Sunday, December 31, 2023

72 Years of Dictatorship in Cuba: 65 Years of the Castros and 7 Years of Batista

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

#TheyAreContinuity #SonContinuidad

 Cuba has been under a dictatorship for 72 years. On March 10, 1952, Fulgencio Batista brought an end to Cuban democracy. Carlos Prio, the last democratic president, and his first lady were forced into exile. An increasingly unpopular authoritarian and corrupt regime ruled Cuba for the following seven years. 

The hope for the restoration of democratic governance came to an end when Batista refused to cede power nonviolently through a dialogue process, opening a path for Fidel and Raul Castro to take it by force. Although they had repeatedly pledged to restore the 1940 Constitution, and Cuban democracy they imposed a communist dictatorship.

Cuba's official motto was changed from Homeland and Liberty (Patria y Libertad) to Homeland or Death, We Shall Triumph (¡Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!).

Presidents of Cuba from 1902 to 1952 and dictator Batista

Fulgencio Batista, the authoritarian dictator, fled Cuba early on January 1, 1959, thanks to the conspiracies of the Communist International, The New York Times pro-Castro propaganda, an arms embargo imposed on him by the United States in March 1958, and pressure for him to go from the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba in December 1958.

Since the beginning of their struggle on July 26, 1953, the Castro brothers promised a democratic restoration, but all along planned a Marxist-Leninist takeover. They imposed a totalitarian communist dictatorship, killing tens of thousands of Cubans. The Castro regime systematically denied human rights to all Cubans while exporting their repressive model to Africa and Latin America, creating misery for millions more.

The communist regime has re-written the history of Cuba, creating myths to justify its tyranny. The reality is that between 1902 and 1952, there existed a system that oversaw rising living standards for five decades and had been on the cutting edge of human rights

The Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Cuba declared war on human rights at home and abroad to the present day.

From 1959 till now, generations of Cubans have resisted this communist regime.

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans risked everything in July 2021, taking to the streets in nonviolent protests demanding an end to the dictatorship. The Castro regime responded by firing on unarmed protesters, imprisoning over a thousand, and condemning many of them to 20 and 30 year prison sentences for exercising their right to peaceful assembly.

Remembering this sad past, we resolve to work even harder to bring democracy back to Cuba, replacing Homeland or Death (¡Patria o Muerte!) with Homeland, Life, and Liberty (Patria, Vida y Libertad). 

Please take two actions: 1) sign this appeal for an end to repression in Cuba and release of all Cuban political prisoners and 2) sign this petition to expel Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council

Both petitions are addressed to members of the international community.

On the streets of Cuba on July 11, 2021

Wishing you all a happy new year in 2024, and through the continuing work and struggle for a free Cuba may freedom be restored that will finally fulfill Cuban exiles goal of "this year in Havana!"

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Correcting some of Chuck Offenburger's errors about the Cuban revolution and the dictatorship in Havana

 Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” - Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

 

Reverend Raul Suarez with Fidel Castro

Chuck Offenburger has written a blog entry "Banning Christmas in Cuba was an ‘error’ that Fidel Castro fixed: It’s time for the U.S. to correct our own errors there" that regurgitates Cuban communist propaganda. I do not believe that was his intent.

Totalitarian regimes have a track record of effectively using tourism, athletic events, and academic exchanges to present their regimes in a manner that legitimizes them and covers up their hostile objectives. 

An excellent accounting of these practices and their impacts on national and international politics is found in Paul Hollander's book Political Pilgrims that should be required reading for anyone traveling to Cuba, China, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, or Vietnam.

There is much to address, and it will be broken up into a series of blog entries. 

These blog entries will review a number of the claims Mr. Offenburger makes in chronological order, and provide documented sources to test them.

They will also highlight some of the errors made by the United States in dealing with the Cuban revolution (1953 - 1959) and the Communist dictatorship (1959 - present).

 Mr. Offenburger begins his blog entry with the claim that "religious and church life in Cuba is thriving, and has been since the 1990s." He then goes on to cite as a source for this claim Reverend Raúl Suárez.

This blog entry will explore who is Reverend Raúl Suárez and his claims about Fidel Castro "fixing" the error of banning religion.

