"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)
Cuba has been under a dictatorship for nearly 74 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
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 re-wrote the history of Cuba, creating myths to justify its tyranny. One of them is the so-called Cuban blockade, and the above documentary seeks to expose the false narrative.
From 1959 till now, generations of Cubans continue to resist this communist dictatorship.
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 and current reality, 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).
Both petitions are addressed to members of the international community.
Wishing
you all a happy new year in 2026, 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!"
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 United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Chinese students condemned the crackdown by the “People’s Liberation Army.” Chinese students around the world took to the streets and protested the bloodshed in Beijing.
People of conscience the world over were horrified. Beijing was diplomatically shunned.
Cuba’s dictatorship endorsed the Tiananmen massacre to normalize relations with Beijing
In
contrast, the dictatorship in Cuba saw an opportunity to rekindle and
old friendship. Together with North Korea, and East Germany expressed their support for the actions taken by Beijing.
Cuban foreign minister Isidoro Malmierca commended Chinese authorities for “defeating the counterrevolutionary acts.” Fidel Castro openly supported Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, as a means to both preempt reform elements in the Cuban regime, and improve relations with Beijing.
“The
crackdown in Beijing, Qian says, completely changed the atmosphere
around his tour: many Latin American governments expressed their
disapproval of the suppression and cancelled his visits, and even the
overseas Chinese, who usually greeted visiting Chinese officials with
enthusiasm, had“stern faces” and questioned the reasons for using force.
Qian had planned a visit to Mexico before Cuba. The Mexican government
cancelled his visit but allowed him to go to Cuba via Mexico City.”
[…]
“But
Qian’s reception in Havana exceeded his expectations. He was greeted by
the Cuban foreign minister at the airport and brought to a welcome
dinner the next evening hosted by Fidel Castro himself. Castro had a
long talk with Qian at dinner which continued in his office until
midnight. Understanding Qian’s situation, Castro gave him a detailed
description of what had happened in Beijing since 4 June and the
international response, based on his collection of information and from
his own perspective. Castro said that he “completely supported the
Chinese government” and would offer “whatever occasions and facilities”
Qian might need to make his government’s voice heard.”
Cuba-Sino relations: From a warm embrace in 1960 to a decades long chill in relations
Communist China and Cuba had been close in the first years of the Castro regime. Mao Zedong had already been in power in China for a decade when the Castro regime took power in Cuba in 1959.
On September 28, 1960 the Cuban dictatorship diplomatically recognized the People’s Republic of China.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a Cuban delegation’s visit to Mainland China and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other high ranking Chinese officials in November 1960 to discuss conditions in Cuba and in Latin America, and the prospects for communist revolution in the Americas.
Subsequently, between 1960 and 1964 the two regimes collaborated closely together.
Mao's regime in 1958 had embarked on the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to reorganize the Chinese populace to improve its agricultural and industrial production along communist ideological lines. The campaign was a disaster that led to mass famine and a death toll of at least 45 million which did not end until 1962.
The
visit by the Cuban delegation at the time did not go unnoticed in
Mainland China. Dimon Liu was born in China and immigrated to the United
States in 1965. She wrote about her early experiences growing up in the
midst of the Great Leap Forward in 2017 and her first encounter with Cuba while still in China.
It
was 1960, the height of famine during the years of Great Leap Forward. I
was a child living in the southern city of Guangzhou in China. Meal
time meant a little rice, and whatever we could scrape together. For
nearly two years, we had no meat, fish or even cooking oil. We were
starving.
All of a sudden, there was cane sugar from Cuba, and we
school kids had to learn Cuban songs. We had been on rations even before
the Great Leap Forward which began in 1958. Thirty jin (one jin is
about 1.1 pound) of grains per month for an adult, and fifteen jin for a
child above the age of seven. Two jin of meat and two ounces of cooking
oil, also for a month. [...] People on our streets were dying of many
infectious diseases, though no one dared to say anyone died of
hunger.[...]
Frank Dikotter, the historian at the University of
Hong Kong who wrote "Mao's Great Famine", a book about this period, said
in a social media post that "the first thing the regime did in
September 1960 was to procure an extra 100,000 tons of grain and ship it
to Cuba," in order to help break the economic blockade imposed by
Washington on the island. Dikotter added that "you can feed about 2000
people for a day with a ton of rice... Or over half a million people for
a year."
Properly fed people rarely existed in China at that
time, unless you belonged in the very small and exclusive club of
Chinese Communist elite. For a child like me who received coupons for
under 8 pounds of rice a month, you could have fed more than 2 million
of us for a year; or about half a million Chinese adults for a year on a
standard ration of 30 jin, or 33 pounds of rice per month for the
amount of grain sent to Cuba.
Cuba was not the only place that China exported food to during those harrowing years.
In
the midst of the Great Famine, while tens of millions of Chinese died
of hunger, Beijing exported food to their communist ally in Cuba.
Relations between China and the Castro regime cooled, and completely deteriorated following a February 6, 1966 speech
by Fidel Castro that was heavily critical of the Peoples Republic of
China. Havana finally sided with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet split.
Criticizing Mao
Castro, while receiving Soviet subsidies, would continue to slam the Chinese Communists in the 1970s.
