Saturday, December 31, 2022

Top 12 Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter 2021 blog entries

 Year of exodus, hurricane, and show trials


These are the top 12 monthly blog entries of the year arranged in chronological order. George Santayana understood the importance of remembering the past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Saturday, January 1, 2022

70 Years of Dictatorship in Cuba: 63 Years of Castro and 7 Years of Batista

 From bad (authoritarian dictatorship) to worse (totalitarian dictatorship)

 

#TheyAreContinuity

Cuba has suffered under seventy years of dictatorship. Cuban democracy was ended by Fulgencio Batista on March 10, 1952,  the last democratic president, Carlos Prio, and his first lady went into exile, and over the next seven years, a corrupt and authoritarian dictatorship ruled Cuba, becoming increasingly unpopular.  

The refusal of Batista to nonviolently give up power through a process of dialogue opened the path for Fidel and Raul Castro to violently seize it, and put an end to a half century of democratic governments. Cuba's official motto was changed from Homeland and Liberty (Patria y Libertad) to Homeland or Death, We Shall Triumph (¡Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!). 

 [ Full blog entry]


Friday, January 7, 2022

Music video by Cuban singer Descemer Bueno, ft Maykel Castillo Pérez (El Osorbo) and Isabella Castillo shows Cuba's history of repression

Let us no longer shout "Homeland and Death" but "Homeland and Life" - Patria y Vida (2021)


Cuban singer Descemer Bueno premiered this week the song "Tears of Blood" [Lagrimas de Sangre], a denunciation of the totalitarian system in Cuba, that features prisoner of conscience Maykel Castillo Pérez (El Osorbo), and Isabella Castillo. An image of jailed Cuban journalist, Esteban Lázaro Rodríguez López appears in the music video. He was forcibly exiled a day after the video's release.

Video is directed and edited by Ernesto García and with photography by Sisy Gómez and Erick Delgado. The video that accompanies the song brings together images of the nonviolent demonstrations of 11J, repressive actions by the dictatorship over the past  63 years, Operation Pedro Pan, and the exodus of Cubans who fled to the sea to escape the Island in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, and the 1994 rafter crisis

[ Full blog entry]

 

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Berlin 1936 and Beijing 2022: Legitimizing genocidal totalitarian regimes through sports is a profound immorality with bad outcomes

 "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."- George Santayana

Legitimizing genocidal totalitarian regimes through sports is immoral and leads to bad outcomes

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing were a human rights disaster for China with scenes of Tibetan demonstrators gunned down by Chinese soldiers. 

14 years later, and the world has suffered over 5.6 million deaths due to COVID-19, and the Chinese Communist dictatorship of  Xi Jinping bears responsibility. The Chinese government did not reveal for weeks what it knew about COVID-19, allowing it to spread into a worldwide pandemic. The Frontline Documentary "China's COVID Secrets" is required viewing to understand what happened. 

[ Full blog entry]

 

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Twelve years ago on February 23, 2010 prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on hunger strike in Cuba

"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*

Orlando Zapata Tamayo May 15, 1967 - February 23, 2010

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his 1861 book, The House of the Dead  that "the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." What does this say about the Cuban government that has barred the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting Cuba's prisons for decades?

Many Cubans have died over the past 63 years suffering cruel treatment at the hands of communist prison officials in the Castro dictatorship.

Tomorrow marks the death of one more. His name was Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a human rights defender who was unjustly imprisoned in the Spring of 2003 and was tortured by Cuban prison officials and state security agents over the next six years and ten months. He died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, aggravated by prison guards refusing him water in an effort to break his spirit. He is a victim of Cuban communism

 [ Full blog entry ]

 

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

70 Years without Democracy in Cuba: 7 Years of authoritarianism with Batista and 63+ Years of totalitarianism with the Castros

 From bad (authoritarian dictatorship) to worse (totalitarian dictatorship)

#TheyAreContinuity #TheyAreDictators ( #SomosContinuidad #SonDictadores)

Democracy ended in Cuba seventy years ago on March 10, 1952. It was ended by General Fulgencio Batista who carried out a military coup against the legitimately elected democratic government. The last democratically elected president, Carlos Prio, and his first lady went into exile, and over the next seven years, an authoritarian dictatorship ruled Cuba, becoming increasingly unpopular. 