Reverend Raúl Suárez was expelled in 1986 from the Baptist Convention in Cuba for "apostasy and heresy" for his unconditional support for the regime.  He had created within the Baptist Church an Association of Churches with that political purpose. Suárez, far from complying, robbed the Baptist Convention of the Temple, the house and its bank account of 25,000 pesos, and with the support of the Government - which did not pursue the accusation of theft presented by the Baptist Convention - he registered the new convention."

Reverend Suárez in 2022 was described by Cuban independent journalist Yoe Suárez (no relation) as being an example of one of the pastors who emerged from historic churches, "who support the regime."

Human Rights Watch in their 1999 report Cuba's Repressive Machinery: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution provided more context, and the leverage placed by Havana in advancing a policy for sanctions to be lifted, and democracy promotion ended.

Cuba grants the Department of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Departamento de Atención a los Asuntos Religiosos del Comité Central del Partido Comunista) a prominent role in overseeing religious institutions. Not surprisingly, religious leaders who support the government face fewer impediments to their activities than do believers who find themselves at odds with the ruling party. 

At the 1991 Communist Party Fourth Congress, the party decided that religious belief would no longer pose an obstacleto membership.84 In the wake of this decision, some religious figures are now members of the Communist Party or even political leaders themselves, such as Pablo Odén Marichal, the president of the Cuban Council of Churches (Consejo Cubano de Iglesias), who is a deputy in Cuba's National Assembly. Baptist Minister Raúl Suárez Ramos, with the Cuban Council of Churches, also is a deputy in Cuba's National Assembly, and heads the Martin Luther King Memorial Center, a nongovernmental group with close ties to the government.85 Suárez Ramos earned government acclaim in 1990 when he lauded the revolution as "a blessing for our poor people" and criticized U.S. policy toward Cuba as an "economic, political, radio, and television aggression."86 

Both deputies often travel internationally and participate in conferences on religion in Cuba. But the party treats distinctly those who do not share its political views. The current head of the party's religious affairs office, Caridad Diego, criticized an American Catholic priest who had worked in the Villa Clara area for supporting "counterrevolutionary groups."87 The priest, Patrick Sullivan, had posted copies of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in his church and had urged his parishioners to defend those rights. In April 1998, facing increasing government pressure, Sullivan chose to leave Cuba. Although Cuba and the Vatican had agreed that the pope would visit Cuba in 1989, the Catholic church's failure to condemn the U.S. embargo at that time apparently contributed to the several-year delay in finalizing the visit.88 When the pope did travel to Cuba in early 1998, the Cuban government trumpeted his criticisms of the U.S. embargo.

Let us briefly review the steps taken by the Castro regime to crush religion in Cuba, and those measures that remain in place.

In May 1961, the Cuban dictatorship confiscated private schools ( both religous and secular) and most seminaries in an effort to eliminate religion.  Private religious schools remain illegal in Cuba in 2023, and some Cubans in the island are demanding their return due to the low quality of the public schools. There are private schools for the children of foreign diplomats, and foreign business people.

In September 1961, the Castro regime at gunpoint collected 131 priests, brothers and a bishop, placing them on board the Spanish ship Covadonga and deported them from Cuba. Many of the remaining priests were sent to forced labor camps. Over 300 priests, brothers, and nuns were expelled from Cuba in 1961 alone.

The communist dictatorship declared itself an atheist state in 1962, and openly hostile to religion. Christmas ended as a holiday in Cuba in 1969.  

The collapse of the Eastern European communist block in 1989, and the Soviet Union in 1992 led Havana to seek bankrolling from the West, and necessitated a limited opening on the religous front in 1992. The restoration of Christmas in 1997 was a concession granted to the Vatican to obtain a state visit by Pope John Paul II, in which he called for the World to open to Cuha, and for Cuba to open to the World..

Today, the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), an arm of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, still oversees religious affairs in Cuba, and exists to monitor, hinder and restrict religious activities. They also continue to demolish churches with bulldozers and organize mobs to harass Christians in acts of repudiation coordinated with the Ministry of the Interior. 

On April 9, 2015 on the eve of the Summit of the Americas in Panama, agents of the Castro regime carried out various acts of repudiation against Cuban and Venezuelan members of civil society that they deemed unacceptable due to their dissent or opposition with either Havana or Caracas.

