"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)
“The
solidarity of the shaken can say ‘no’ to the measures of mobilization
that make the state of war permanent. … The solidarity of the shaken is
built up in persecution and uncertainty: that is its front line,
quiet, without fanfare or sensation even there where this aspect of the
ruling Force seeks to seize it.” - Jan Patočka
This appeal is to all, but especially Cubans
and Cuban Americans in the Washington DC area.
Protests broke out in Iran on December 28, 2025 over currency devaluation and hyperinflation,
but university students on December 30th linked the economic demands to
political ones, and the protests have spread nationwide.
The
Islamic theocracy has responded with brutal violence visited on the protesters. This is why it is so important to expose their crimes, and
demand accountability.
Please come out and show
your solidarity on January 3rd in Washington DC at 12 noon, in front of the interest section of the Islamic Republic of Iran located at 1250 23rd street NW, Washington, DC 20037for Iranian protesters seeking to restore democracy and the rule of law in Iran.
"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, 156 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.
Gandhi's approach is reflected in what is considered his greatest act of nonviolence, the 1930 Salt March, in which he wrote two letters to his British adversary in India, Viceroy Lord Irwin, who he addressed as a friend in which he outlined both his grievances, and the act of civil disobedience he planned to carry out.
The contrast 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.
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 three days later 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 three years. The world has
not forgotten, and songs continue to be sung by artists in remembrance
of Mahsa Amini.
The previous time this happened in Iran was in 2019, when the Mullahs killed 1,500 people,
and I didn't know about it.
This time the suppression was successful, but the Iranian diaspora ensured that the repression was not repeated without worldwide attention and condemnation.
On the third anniversary of Mahsa Amini's untimely death global rallies are planned to ensure that the barbarity of the Islamic regime in Iran is not forgotten.
Global rallies are being organized to mark the 3rd anniversary of Jina #MahsaAmini’s death at the hands of the regime and to support the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom revolutionary movement, the Iranian people’s fight for freedom, democracy, and human rights. Find a rally in your… pic.twitter.com/5sETrgVrqT
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.
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.
They do not hide their intentions, even if they lie about it afterwards.
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'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 not be forgotten.
Iran sought out asymmetric means to
achieve maximum damage against Israel through their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah killing over 1,200 in Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking a terrible war that continues today. Tehran's decades long alliance
with Cuba cannot and must not be ignored at such a time of ongoing peril.
Martin Luther King Jr. was right: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
"The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not ended at
all. It may have ended in a traditional form as we know it from the 20th
century, but new, far more sophisticated ways of controlling society
are being born. It requires alertness, carefulness, caution, study and a
detached view." - Václav Havel, "Freedom and Its Enemies" November 14, 2009.
On February 20, 2014 Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and seized Crimea. Eight years later, on February 24, 2022, Moscow began a new offensive to seize all of Ukraine, but unlike in Crimea, Russian troops were unable to achieve their new objective due to armed Ukrainian resistance.
The war continues to rage today, and Moscow has brought in troops and soldiers from around the world..
Equally disturbing are the links between Cuba and Iran, and their decades long hostility against the United States.
In a transmittal letter accompanying the Defense Department’s May 1998 report,The Cuban Threat to U.S. National Security,
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen wrote to the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee: ‘‘I remain concerned about Cuba’s
potential to develop and produce biological agents, given its
bio-technology infrastructure.
In its public Executive Summary, the report stated,"Cuba’s current
scientific facilities and expertise could support an offensive BW
[bioweapons] program in at least the research and development stage.
Cuba’s biotechnology industry is one of the most advanced in emerging
countries and would be capable of producing BW agents.’’In the October
2001 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Jose de la Fuente,the
former director of research and development at Cuba’s premier Center for
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, wrote he was ‘‘profoundly
disturbed’’ that Cuba was selling to Iran technology that could be used
to produce biochemical weapons. He wrote, ‘‘No one believes that Iran is
interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the
children in the Middle East from hepatitis, or treating their people
with cheap streptokinase when they suffer sudden cardiac arrest . . .."