[ Full blog entry ]

 

Saturday, May 7, 2022

Project Varela at 20: Christian Liberation Movement invites us today to West Dade Regional Library to remember when thousands of Cubans risked all for a free Cuba.

We do not forget, we do not betray our principles and values, we are consistent, without fanfare, with serene courage, with generosity, without hatred but without fear: Long live the Varela Project !!! - Regis Iglesias Ramirez, May 10, 2021 over Twitter

 

Oswaldo Payá, Antonio Diaz, and Regis Iglesias walk to turn in petitions

Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, in his 1999 novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting observed that "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." Memory provides context to unfolding events today, and helps to render informed judgements.

Twenty years ago on May 10, 2002, carrying 11,020 signed petitions in support of the Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement's Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Antonio Diaz Sanchez, and Regis Iglesias Ramirez delivered them to the Cuban National Assembly.

The Varela Project, named after the Cuban Catholic Priest Felix Varela, sought to reform the Cuban legal system to bring it in line with international human rights standards. They had followed the letter of the law in organizing the campaign. 

[ Full blog entry ]

 

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

#OTD: 50 years ago today student leader Pedro Luis Boitel who fought against the Batista and Castro dictatorships died on hunger strike


Martyred student leader Pedro Luis Boitel fought by Fidel Castro's side to bring an end to the Batista dictatorship and restore Cuban democracy. However, as Castro came to impose a communist regime, the student leader became a liability.
 
Pedro Luis Boitel was born in Cuba to a family of modest means of French origin. He studied at the University of Havana while working as a radio technician. He was also a poet. Opposing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, he joined the July 26 movement led by Fidel Castro. The majority of the movement's members, like Pedro Luis, were anti-communists.

Once Batista left for exile and Fidel Castro took control, the anti-communist members of the July 26 movement became an obstacle to absolute power. Following the revolution, Boitel returned to University, where his fellow students nominated him to run for the presidency of the Federation of University Students in 1960.  Fidel Castro personally intervened to remove him from the presidency. Pedro Luis Boitel refused to betray the Federation of University Students. He sought to maintain academic freedom and autonomy. This made Pedro Luis an obstacle
to the emerging communist regime. 

 [ Full blog entry ]


Sunday, June 5, 2022

#Tiananmen33: Remembering the Tank Men

"Seeking government accountability for the massacre in accordance with the law is our legitimate right. For 33 years, we have been pursuing the three demands of “truth, compensation, and accountability” in a peaceful and rational manner, calling for a dialogue with the government through the legal process to resolve the issues related to the June Fourth massacre." -  Tiananmen Mothers, June 1, 2022

Nonviolent moment: Tank Men face off in Beijing on June 5, 1989

On June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the Chinese Communist Party's massive and bloody crackdown  on thousands of Chinese students and workers on June 3rd and 4th after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China something remarkable happened in the midst of all the horror and terror. 

A man risked all to protest what had taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and carrying what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

 [ Full blog entry ]

 

Monday, July 4, 2022

#TwelveMonths after the #11J protests in #Cuba: A reflection and call to action

Take the truth as a weapon, placing it in practice in the civic field, what Scripture proposed in the spiritual realm: "the truth shall make you free". Bishop Agustín Román, December 16, 2006

Cubans march under a banner declaring "Down with dictatorship" and "Patria y Vida"

Tens of thousands of Cubans marched in over 50 cities and towns in the island nation beginning on July 11, 2021 and were met with threats, violence, mass arrests, and deadly force that brought these nationwide protests to an end on July 13, 2021, , but sporadic protests continue in Cuba despite the regime's efforts to shut them all down. In one week, a year will have passed.

How did it begin?

A protester from San Antonio de los Baños told BBC Mundo that the initial protest was organized on Saturday[July 10, 2021] through social networks for Sunday [July 11, 2021] at 11:30 AM (local time). Reuters on August 9th reported in more detail on the social network used, and its background confirming the initial reporting by the BBC. On Sunday July 11, 2021 in the late morning hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of San Antonio de los Baños and were soon joined by thousands more.  