Physical violence ensued, and people were hurt.

Reverend Raúl Suárez in an interview published in a pro-regime blog on April 28, 2015 celebrated his own participation in these actions, saying "he had never been closer to God," and gave it a pro-regime spin. Below is a translation excerpted from that interview.

In a meeting that recently took place at the Ministry of Culture, where the attitude of the Cuban delegation in Panama was recognized, you said that you had never been closer to God in those days. Why?

I said it for two reasons. Because when I am among people who do not have religious beliefs, I like to place the topic of faith in an attractive way, so that there is the highest level of understanding and empathy among everyone. On the other hand, in churches there is sometimes the opinion that a Christian's participation in politics is a mistake, some even say that it is a sin. That is not right. I am not interested in politics that has to do with political campaigns, fundraising, fights between politicians... The politics that interests me is that which starts from the etymology of the term, referring to the people, the polis, which is the organization of the people for the common good, in this case, the quality of life of the Cuban people. That is why I felt that presence of God in Panama, when I opposed in a fair fight against those who wanted to turn the “house of prayers into a den of thieves”, against those who want to bias the right of Cubans to choose their own system. 
In 2015 the dictatorship ordered that five churches in the Abel Santa Maria neighbourhood of the city of Santiago de Cuba be demolished. According to Christianity Today the order was issued on November 27, 2015 and pastors and their families, living on Church grounds, were evicted.

Homeschooling, to avoid anti-Christian indoctrination taught in the schools, is prohibited in Cuba. Two Christian pastors were jailed for homeschooling their children, and an independent journalist was beaten and jailed for covering their trial in April 2019. Pastor Ayda Expósito was released from prison nearly a year later on April 3, 2020, and her husband Pastor Ramón Rigal was released three months later on July 1, 2020.  Independent journalist Roberto Quiñones Haces was released on September 4, 2020 in an emaciated state, compared to when he entered prison on September 11, 2019.  

Unable to destroy religion, the Castro dictatorship now manipulates it, similar to Communist China. There is an official Church, and the underground Church that continues to be persecuted. Reverend Raúl Suárez is part of the official church, that uses the name of Martin Luther King Jr. while celebrating violence against pro-democracy activists, remaining silent before the demolition of Churches on the island,.and denying ongoing religious persecution.

Mr. Offenburger should reach out to other religious figures on the island who bear witness for the persecuted Church.

Would recommend speaking to, and reading about Reverend Mario Felix Lleonart, a Cuban pastor who obtained political asylum in the United States in 2016, but maintains connections with the island.  If you had followed his social media you'd know that religious figures in Cuba were visted on Christmas day, and told to report to state security the following day.

Would also recommend reading the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on the murders of Catholic laymen, and human rights defenders Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante that was published in June 2023 that holds the Cuban government responsible for their killings.

Cuba is a totalitarian communist dictatorship that also successfully oversaw the dismantlement of democracies in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and continues to sponsor and support international terrorism through alliances with Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

This is the first in a series. Stay tuned.

Monday, December 25, 2023

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 two years 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.  



Sunday, December 24, 2023

Christmas Message from the Christian Liberation Movement

 "We have not chosen the path of peace as a tactic, but because it is inseparable from the goal for which our people are striving." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Ceremony for Mr Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, 2002 Sakharov laureate with EU's Pat Cox

Twenty one years ago this week on December 17, 2002 in Strasbourg, France while receiving the Sakharov Prize from the European Union Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas explained what motivated his movement's choice to embark on a nonviolent struggle:

"We have not chosen the path of peace as a tactic, but because it is inseparable from the goal for which our people are striving. Experience teaches us that violence begets more violence and that when political change is brought about by such means, new forms of oppression and injustice arise."

Oswaldo's full written speech is available online, and required reading, and video of the speech is also available online. 

He ended this speech affirming the Christian foundation of the movement he founded and led: the Christian Liberation Movement.

"We dedicate this prize and our hopes to the Lord Jesus, born in a lowly manger. Thank you and Merry Christmas.
Oswaldo paid the ultimate price for freedom.  Let us remember and honor him by sharing the truth about the circumstances surrounding his murder and the murder of MCL youth leader Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012.

