1,200 in Israel, sparking a war that threatens to engulf the region. Tehran's decades long alliance
with Cuba cannot and must not be ignored at such a time of peril.
Iran's Ahmadinejad with Fidel Castro and Klansman David Duke
Even closer to home, the
relationship between the Iranian regime and white supremacists such as David Duke and anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan should also be closely examined.
Martin Luther King Jr. was right: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Therefore:
I
stand in solidarity with Iranians standing up for their freedom. They
are facing off against the terrorist regime in Tehran that is
indiscriminately murdering protesters.
I pledge to continue to amplify their voices and will use the following hashtags.
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this
world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or
all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from
time to time.…"
On
this the 16th International Day of Democracy it is important to reflect
on the continuing work that needs to be done to safeguard democracy and
demonstrate to the non-democratic world that democracy delivers.
Free speech and political discourse are under siege around the world, including in democratic strongholds like the United States. A strong and independent free press, as well as the freedom to engage in open dialogue, are essential components of democracy. In a healthy democracy, disagreements are encouraged, not just tolerated. No one should be silenced for their political views, but rather encouraged to speak up and participate in civil dialogue. On March 21, 2022 the New York Times Opinion/Siena College Poll delivered worrying news on the state of free speech in America.
"Eighty-four percent of Americans say that some Americans not exercising
their freedom of speech in everyday situations due to fear of
retaliation or harsh criticism is either a very (40%) or somewhat (44%)
serious problem, according to a new national New York Times
Opinion/Siena College Poll. Over half, 55%, of Americans say that they
have held their tongue, that is, not spoken freely over the last year
because they were concerned about retaliation or harsh criticism, and
compared to 10 years ago by 46-21% Americans are less, rather than more,
free to express their viewpoint on politics, and by 35-28% less, rather
than more, free to discuss issues of race."
TheUNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON DEMOCRACYadopted without a vote*
by the Inter-Parliamentary Council at its 161st session in Cairo on September 16, 1997 found that "the state of democracy presupposes freedom of opinion and
expression; this right implies freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Democracies need civic education for its
citizens, and two aspects of it must be the principles of free
expression and developing and maintaining a culture of political
tolerance.
Worse still, in places like Cuba that routinely punish free speech, democracy has been absent for 72 years,
and political tolerance outlawed. Citizens in these countries also need
the help of democracies, and democrats to regain their rights, and
expand the number of free nations.
Sir Winston Churchill defended democracy from the twin barbarisms of Nazism and Communism. The British prime minister acknowledged the flaws and shortcomings of democracies, but added that, despite these limits, they are still preferable to the alternatives. He fought a hot war against the Third Reich, and a cold war against the Soviet Union, and helped to preserve freedom and democracy globally for two generations. The International Day of Democracy is a good day to remember his legacy, and learn from his example.
Democracy has delivered rising living standards, and greater freedom, but it depends on an engaged and well informed citizenry to function.
Below is the text of the 1997 Universal Declaration on Democracy.
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON DEMOCRACY
Declaration adopted without a vote*
by the Inter-Parliamentary Council at its 161st session
(Cairo, 16 September 1997)
The Inter-Parliamentary Council,
Reaffirming the Inter-Parliamentary Union's commitment
to peace and development and convinced that the strengthening
of the democratisation process and representative institutions
will greatly contribute to attaining this goal,
Reaffirming also the calling and commitment of the
Inter-Parliamentary Union to promoting democracy and the establishment
of pluralistic systems of representative government in the world,
and wishing to strengthen its sustained and multiform action
in this field,
Recalling that each State has the sovereign right, freely
to choose and develop, in accordance with the will of its people,
its own political, social, economic and cultural systems without
interference by other States in strict conformity with the United
Nations Charter,
Recallingalso the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights adopted on 10 December 1948, as well as the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted on 16 December
1966, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination adopted on 21 December 1965 and the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
adopted on 18 December 1979,
Recalling further the Declaration on Criteria for Free
and Fair Elections which it adopted in March 1994 and in which
it confirmed that in any State the authority of the government
can derive only from the will of the people as expressed in genuine,
free and fair elections,
Referring to the Agenda for Democratisation presented
on 20 December 1996 by the UN Secretary-General to the 51st session
of the United Nations General Assembly,
Adopts the following Universal Declaration on
Democracy and urges Governments and Parliaments throughout
the world to be guided by its content:
FIRST PART - THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY
1. Democracy is a universally recognised ideal as well as a goal,
which is based on common values shared by peoples throughout the
world community irrespective of cultural, political, social and
economic differences. It is thus a basic right of citizenship
to be exercised under conditions of freedom, equality, transparency
and responsibility, with due respect for the plurality of views,
and in the interest of the polity.
2. Democracy is both an ideal to be pursued and a mode of government
to be applied according to modalities which reflect the diversity
of experiences and cultural particularities without derogating
from internationally recognised principles, norms and standards.
It is thus a constantly perfected and always perfectible state
or condition whose progress will depend upon a variety of political,
social, economic, and cultural factors.
3. As an ideal, democracy aims essentially to preserve and promote
the dignity and fundamental rights of the individual, to achieve
social justice, foster the economic and social development of
the community, strengthen the cohesion of society and enhance
national tranquillity, as well as to create a climate that is
favourable for international peace. As a form of government, democracy
is the best way of achieving these objectives; it is also the
only political system that has the capacity for self-correction.
4. The achievement of democracy presupposes a genuine partnership
between men and women in the conduct of the affairs of society
in which they work in equality and complementarity, drawing mutual
enrichment from their differences.
5. A state of democracy ensures that the processes by which power
is acceded to, wielded and alternates allow for free political
competition and are the product of open, free and non-discriminatory
participation by the people, exercised in accordance with the
rule of law, in both letter and spirit.
