Next month Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement will observe the third decade since its founding

"Without tradition, originality cannot exist: for it is only against a tradition that it becomes perceivable."  - Roger Scruton

 Cuba's most important opposition group, the Christian Liberation Movement, will be observing an important anniversary next month. Thirty years ago on September 8, 1988 on the feast day of the Virgin of Charity in Cuba, a movement was born inspired by Christian teachings and the desire to be free. On September 8, 2014 Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement released a statement recalling their founding:

We were born there in the parish of the Cerro, one of the many neighborhoods of Havana. The background: The Circle of the Cerro. Then something more formal, The Circle of Cuban Christian Thought. This was banned and dissolved when it launched the first free Cuban publication, also prohibited, titled "People of God", proclaiming the source of liberation: when we said, "We must obey God before men", "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, "But if God gives you Freedom, who is Cesar to take it away? "All men and women are my brothers and sisters." "We will not act violently or submit to violence," "You are my brother, I do not hate you, but I am not afraid of you."

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas described how the Christian Liberation Movement, a democratic opposition movement, came into existence and explained how it was related to the birth of his first child, Oswaldo José.

“When our first child was going to be born, we have three children, we said that our children cannot live in a country without liberty and we are not going to another country to seek freedom. Therefore we have to fight for our children to live free here in Cuba and everyone else's children and their parents too.”    

Oswaldo José was born on February 17, 1988 and the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was founded that same year.  Oswaldo Payá was killed on July 22, 2012 along with the movement's youth leader Harold Cepero Despite the killings, the movement re-organized and elected a new national coordinator, Eduardo Cardet MD.  Dr. Cardet was arrested on November 30, 2016 and has suffered, beatings, a stabbing, the denial of family visits and has not been heard from since July 28, 2018. 18 days without a phone call or physical visit.


Following the extrajudicial killing of Oswaldo Payá  and Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012, the Christian Liberation Movement restructured its leadership and Eduardo Cardet was appointed national coordinator of the movement in November of 2014.
 
Eduardo Cardet is married with two children, works as a family doctor at the health center in the town of Velasco in Holguín province, where he lives. One year before his appointment as leader of the Christian Liberation Movement he was expelled from his work in retaliation for his opposition activity. However, protests over this punishment measure and popular support led to Eduardo Cardet's reinstatement to his old job.

Christian Liberation Movement: Regis Iglesias, Tony Díaz Sánchez, Eduardo Cardet

 The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) is campaigning for Eduardo Cardet's release. At the same time they are observing this important anniversary on social media.

 

Regis Iglesias on the 16th anniversary of turning in 11,020 signatures for a democratic change in Cuba reflected on the importance of the Varela Project in AlgoritmoMag.

It was the first time that Cubans voted or demanded to do so after almost half a century of dictatorship that May 10, 2002, when Oswaldo Paya, Tony Diaz and I crossed the threshold of the offices of the National Assembly of People's Power and presented their officials the signatures that legitimized our demand for a referendum.Eleven thousand twenty Cubans with the right to vote, protected by among other articles 1, 3, and fundamentally 88, paragraph g of the draconian socialist constitution in force, took the step and with their personal data supported the demand for a referendum on the Varela Project, so that the law will guarantee the right to "political freedom", "popular sovereignty", the freedom of political prisoners and the economic freedoms of Cubans.More than a civic and legal exercise the initiative of the Christian Liberation Movement and its founder Oswaldo Paya, finally found a methodology to create the minimum social base in the middle of a totalitarian and repressive state in which the opposition is not recognized and dissidence is considered treason.

 This is why this 30 year old organization remains the most important opposition movement in Cuba, under the Castro dictatorship.