Their murders demonstrate that Nonviolent resistance to a brutal dictatorship is not without risk, and after 64 years in power even more so.  

Nonviolent scholar Michael N. Nagler in his book, "The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action" in the following passage provides a description and analysis relevant to what is taking place in Cuba, and may be useful in understanding where things stand in the struggle today:

"Conflicts escalate when they are not resolved, and if they are left untended they can rapidly get out of control." From the nonviolence point of view, the intensity of a conflict is not necessarily a question of how many guns or how many people are involved (the same metric would work for a quarrel between lovers as between nations); it is primarily about how far dehumanization has proceeded. If someone no longer listens to you, is calling you names or is labeling you, it’s probably too late for petitions. In terms of knowing how to respond, we can conveniently think of this escalation in three stages that call for distinct sets of responses. Let’s call these three stages Conflict Resolution, Satyagraha (active nonviolent resistance), and—hopefully this is rare, but it helps to know it exists—Ultimate Sacrifice.

The Christian Liberation Movement released the following statement that has been translated below from the original Spanish. 

Christmas Message from the Christian Liberation Movement 

We are very close to celebrating the Nativity of the Lord and we want to unite in good wishes with our people.  

Just as the people of God walked through the desert, in the midst of tribulations and in the diaspora, they never stopped looking with their hearts towards Jerusalem, so our people walk in the midst of oppression and exile, looking towards Cuba with hope in their soul. and in every thought. The hope that the faith and determination of a people who want to be free and seek happiness in their own country gives us. 

Those imprisoned for political causes have also marked the year. They have been kidnapped and with dignity they bear the full weight of repression for the freedom of our people. Their faces are also that of hope.  

The Letter to the Hebrews in chapter 13 tells us “Remember those who are in prison as if you were in prison with them.”  

Extreme poverty rates are increasing and the difficulties of putting bread on the table has become a true miracle. While the caste that has kidnapped the rights of Cubans lives in the midst of luxuries and privileges, segregating citizens. 

But injustice will not prevail because our hope comes from above, it comes on Christmas from Jesus Christ, a defenseless child cold in the middle of the night in his poor manger. 

That next year we can all meet in our homeland, our fraternal Cuban National Home so that our lives can be reborn in freedom, the spiritual life of the Cuban soul and we can find happiness in the land that God gave us and the Virgin of Charity, Mother of all Cubans bless.

Let us celebrate this birth with joy and hope, so that God continues with us on this long journey.  

Let us return our hearts to God, because the freedom of Cuba will necessarily pass through faith and values. 

Merry Christmas! God bless our beloved Cuba! 

 All Cubans, All Brothers and Now Freedom!  

Christian Liberation Movement 

 December 24, 2023

 

Mensaje de Navidad del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación 

Estamos muy cerca de celebrar la Natividad del Señor y queremos unirnos en buenos deseos con nuestro pueblo.

Así como el pueblo de Dios caminó por el desierto, en medio tribulaciones  y en la diáspora nunca dejo de mirar con el corazón hacia Jerusalén, así camina nuestro pueblo en medio de la opresión y el exilio mirando mira hacia Cuba con la esperanza en él alma y en  cada pensamiento. La esperanza que nos da la fe y la determinación de un pueblo que quiere ser libre y buscar la felicidad en su propia patria.

Los presos por causas políticas han marcado también el año. Han sido secuestrados y con dignidad asumen todo el peso de la represión por la libertad de nuestro pueblo. Sus rostros son también el de la esperanza. 

La Carta a los Hebreos en su capítulo 13 nos dice “ acuérdense de los presos como si también ustedes lo estuvieran”

Los índices de pobreza extrema aumentan y las dificultades para llevar el pan a la mesa se ha convertido en un verdadero milagro. Mientras la casta que ha secuestrado los derechos a los cubanos vive en medio de los lujos y privilegios segregando a los ciudadanos.  

Pero la injusticia no prevalecerá porque nuestra esperanza viene de lo alto, viene en Navidad de Jesucristo, un niño indefenso con frío en medio de la noche en su pobre pesebre. 