During a May 2001 visit to Tehran, Fidel Castro proclaimed,"Iran and Cuba, in
cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees."
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, during a speech at the Imam Khomeini Mosque in Tehran in 2015, said Israel "will not see (the end) of
these 25 years.” This was just after the nuclear deal between Iran in which they agreed to cut its uranium stockpile.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded Israel killing 1,200, and taking hundreds of hostages. Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, began firing rockets into Israel.
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba are creating an alternative world order hostile to Western democracies and the rule of law.
There are two options. The first is to recognize the challenge, and develop intelligent strategies to counter it within a framework of Western alliances or secondly, ignore it, and pretend there is no threat and surrender to the new configuration of anti-democratic forces. The first is not without risk, but the latter guarantees servitude to tyranny.
However, with the first, there is an alternative to war. Cuban and Venezuelan freedom activists have made the case for it. Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born human rights activist, actress, and 2023 Sydney Peace Laureate, made the same case in an OpEd published in Time today.
For decades, many of us pleaded with world leaders: reject both appeasement and war with the Islamic Republic. There was another path—to strangle the regime and empower the people. Few chose it. Too many asked the question, “Do the people of Iran really want change?” as if they did not hear waves of Iranian protestorschant, “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” on the streets. Perhaps now—as these cries echo from the rooftops of Tehran, even under the specter of war—they will finally listen.
Ronald Reagan in his 1964 speech "A Time for Choosing" made the case plainly between the options of resistance and appeasement. "There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's
only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the
next second - surrender," said the future 40th President of the United States.
GENEVA, February 17, 2025 — Leading dissidents and courageous activists worldwide will gather in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 18, 2025, for the Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy at the Centre International de Conférences Genève.
The Summit, hosted by a coalition of over 30 human rights
organizations, will showcase the voices of the world’s bravest human
rights defenders, many of whom have suffered torture and unjust imprisonment. The event will
also provide a vital platform to family members of political prisoners
who are struggling to free their loved ones.
• Osiris Puerto Terryis a victim of brutality by the Cuban regime, shot twice at the 11J protests.
• Sebastien Lai, democracy activist and son of the pro-democracy media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai.
• Rahima Mahmut, Uyghur human rights activist, translator, and singer.
• Nazanin Afshin-Jamis an Iranian-Canadian human rights and democracy advocate.
• Massouda Jalal, Former Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs and the first woman to run for President of Afghanistan.
• Husna Jalal, Exiled Afghan women’s rights activist and the daughter of Massouda Jalal.
• Assita Kanko, Belgian Member of the European Parliament, writer, and women’s rights activist.
• Betlehem Isaak, Swedish-Eritrean writer and daughter of Dawit Isaak, the longest arbitrarily detained journalist in the world.
• Times Wang, Human rights lawyer and the son of Chinese political prisoner Wang Bingzhang.
• Namkyi, exiled Tibetan activist and former political prisoner.
• Tirad Badawi, son of Raif Badawi, an iconic figure of freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia.
• Nguyen Van Trang, Vietnamese democracy activist and victim of transnational repression.
Speakers are available for interviews before the event and more
speakers are set to be announced soon. For a full list of speakers,
please see our media kit. For media inquiries or interview requests, contact media@genevasummit.org.
The annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy assembles
hundreds of brave dissidents, human rights activists, diplomats,
journalists, and student leaders, shedding light on pressing global
human rights issues. It offers a platform for activists, former
prisoners, and heroes to share their struggles for democracy. The Summit
draws hundreds of attendees and garners extensive media coverage
worldwide from major media outlets, including CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Le
Monde, and TIME magazine.
Admission to this year’s Geneva Summit is free and open to the public, but registration is mandatory.
"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.
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.