[ Full blog entry ]

 

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

July 13th now has a double significance for victims of communism in China and Cuba

 Free Chinese and free Cubans share a common day to mourn their victims of communism.

 

Over the past 28 years Cubans have mourned the 37 men, women, and children who were extrajudicially executed by Cuban government agents on July 13, 1994 when the "13 de Marzo" tugboat was attacked and sunk.

Tragically, Chinese are mourning Chinese Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and human rights defender Liu Xiaobo who died five years ago on July 13, 2017 at the First Hospital of China Medical University, in Shenyang, China after being unjustly imprisoned from December 8, 2008 until his untimely death nearly 10 years later. 
 
 

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Black Ribbon Day 2022: The Hitler-Stalin Pact that started WW2 which communists want to erase.

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera

Eighty three years ago on August 23, 1939 the world learned that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had signed a non-aggression pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It was named after their respective foreign ministers, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop. 

 [ Full blog entry ]

Sunday, October 9, 2022

Note to His Admirers: Comandante Ernesto "Che" Guevara is still dead and his ideas remain toxic

 "I'd like to confess, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing." Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in a letter to his father after executing an unarmed man. 

 

Che Guevara executed for trying to overthrow Bolivian govt on Oct 9, 1967

Ideas have consequences and those ideas are sometimes represented in iconic images. This is the case of the image of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his toxic philosophy of political action that others seek to emulate.  He embraced hatred and dehumanization of the other as the means to carry out what he thought necessary actions.

“Blind hate against the enemy creates a forceful impulse that cracks the boundaries of natural human limitations, transforming the soldier in an effective, selective and cold killing machine. A people without hate cannot triumph against the adversary.”

Guevara's claim to fame was the role he played alongside Fidel and Raul Castro in installing a totalitarian communist dictatorship using violent means, including terrorism, in Cuba then attempting to spread this model using violent means to Africa and Latin America. His efforts failed.

[ Full blog entry ]

Honorable mentions

Saturday, June 11, 2022

Open Letter to the People's Summit

 

Parallel to the Summit of the Americas held in L.A (June 8-10)


 Dear People's Summit organizers and participants,

This open letter does not address the charges leveled in your political platform or in your final declaration against the United States. The U.S. government can fend for itself, and I am not here to represent it. In the spirit of dialogue I am responding to a number of statements, and await your concrete response, and hope that this does not degenerate into ad hominem attacks.

However, you raise a number of claims and then omit pressing challenges in this hemisphere to values and objectives that you claim to share that are caused by others. 

[ Full blog entry ]

 

Friday, September 23, 2022

Call for solidarity with protesters in Iran. Please share hashtags: #MahsaAmini #ZhinaAmini #IranProtests

Morality police in Iran beat Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, to death for not complying with Tehran's hijab regulations. She was arrested on September 13, 2022 badly beaten, left in a coma, and died on September 16th

Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by morality police in Iran.

Mass protests have erupted in Iran, but the Iranian regime has shutdown the internet and is now carrying out massacres against demonstrators. 

Furthermore the mistake of replacing short wave radio transmissions of uncensored news with reliance  on internet broadcasts is once again revealed to be a mistake, as it was in Egypt during the Arab Spring

The last time this happened was in 2019, and the Mullahs killed 1,500 people, and I had not heard about it when it happened. The images of nonviolent protests slow to a trickle but some continue to emerge, along with reports of the price paid by protesters for their courageous dissent. Their censorship was successful that time, but let us do our part to prevent them from getting away with it again.

Please share the videos below, and use their hashtags. [ Full blog entry ]

 

 

Sunday, December 25, 2022

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty years one ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen not to forget:  

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the very same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Sadly, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over 6.8 million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  



Saturday, December 24, 2022

Call to action for a Christmas without political prisoners in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua

Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering."- Hebrews 13:3


Enjoying the holidays with family and friends? Getting ready for the New Year's celebrations? Please take a moment from the festivities and think of those locked up and mistreated for exercising their fundamental human rights.  