Que el próximo año nos podamos encontrar todos en nuestra patria, nuestro Hogar Nacional Cubano fraterno para que renazcan nuestras vidas en libertad, la vida espiritual del alma cubana y encontremos la felicidad en la tierra que Dios nos entregó y la Virgen de la Caridad Madre de todos los cubanos bendice. 

Celebremos este nacimiento con alegría y esperanza, para que Dios continúe junto a nosotros en este largo caminar.

Volvamos nuestros corazones a Dios, porque la libertad de Cuba pasará necesariamente por la fe y los valores. 

¡Feliz Navidad! Dios bendiga a nuestra amada Cuba!

Todos Cubanos, Todos Hermanos y Ahora la Libertad!

 Movimiento Cristiano Liberación

24 de diciembre 2023

Fuente: https://mcliberacion.org/2023/12/mensaje-de-navidad-2023-movimiento-cristiano-liberacion/

Monday, December 18, 2023

Remembering Václav Havel, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and nonviolent action

 "A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences." - Jacques Maritain

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and President Václav Havel in Prague (2002)

Twenty one years ago on December 17, 2002 Oswaldo Paya addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg at a ceremony awarding him the the Sakharov Prize where he outlined his nonviolent vision for change in Cuba.

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.’
 Václav Havel passed away twelve years ago today, on December 18, 2011, and his nonviolent resistance and dedication to truth in successfully resisting totalitarian rule in Czechoslovakia remain powerful legacies and examples that are relevant today. In 2002, President Vaclav Havel addressed the Cuban people and offered words that should be heeded now:
"Our world, as a whole, is not in the best of shape and the direction it is headed in may well be quite ambivalent. But this does not mean that we are permitted to give up on free and cultivated thinking and to replace it with a set of utopian clichés. That would not make the world a better place, it would only make it worse. On the contrary, it means that we must do more for our own freedom, and that of others."
Nonviolence requires recognizing these extreme injustices and the justifiable anger that it generates but at the same time channeling it into creative and productive means to end the injustices. Some would argue that one must remove their anger, as one takes off a back pack, but that is profoundly mistaken. Martin Luther King Jr. offered a different approach that has proven far more powerful: 
"The supreme task [of a leader] is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force." 

Mohandas Gandhi spoke in 1920 of learning "through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world."
 

This is not hating but harnessing a powerful spiritual energy and channeling it productively. Blowing up and screaming at someone is a waste of that energy that can be channeled into creative solutions to end the injustice.

Nonviolence theoretician Gene Sharp also recognizes that there is a moral dimension that cannot be ignored without dire consequences (as the recent drive to normalize relations with the Castro regime in Cuba demonstrated): "It is unreasonable to aim for a 'win- win' resolution. Brutal dictators and perpetrators of genocide do not deserve to win anything."

Nonviolent thought can be divided into two general categories: strategic nonviolence and principled nonviolence but although emphasizing different perspectives they need not be in conflict.
Strategic nonviolence takes a pragmatic approach that is based on being more effective then violence. 

Non-violent resistance is an armed struggle but its weapons are not deployed to do violence or kill. These arms are  psychological, social, economic and political weapons. Gene Sharp argues with much evidence "that this is ultimately more powerful against oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence. Historical studies are cited that demonstrate the higher success rates of nonviolent movements when compared against violent ones:

University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns. Finally there study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.”
Principled nonviolence looks at the spiritual dimension, and the power of an individual to change and in doing so impact the world. Mohandas Gandhi described it as follows on September 8, 1913 in Indian Opinion:
"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."
The advantage of principled non-violence and taking it up as a daily practice in ones life is that it gives one the strength to resist provocations and builds up the character of the practitioner that assists in carrying out a strategic nonviolent plan.

Critics of nonviolence often argue that nonviolence works well against democracies but not brutal regimes, often citing the Nazis. Nevertheless in 1943 in Germany on Rosenstrasse street German wives married to Jewish men, who had been taken to concentration camps, organized a series of strikes and protests that forced the Nazis to return their Jewish husbands back from the death camps. Those men survived the Holocaust thanks to their wives courageous and nonviolent action.  