“There is a secret family of victims of totalitarianism, which can be
the families in Burma or the victims in North Korea or in Iran or in
Cuba. We feel a special bond with them because we belong to the same
family.” - Carlos Alberto Montaner, (2011)
Carlos Alberto Montaner
One year ago today Carlos Alberto Montaner shuffled off this mortal coil after a long and debilitating illness. The Center for a Free Cuba released the following statement on the same day.
The death of Carlos Alberto Montaner in Spain after a long illness is a great loss for Cubans in the island and around the world who benefited from his tireless efforts to denounce the crimes of the Cuban regime. It is also a loss for millions of people worldwide whose struggle for human rights he defended in his many books, columns, and thousands of articles that appeared in major newspapers on three continents. Carlos Alberto was a champion for the victims of communism and oppression, and he urged the international community to assist them.
The chairman of the Center for a Free Cuba, Guillermo Marmol, stated: “Carlos Alberto Montaner served for many years on the Center’s research council where he made significant contributions to the Center’s policies, publications, and research. We are confident that it will not be long before the extent, significance, and importance of Carlos Alberto Montaner’s life is fully known in Cuba itself.”
The Center for a Free Cuba extends its deepest condolences to Linda, his widow; to Carlos and Gina, his children; and to his family, colleagues and friends.
The life he lived could have been very different, if at age 17 Carlos Alberto had not successfully escaped from an arbitrary detention in 1960, found protection in an Embassy, and months later was able to leave Cuba.
A year later, and the loss of this great man of letters is still felt. Three days ago, Alvaro Vargas Llosa paid homage to Carlos Alberto Montaner and observed that despite having had success in life, following his death his legacy has grown larger, and more impactful.
His writings, and interviews remain even more relevant, and important today.
For example, on April 4, 2007, Helen Aguirre Ferré interviewed Carlos Alberto Montaner on GBH, public television, about communism in Cuba. This analysis is still applicable today, but he had refined his stance by 2014.
Carlos Alberto Montaner contributed an article
to the New York Times published on October 13, 2014 in which he made
the case against normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba. He Tweeted it out one week after President Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba.
Below is the article Carlos Alberto Tweeted out ten years ago this December. Time proved him right.
New York Times, October 13, 2014
Cuba Doesn’t Deserve Normal Diplomatic Relations
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born author, journalist and syndicated columnist. His work appears in The Miami Herald and other publications throughout Latin America, the United States and Spain. His latest novel is "Tiempo de Canallas." He is on Twitter.
The United States should not normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba for several reasons.
First, the Cuban government has been officially declared “a state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department. It's inconceivable to oppose the terrorists in the Middle East while treating them normally in the United States' neighborhood.
There's also a bipartisan consensus in Washington against the Castro regime. All three Cuban-American senators and four Cuban-American representatives, Democrats and Republican, agree that sanctions should be maintained. They are the best interpreters of the opinion of the almost three million Cubans and descendants of Cubans living in the United States.
Cuba systematically engages in undermining the interests of the United States. It is an ally of Iran, North Korea (to whom it furnishes war matériel), Russia, Syria, the FARC terrorists in Colombia and Venezuela. The F.B.I. recently warned that Cuban intelligence is trying to recruit people in the academic world as agents of influence. It once infiltrated them into the Pentagon and the State Department; today, they are in prison.
The Cuba dictatorship continues to violate human rights and shows no intention to make amends. The small economic changes it has made are directed at strengthening the regime. Why reward that behavior? During the entire 20th century, the U.S. was (rightfully) reproached for maintaining normal relations with right-wing dictatorships. For the first time, the U.S. maintains a morally consistent position in Latin America and should not sacrifice it.
A reversal of policy would be a cruel blow against the Cuban democrats and dissidents who view the United States as their only dependable ally in the world. Normalizing relations would be the proof needed by the Stalinists in the Cuban government to demonstrate that they don't have to make any political changes to be accepted. Not to mention a premature reconciliation without substantial changes would also be a harsh blow to the reformists in the Cuban government who are pressuring toward a democratic opening.
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