6. Democracy is inseparable from the rights set forth in the international
instruments recalled in the preamble. These rights must therefore
be applied effectively and their proper exercise must be matched
with individual and collective responsibilities.
7. Democracy is founded on the primacy of the law and the exercise
of human rights. In a democratic State, no one is above the law
and all are equal before the law.
8. Peace and economic, social and cultural development are both
conditions for and fruits of democracy. There is thus interdependence
between peace, development, respect for and observance of the
rule of law and human rights.
SECOND PART - THE ELEMENTS AND EXERCISE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT
9. Democracy is based on the existence of well-structured and
well-functioning institutions, as well as on a body of standards
and rules and on the will of society as a whole, fully conversant
with its rights and responsibilities.
10. It is for democratic institutions to mediate tensions and
maintain equilibrium between the competing claims of diversity
and uniformity, individuality and collectivity, in order to enhance
social cohesion and solidarity.
11. Democracy is founded on the right of everyone to take part
in the management of public affairs; it therefore requires the
existence of representative institutions at all levels and, in
particular, a Parliament in which all components of society are
represented and which has the requisite powers and means to express
the will of the people by legislating and overseeing government
action.
12. The key element in the exercise of democracy is the holding
of free and fair elections at regular intervals enabling the people's
will to be expressed. These elections must be held on the basis
of universal, equal and secret suffrage so that all voters can
choose their representatives in conditions of equality, openness
and transparency that stimulate political competition. To that
end, civil and political rights are essential, and more particularly
among them, the rights to vote and to be elected, the rights to
freedom of expression and assembly, access to information and
the right to organise political parties and carry out political
activities. Party organisation, activities, finances, funding
and ethics must be properly regulated in an impartial manner in
order to ensure the integrity of the democratic processes.
13. It is an essential function of the State to ensure the enjoyment
of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights to its
citizens. Democracy thus goes hand in hand with an effective,
honest and transparent government, freely chosen and accountable
for its management of public affairs.
14. Public accountability, which is essential to democracy, applies
to all those who hold public authority, whether elected or non-elected,
and to all bodies of public authority without exception. Accountability
entails a public right of access to information about the activities
of government, the right to petition government and to seek redress
through impartial administrative and judicial mechanisms.
15. Public life as a whole must be stamped by a sense of ethics
and by transparency, and appropriate norms and procedures must
be established to uphold them.
16. Individual participation in democratic processes and public
life at all levels must be regulated fairly and impartially and
must avoid any discrimination, as well as the risk of intimidation
by State and non-State actors.
17. Judicial institutions and independent, impartial and effective
oversight mechanisms are the guarantors for the rule of law on
which democracy is founded. In order for these institutions and
mechanisms fully to ensure respect for the rules, improve the
fairness of the processes and redress injustices, there must be
access by all to administrative and judicial remedies on the basis
of equality as well as respect for administrative and judicial
decisions both by the organs of the State and representatives
of public authority and by each member of society.
18. While the existence of an active civil society is an essential
element of democracy, the capacity and willingness of individuals
to participate in democratic processes and make governance choices
cannot be taken for granted. It is therefore necessary to develop
conditions conducive to the genuine exercise of participatory
rights, while also eliminating obstacles that prevent, hinder
or inhibit this exercise. It is therefore indispensable to ensure
the permanent enhancement of, inter alia, equality, transparency
and education and to remove obstacles such as ignorance, intolerance,
apathy, the lack of genuine choices and alternatives and the absence
of measures designed to redress imbalances or discrimination of
a social, cultural, religious and racial nature, or for reasons
of gender.
19. A sustained state of democracy thus requires a democratic
climate and culture constantly nurtured and reinforced by education
and other vehicles of culture and information. Hence, a democratic
society must be committed to education in the broadest sense of
the term, and more particularly civic education and the shaping
of a responsible citizenry.
20. Democratic processes are fostered by a favourable economic
environment; therefore, in its overall effort for development,
society must be committed to satisfying the basic economic needs
of the most disadvantaged, thus ensuring their full integration
in the democratic process.
21. The state of democracy presupposes freedom of opinion and
expression; this right implies freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers.
22. The institutions and processes of democracy must accommodate
the participation of all people in homogeneous as well as heterogeneous
societies in order to safeguard diversity, pluralism and the right
to be different in a climate of tolerance.
23. Democratic institutions and processes must also foster decentralised
local and regional government and administration, which is a right
and a necessity, and which makes it possible to broaden the base
of public participation.
THIRD PART - THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION OF DEMOCRACY
24. Democracy must also be recognised as an international
principle, applicable to international organisations and to States
in their international relations. The principle of international
democracy does not only mean equal or fair representation of States;
it also extends to the economic rights and duties of States.
25. The principles of democracy must be applied to the international
management of issues of global interest and the common heritage
of humankind, in particular the human environment.
26. To preserve international democracy, States must ensure that
their conduct conforms to international law, refrain from the
use or threat of force and from any conduct that endangers or
violates the sovereignty and political or territorial integrity
of other States, and take steps to resolve their differences by
peaceful means.
27. A democracy should support democratic principles in international
relations. In that respect, democracies must refrain from undemocratic
conduct, express solidarity with democratic governments and non-State
actors like non-governmental organisations which work for democracy
and human rights, and extend solidarity to those who are victims
of human rights violations at the hands of undemocratic régimes.
In order to strengthen international criminal justice, democracies
must reject impunity for international crimes and serious violations
of fundamental human rights and support the establishment of a
permanent international criminal court.
* * *
*After the Declaration
was adopted, the delegation of China expressed reservations to
the text.
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