The disturbing questions that should arise are: What would have happened if instead of the violent Antifa movement, that fought the Nazis in street battles throughout the 1930s that escalated violence, opponents of the Nazis had followed Gandhi's advice at the time and resisted them nonviolently? What would have happened if the Weimar Republic instead of attempting to silence the Nazis by repeatedly prosecuting them for violating hate speech laws had challenged their evil ideas in the court of public opinion?

Since the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in 1976 there has existed in overall terms a general strategy of change that can be summed up as: " Carrying out a nonviolent struggle in defense of human rights for the freedom of Cuba."

Looking at another definition of strategy that divides it into three parts gives a better idea of the challenges facing the democratic opposition in Cuba:

1. Diagnostic: A totalitarian dictatorship with dynastic elements with the political will to hang on to power.
2. Guiding policy: nonviolence
3. Action plan: There exist different areas of emphasis by the opposition and civil society that is also somethin
g found in nonviolent struggles.
Strategic nonviolence takes a pragmatic approach that is based on being more effective then violence: 
Non-violent resistance is an armed struggle but its weapons are not deployed to do violence or kill. These arms are  psychological, social, economic and political weapons. Gene Sharp argues with much evidence "that this is ultimately more powerful against oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence." 
The reason for the greater success rate of nonviolent resistance is that it is easier to mobilize large numbers of people to take nonviolent action than to engage in violent action. Success is not only defined by overthrowing the existing regime, but having a transition that ends in a democratic regime. The methods used in nonviolent struggle translate better to democratic practices then violent resistance because they involve nonviolent discipline, the mobilization of large numbers and the encouragement of civic virtue.  

Furthermore the use of humor is not to be underestimated. Václav Havel in an address to the Central European University on June 24, 1999 at a difficult moment on the international scene made the case for laughter.

"The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world."

Following his death in 2011, every year on the anniversary of his passing admirers of Václav Havel the world over wear short trousers in his memory. 

On December 18th roll up your trousers to honor Vaclav Havel

Organizers explained its historic significance along with its particular Czech sensibility.

The “Short Trousers for Václav Havel” initiative started in 2012 to honor the memory of Václav Havel with a gesture that was unique, memorable and easily achieved by supporters of this exceptional person in modern Czech and European history.  Short Trousers is a reference to Havel stepping into political life in 1989 and his inauguration to the presidency in visibly short trousers. He explained vainly that rather than a tailor’s mistake it was his habit to pull his pants up at every dramatic situation. To this, one might say global mythology of his short trousers, he added with a smile: "I must say that I am glad of it, more or less. From my point of view it’s a pretty gentle way of mocking myself."  An effort to honor such a respectable person by a gesture that points to this humorous episode might appear, at first sight, as a contradictory act. But the opposite is true. We believe that rolled up trousers on the anniversary of the death of Václav Havel is a gesture which is Czech, slightly satirical and which can be easily joined by anyone who wants to honor the memory of the last Czechoslovak and the first Czech president Havel in a cheerful way.

This method of spontaneous remembrance contrasts dramatically with how dictators forcibly demand that they be remembered on penalty of imprisonment for dissenting as has been the case following the 2016 death of Fidel Castro.  

 

Marking Vaclav Havel's 12th death anniversary wearing short trousers.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Obama's Cuba Policy Legacy: Normalizing relations with an Abnormal Regime

 A shameful legacy

Why December 17, 2014 Cuba policy changes failed, and shouldn't be repeated

From CubaBrief 

President Barack Obama's rapprochement with Cuba began in 2009 with the unilateral loosening of sanctions, it followed the same failed pattern of other Administrations, opposition leaders killed, increased repression, and hostile actions against U.S. interests abroad. This did not prompt a change in policy, but a doubling down. It did not help that secret negotiations on Washington's side were led by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who is a former fiction writer with no foreign policy experience. Senior U.S. diplomats at the State Department were kept in the dark. His counterpart on Havana's side was Raul Castro's son, Fidel's protege and senior Ministry of the Interior official, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín. His colleagues in the New York Times profile describe the Deputy National Security Adviser as "having no poker face", leading the negotiations versus some of the most seasoned and manipulative intelligence officials in the world. 