Partial lists provided by internal human rights groups indicate that there are at least 1,034 political prisoners in Cuba, 235 political prisoners in Nicaragua, and 274 political prisoners in Venezuela spending the holiday season behind bars. At a minimum 1,543 fellow humans are arbitrarily detained and being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for matters of conscience.

This has been going on in the Americas for over sixty years, and for too long it has been normalized.

Let us show our solidarity with those who are unjustly imprisoned on account of their political convictions. The late Vaclav Havel, interviewed by Amnesty International in 2011, understood the need for persons of goodwill to take action. "It's up to all of us to try, and those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses."

Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed.

These are three cases, one for Venezuela, one for Cuba and one for Nicaragua.  

Venezuela


"
Javier Tarazona, Director of local NGO FundaREDES, was arbitrarily detained on July 2, 2021 after attempting to report harassment from security officers at the Attorney General’s Office in the city of Coro (Western Venezuela), and charged with inciting hatred, treason and “terrorism”. His pre-trial hearing took place on December 16, 2021, after more than five months of delays. Javier Tarazona is a prisoner of conscience, having been arbitrarily detained for his human rights work. Tarazona’s health has seriously deteriorated due to lack of medical treatment."  Source: Amnesty International. He remains imprisoned, and his family and colleagues continue to campaign for his release.

Cuba

"Maykel Castillo Pérez, more commonly known by his artistic name: 'Maykel Osorbo,' is a Cuban musician and member of the San Isidro Movement. He is also one of the co-authors of the son “Patria y Vida”, that has become a protest anthem for its critical view of the Cuban government. The musician has been subjected to constant harassment by authorities and has been arbitrarily detained on many occasions. On 18 May 2021, state security agents detained the musician at his home, and for the 10 days following his arrest, refused to provide information on his whereabouts to family and loved ones. On 19 August 2021, Amnesty International named Castillo Pérez a prisoner of conscience, along with other Cubans detained in the context of the protests of 11 July 2021

On 24 March 2022, the organization issued a press release calling authorities to allow it and other human rights observers access to the country to monitor the trials. On 26 May 2022, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Castillo Pérez, ahead of the start of his trial. Cuba remains the only country in the Americas that does not permit Amnesty International to visit to carry out human rights monitoring work." Source: Amnesty International He was condemned to nine years in prison six months ago on June 24, 2022, and remains in poor health.

Nicaragua

 

"Three weeks after his arrest by the regime of President Daniel Ortega made international headlines, one of Nicaragua’s most renowned intellectuals, Oscar René Vargas, has been indicted by the government with “conspiracy to undermine national integrity” and other trumped-up charges. Vargas is the latest high-profile prisoner of conscience in Nicaragua. He is being held at the notorious El Chipote prison outside of Managua, where he joins some 200 other political prisoners."

"The 77-year-old Vargas had been living in exile in Costa Rica since 2018, where he was forced to flee after the regime issued an arrest warrant because he had criticized the government's repression of mass protests that year. After learning that his sister had become seriously infirm, Vargas returned to Nicaragua on November 22. Within minutes of arriving at his sister’s house in the Bolonia neighborhood of Managua, several dozen police and state security agents raided the house, bursting in with machine guns and dragging him away. For the next 48 hours, the regime forcibly concealed Vargas until petitions by the family and the Center for Human Rights in Nicaragua (CENIDH), and international pressure forced the government to acknowledge his arrest."

Vargas, considered the dean of Nicaraguan sociology, is one of the most prominent and well-respected academic voices in the opposition. He is the author of 56 books and over 1,000 articles on Nicaragua, Latin America, and world affairs. Vargas began his political life in the 1960s, participating in the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. In 1967 he hid Daniel Ortega from Somoza’s state security, thus saving his life. He participated throughout the 1970s in the struggle against the dictatorship, and from 1979-1990 he served as an advisor to the nine-member National Directorate, the highest decision-making body of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)." Source: NACLA 

Please join us in speaking up for these and other political prisoners. Please remember the words of the great Czech dissident Václav Havel who explained back in 1990 that "[t]he salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility."

