Cubanet published an important letter by three Cuban Catholic priests, dated January 24, 2018, that says that Cubans are living in fear and calls on the Cuban dictator to open to peaceful change now to avoid a violent conflagration later. Below is a translation taken, in part, from one prepared by the Center for a Free Cuba.
To Raul Castro Ruz, on the 20th anniversary of the Mass for the Homeland presided by Saint John Paul II and the words of Mons. Pedro
Meurice in the Plaza Antonio Maceo, Santiago de Cuba, on 24 January of 1998.
This past January 1st marked the 59th anniversary
of the triumph of a Revolution. A Revolution that was necessary because
of all the atrocities committed with impunity by a government that had
turned against this people. Many fought and many died to give their
children a Cuba where they could live in liberty, in peace and
prosperity.
Today, nearly six decades later, we have sufficient arguments to evaluate what we have lived through in our land.
Since
the institutionalization of the Communist Party as the only party authorized to exist, this people have never been allowed to raise a different
voice, and every different voice that tried to make itself heard has
been silenced.
This totalitarian style has permeated
every level of society. Cubans know they don't have freedom of
expression. They are cautious when they talk about what they believe and
feel because they live with fear, often even fear of those in their
daily lives: school and work mates, neighbors, friends and relatives. We
live together in a latticework of lies that reaches from the home to
the highest levels.
We say and do what we don't believe
or feel, knowing that
our interlocutors do the same. We lie to survive,
hoping that this game will end some day or that some way of escaping to a
foreign land will appear. Jesus Christ said, “the truth will make you
free.” We want to live in truth.
The monopoly and control
of the mass media means no one can freely access the public means of
communication. In the same way, there is no alternative education. All
Cuban children are required to go to school, but it is only one school
model, one sole ideology, an education in only one way of thinking. Cubans
have a right to education alternatives, to options for different
teachings on ways to think. Cuban parents have the right to elect what
kind of education they want for their children.
It's
deplorable that our people live in economic abandonment, forced by
circumstances to beg for help from relatives
who managed to go abroad or
foreigners who visit us; or to steal anything we can, while renaming
thievery with delicate words that keep our consciences at bay. Many
families lack a minimally stable income that allows them to calmly
obtain the basic items they need to live. Eating, dressing and buying
shoes for the children is a daily problem. Public transportation is a
problem, and even obtaining many medicines is a problem.
And
in the middle of these people who struggle to survive lies the hidden
suffering of the elderly, often silently abandoned. How can one say that
the money belongs to the people, when the people don't decide what to
do with it? How can needed public institutions be kept up when the
required resources are not available? Why are foreigners invited to invest with
their money, while barring Cubans investing their money in equality of opportunities?
Cubans have the right to participate as investors in the economy and in
the negotiations of our country.
And to all of that is added the
lack of religious freedom. The church is tolerated, but is
still monitored and controlled. Freedom of religion is restricted by a
system of permits to worship. Christians can gather to share their
faith, but they are not allowed to build a church. The church can
celebrate open-air masses and processions, but only with a permit issued
by authorities who can deny them without explanation or appeal. The
church can raise its voice inside the temples, but does not have free
access to the mass media. And in the few cases where it does have
access, it is always under censorship. Lay people are sanctioned when
they apply their faith to political and social practices.
This
social dynamic that has emerged in Cuba has forgotten the person, the
person's dignity as sons of God and their inalienable rights.
It's nearly 60 years since Cubans first believed in an ideal that is
always postponed and never realized. When anyone raises a question,
when anyone raises their voice, they find vulnerability and exclusion.
We
want a country where life is more respected from its conception to a
natural death, where family ties are strengthened and the marriage
between a man and a woman is nurtured; where retirement pensions are
enough to allow our elderly to survive; where professionals can live on
their salaries with dignity; where citizens can become entrepreneurs and
there's more freedom of labor and hiring for sports figures and artists.
Young Cubans should be able to fiind opportunities for jobs that allow them to
develop their talents and skills here, instead of leaving Cuba as their
only option.
We have a legal system subordinated to a power, not the “rule of law.” It is imperative to clearly establish
the separation and independence of the three powers: executive,
legislative and judicial. We want that our judges not be pressured, that the law be order, that illegality not be a means
of subsistence or a weapon of control. That our Capitol be filled with lawmakers who have the power to represent the interests of their
voters.
Our people are dispirited and tired. There is a
stagnation that can be summed up in two words: survive or escape. Cubans
need to experience the joy of “thinking and speaking without hypocrisy”
with different political criteria. We are tired of waiting, tired of
fleeing, tired of hiding. We want to live our own lives.
This
letter also has a goal, which is a right: We want to be able to
freely elect. In Cuba we have votes, not elections. We urgently need
elections where we can decide not only our future but also our present.
Now we are invited to “vote” and say “yes” to something that already
exists. There is no option for change. To elect implies, by definition,
different options. To elect implies the possibility of taking
different paths.
We write this letter because we want to
avoid that some day, for some circumstance, Cuba is plunged into violent
changes that would only add to more pointless suffering. We still have time
to make progress towards a plurality of options that allow for changes
favorable to all.
But time is running out. It is critical to open the
door.
It's useless to hide the truth. It's useless to
make believe that nothing is going on. It's useless to cling to power.
Our Teacher Jesus Christ says to us Cubans today, “What's the use of
winning the whole world if it ruins your life?” We still have time to
construct a different reality. We still have time to make the kind of
Cuba that Marti wanted “with all, and for the good of all.”
We
commend ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin of Charity, Patron Saint of Cuba. We
beg her, mother of all Cubans, to intercede with the Lord, who as His
Holiness Benedict XVI said during his visit to Cuba, “God not only respects
human freedom but appears to need it” so that we can always choose the
greater good for all.
Father Castor José Álvarez de Devesa, Priest of Modelo, Camagüey.
Father José Conrado Rodríguez Alegre, Parish Priest of San Francisco de Paula,Trinidad, Cienfuegos.
Father Roque Nelvis Morales Fonseca, Parish Parish of Cueto, Holguín.
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