 Ben Rhodes with Rodolfo Dávalos León, a Cuban oligarch living in South Florida.  When protests erupted in Cuba in July 2021, Mr. Dávalos León tweeted: "If the revolution falls you will find me in Cuba, with my father, knee on ground, rifle in hand, defending the work of Fidel. Long live Cuba, long live Raul, & long live Fidel!" 

Nine years ago, on December 17, 2014, this thaw was elevated and formalized when President Barack Obama, and Cuban dictator Raul Castro announced the intent to normalize diplomatic relations. Obama freed three Cuban spies the same day, including Gerardo Hernandez, who was serving two life sentences, one of which was for conspiracy to murder four members of the Brothers to the Rescue in return for aid worker Alan Gross, who had been abducted by Havana in 2009, and an unidentified Cuban intelligence agent. This was a great propaganda victory for the Castro regime.

Following Obama’s announcement the Cuban military expanded its control over the national economy during the 2014-2017 detente

This was followed by an exodus of over 120,000 Cubans through Central America who entered the United States between 2014-2016, regine influence expanded with their client state Nicaragua becoming a full blown dictatorship under Daniel Ortega, and more hostile actions. In the midst of this on March 20, 2016 President Obama, with his family, arrived in Cuba for a state visit. On August 22, 2016 the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Cuba, and said Iran wants to forge a “new path” in its relations with Cuba by tightening ties. Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov said on October 7, 2016 that Moscow was considering plans to return to Cuba where it had a military base in the past. 

Calder Walton, of the Harvard Kennedy School, in his article "A US ambassador working for Cuba? Charges against former diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha spotlight Havana's importance in the world of spying" published in The Conversation on December 15, 2023 reviews the Russian and Chinese presence in Cuba.

"Putin’s government reopened a massive old Soviet signals intelligence facility in Cuba, near Havana. This facility had been the Soviet Union's largest foreign signals intelligence station in the world, with aerials and antennae pointed at Florida shores just 100 miles away. Soviet records reveal that Moscow obtained valuable information from U.S. military bases in Florida. Russia may well still be trying to try to eavesdrop on U.S. targets today from Cuba, although the U.S. government is doubtless alert to such efforts and is likely undertaking countermeasures. Cuban intelligence today is also collaborating with China, which reportedly plans to open its own eavesdropping station in Cuba. Beijing has significant influence over Cuba as its largest creditor and, following in Soviet footsteps, views the island as a valuable intelligence collection base and a “bridgehead” — the KGB’s old code name for Cuba — for influence in Latin America."

Beginning in November 2016, U.S. and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana began suffering brain injuries, and on January 2, 2017, Raúl Castro presided over a military parade in which Cuban soldiers chanted: “Obama! Obama! With what fervor we’d like to confront your clumsiness, give you a cleansing with rebels and mortar, and make you a hat out of bullets to the head.”

This was a failed policy that did not understand what motivates Havana. The Communist regime in Cuba is anti-American and over the past 64 years it has sought to end the post-1945 U.S. led world order by seeking out alliances with regimes hostile to the United States, and coordinating efforts to undermine it.  This is the strategic context that too many have ignored.

Proponents of constructive engagement with the Cuban dictatorship are asking policy makers to do three things: disregard the past, dismiss current actions by Havana, and get ready for their own country's taxpayers to foot the tab.

Richard Nixon met Fidel Castro in April 1959 and sought a detente with him in 1974

1. Disregard the past
Multilateral sanctions against Havana worked to contain communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere until Kissinger lifted them.

The Ford administration provided Havana with a number of inducements without expecting anything in return, believing that they could restore relations with the Castros. Initially, the United States supported the OAS resolution on July 29, 1975, which essentially put an end to the multilateral economic and diplomatic sanctions against Cuba. On August 19, President Ford went further loosening the US embargo, removing the sanctions against foreign aid to nations that conducted business with the regime in Cuba and enabling ships traveling to the island to refuel in the US. This was an initiative led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Rather than the "easing of tensions" that was anticipated, the Ford Administration found itself looking foolish.  Havana’s response was to send thousands of Cuban troops to Africa, first to Angola. Secretary Kissinger was so angered by the Cuban intervention in Angola, and the failure of detente that he entertained the idea of air strikes on Cuba.  Multilateral sanctions were not reimposed and Communist Cuba's influence would expand in the region. Subsequent administrations ( Carter 1977, Clinton 1993 and 2000), Obama (2009-2017) attempted rapprochements with Havana, and endured the same cycle. Carter's opening coincided with plunging Central America into civil war, with the establishment of communist rule in Nicaragua with Daniel Ortega in 1979 and a mass exodus in 1980 which Fidel Castro personally seeded with murderers, rapists, and psychiatric patients. The Clinton Administration's normalization efforts coincided with massacres of Cubans, the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, another exodus, the expansion of Cuban influence in Venezuela and the take over of Hugo Chavez in 1999.