It begins with you. Will you do your part?

1. Please  ask your pastor, rabbi, or priest to pray for the freedom of political prisoners during their religious services during this holiday season.

2. Please write letters to religious leaders in your community to request that the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua free their political prisoners.

3. Please use the following hashtags to spread this message.

#LiberenLosYa
#FreeThemNow
#FreedomForPoliticalPrisoners
#LibertadParaLosPresosPoliticos
#CubaNicaraguaVenezuela
#NavidadSinPresosPolíticosEnCubaVenezuelaYNicaragua. #ChristmasWithoutPoliticalPrisonersInCubaVenezuelaAndNicaragua  

4. Please sign the petition to expel the Castro regime from the UN Human Rights Council.
 

A Christmas Message from the Christian Liberation Movement

Ten years ago following the murder of their national coordinator and youth leader by Castro's secret police, the Christian Liberation Movement re-released this Christmas message by Oswaldo Payá.

 

 Happy New Year 2023 to all Cubans. Year of Liberation 

 The MCL Coordinating Council has decided to re-release the Christmas message of 1990, which our national coordinator Oswaldo Payá wrote on behalf of our Movement. Reading it we found that its contents, twenty one Christmases later remains equally beautiful and appreciated. Today, on behalf of your people, we say to you: Thank you for this gift Oswaldo. Hopefully Cubans today will start making this utopia possible. 

It is is our hope that it will be so: 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas wrote MCL's 1990 Christmas Message
  

Christmas Message 1990


The rifles will be buried face down, the words of hatred will vanish in the heart without reaching the lips, we'll go out into the street and all of us will see in the other a brother, let us look to the future with the peace of he that knows that he forgave and he that has been forgiven. Let there be no blood to clean or dead to bury, the shadow of fear and of catastrophe will give way to the reconciliatory light, and Cuba will be reborn in every heart, in a miracle of love made by God and us.

That will be the Liberation, it will be the new life and all of us will have the sensation that we are all good and want to be good, that everyone wants the other to be happy, it will be like that special time, and it will be like Christmas, that same Christmas when Jesus arrives.

Cubans!, that this hope not die, let us not be discouraged. We believe it is possible and we work and struggle with all our hearts, to make this, that many call utopia, possible and for which, if necessary, we will give our lives without claiming the lives of others.

That those who hold power and for a long time have had great privileges and have lived as the rich in the midst of a poor people reflect on it.

The people have no voice and want to express themselves. The nation disintegrates and Cubans want to save her, save Cuba for all, Cuba is greater than the power of a few and those that have that power that do not feel attacked, because the people awake, do not abuse the nobility of the Cuban people. Come on men of power! For you to there is a place among the people if you descend from the stands, and that is better than power.

Let all within Cuba and outside Cuba reflect. Let us act with great courage, but with a lot of responsibility, with great firmness but especially with much love.

Let us not turn to violence and force, but we will not submit or allow ourselves to be intimidated by them. Yes, we want change, changes in all of society, because the heart of Cuba has already changed, and we have renovated it in hope, work, suffering and sorrow. We have renovated ourselves and do not want Cuba to sink and our children with her. That violence not explode, that repression not explode, that the truth break out, and let there be an outbreak of Peace and Freedom.

No one in Cuba wants to submit to a foreign power, or return to other forms of injustice. Let us not fool ourselves any more, Cubans know what we want: we want reconciliation among all, we want a reunion with our distant brothers in exile, we want to work for our Country and our families, with boundless generosity to our hard work and positive creativity, we want dialogue, we want to solve this juncture of our history together, with love, we want freedom. We know it is possible and we will achieve it, it will be everyone’s victory.

Yes, Jesus is coming, he who was also a victim of violence, victim of the mob and its repudiation, victim of the pride of the powerful and of the slaves of the lie. Jesus is coming and he brings the victory of life over death, of love over hatred. He is the only one who brings true Liberation. That is Christmas.

The Christian Liberation Movement wishes you a Merry Christmas!

December 2012

The original Spanish text is available here.