2. Dismiss current actions by Havana

Lessons from Europe's constructive engagement

Although the European Union (EU) has and continues to pursue a policy of constructive engagement, and was Cuba’s top trading partner in the 1990s it did not curb its international outlaw behavior. Venezuela became Cuba's top trading partner in 2001, and was eclipsed by China in 2016 However, when Europe de-linked human rights considerations from economic engagement with Havana trade shot up. As of 2019, the EU was Cuba's top trading partner for both imports and exports. It was also Cuba’s top development partner and source of foreign investment. In 2019, a quarter of all tourists visiting Cuba, which relies on its tourism sector for income, were from the EU.This did not alter Havana's hostile posture towards Europe. Cubans are in Russian uniforms fighting to advance Moscow's objectives in the illegal war in Ukraine, and Havana is conducting military training in Belarus. Terrorists continue to be harbored in Cuba, and the Cuban dictatorship refuses to extradite them. Cuban diplomats have held high level meetings with Hamas in 2023, and Hezbollah maintains a base in Cuba. Cuba’s communist dictatorship and Iran’s Islamist regime are closely allied and coordinating efforts against Israel.

3. Get ready for taxpayers to foot the tab.

"One of the best-kept secrets of our 40-year-old trade embargo with  Cuba is that it has saved millions of dollars for U.S. taxpayers. Due to the embargo, there are no U.S. banks in the ``Paris Club'', a  consortium of Cuba creditors. (The Paris Club is currently owed between $10 and $15 billion in debt from Cuba.) Otherwise, U.S. banks now would  be hitting U.S. taxpayers to cover their losses in Cuba. If the U.S. begins to subsidize trade with Cuba--estimated at $100  million a year--five years from now, U.S. taxpayers could be holding, or paying off a $500 million tab." - Senator George Allen, May 21, 2002, Hearing on U.S. Trade Policy with Cuba

Cuba scholar Jaime Suchlicki at the Cuban Studies Institute on April 10, 2023 published an important analysis titled “The Folly of Investing in Cuba” that outlines a number of pitfalls both economic and moral to doing business with the Castro dictatorship that is a must read.

Existing U.S. sanctions have protected American taxpayers from having to shell out billions of dollars to subsidize the Castro dictatorship.

Others have not had the benefit of this policy.

China canceled $6 billion dollars in Cuban debt in 2011, On November 1, 2013 the government of Mexico announced that it was ready to waive 70 percent of a debt worth nearly $500 million that Cuba owes it. The former president of Mexico Vicente Fox protested the move stating: “Let the Cubans get to work and generate their own money…They’re normally like chupacabras.  The only thing they’re looking for is someone to give them money for free.” In December 2015 it was announced that Spain would forgive $1.7 billion that the Castro regime owes it. In December of 2013, Russia and Cuba quietly signed an agreement to write off $32 billion of Cuba's debt to the former superpower. Western governments pursued Cuban maritime debts seizing Cuban vessels and negotiating payment through Canadian courts.

The 2015 debt restructuring accord between Cuba and the Paris Club, according to Reuters, "forgave $8.5 billion of $11.1 billion, representing debt Cuba defaulted on in 1986, plus charges."

The Paris Club is made up of the following permanent members: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thanks to existing U.S. sanctions, none of the $11.084 billion in debt has been left for U.S. taxpayers to pay off.

Carmelo Mesa-Lago is Distinguished Service Professor emeritus of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and in his work CUBA’S ECONOMY IN TIMES OF CRISIS: 2020–2022 AND PROSPECTS FOR 2023 provided the following table which lists debt forgiven, and remaining debt owed by the Cuban dictatorship.