“I
believe that Mao (Zedong) destroyed with his feet what he did with his
head for many years. I’m convinced of that. And some day the Chinese
people, the Communist party of China will have to recognize that,”
Castro told American journalist Barbara Walters in May 1977. He went on
to list what he said were Mao’s grave mistakes: a cult personality and
abuse of great power. “I also acquired that power, but I never abused
it, nor did I retain it in my hands,” Castro said. Although both Cuba
and China were functioning Communist states, Castro told Walters he
viewed China as a “good ally” of the US, which was a bitter enemy of
Cuba.
How Moscow drove Cuba into improving relations with Beijing
Russia’s
democratic spring in the mid to late 1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev led
to a cooling of relations between Havana and Moscow.
Perestroika
was a policy that recognized economic central planning was a failure,
and pursued reforming and restructuring the Soviet economy, and Glasnost was a policy that sought “more open consultative government and wider dissemination of information.”
These policies both instituted were viewed with great dread, and rejected by the Castro brothers. This was at a time when 75% of Cuba’s commercial exchanges were with the Soviet Union,
but that did not stop Havana from censoring Soviet publications, and
the beginning of the Castro brothers’ outreach to Beijing in 1989.
Havana’s successful engagement with Beijing: Harming U.S. interests and security
Backing
the massacre of thousands of Chinese nationals by the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) on the orders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
resulted in Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s high-level visit to Cuba in
1993. This was followed by Raul Castro’s first visit to China in 1997.
Prior
to this, Beijing quietly began in 1992 jointly operating intelligence
bases targeting the United States from Cuba, according to Chris Simmons,
a former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Western
Hemisphere counterintelligence research section, revealed to the Miami Herald on July 4, 2024.
He said that U.S. surveillance services were unaware of the arrangement
until 2001, operating undetected for a period of nine years.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a report in December 2024
that identified four places in Cuba it believes are most likely to be
aiding China’s intelligence activities against the United States. One of
the authors of the report Ryan C. Berg,
Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, and Andrés Martínez-Fernández, Senior Policy Analyst, Latin
America, Allison Center for National Security, testified before Congress
on May 6, 2025. They point to these spy bases in Cuba being upgraded
with new technology.
This restored “special friendship” between two Communist
dictatorships was founded on the mass killing of Chinese civilians by
the PLA in June 1989, and Havana’s public support for this crime against humanity.
Following
this rapprochement, it is believed Havana began offering their biotech
knowledge, gained from Moscow, to their counterparts in Beijing, and in
2002, China and Cuba signed a formal agreement to produce monoclonal antibodies.
What
Cubans call “the Special Period” produced one notable success:
pharmaceuticals. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, Cuba got so good at
making knockoff drugs that a thriving industry took hold. Today the
country is the largest medicine exporter in Latin America and has more
than 50 nations on its client list. Cuban meds cost far less than their
first-world counterparts, and Fidel Castro’s government has helped
China, Malaysia, India, and Iran set up their own factories:
“south-to-south technology transfer.”
“Díaz-Canel
emphasized the notable progress made by Cuba and China in the sphere of
biotechnology over recent years while also highlighting the close
collaboration that the two countries share in the sector; providing
great benefits and knowledge for both peoples.”
Without
Havana’s joint ventures over the past 20 years in Cuba, Beijing may not
have been in a position to have the capability to run a biotech /
genetic engineering lab like the one in Wuhan that caused so much
tragedy during the COVID pandemic.
Modernizing big brother for the 21st century
Raúl Castro met with China’s Minister of Public Security on December 1, 2024,
and Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei are providing Havana censorship
tools that are used to block information, track dissidents, silence
dissent, and shut down the internet during anti-government protests.
Communist China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on June 4, 2024 described Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla as a “good old friend of China.” Rodríguez’s official visit from June 5 to 9,
2024 as a special envoy of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel
highlighted the two communist regimes’ “special friendship.” Never
forget that this rekindled friendship was forged in the blood spill 36
years ago in Tiananmen Square.
"I think they kill my child every time they deprive a person of their right to think." - José Martí
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and José
Martí
José
Martí was a poet,
journalist, and Cuban independence leader. He had also endured prison
for writings critical of the Spanish government. He organized a
war of independence, but did so without resorting to dehumanizing his
adversary or appealing to hatred. He was also a fierce advocate for
civil liberties and especially freedom of thought and expression. Today,
January 28 marks 172 years since the day José Julián Martí Pérez was born.
Four horseman: Ventura, Valdés, Castro, and Díaz-Canel
On the evening of January 27th the Cuban dictatorship held its torch march on the eve of José Martí's birth anniversary. Leading the march were José Ramón Machado Ventura, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Raúl Castro Ruz, and Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
The communist dictatorship in Cuba claimsJosé
Martí as its own, but their ideology and actions are in stark contrast to his values.
Over a thousand
sons and daughters of Cuba are arbitrarily and unjustly imprisoned
today for exercising their right to free thought and expression in
calling for freedom. Eleven thousand are jailed for pre-crime in Cuba.
The regime jails them for what they might potentially do in the
future.
The dictatorship continues to kill Cubans for
standing up for liberty or attempting to flee Cuba to live in freedom.
It has criminalized free speech, and jailed artists and independent
journalists for exercising their profession.
"Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is
driven by it and flees from where it does not exist."
"Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You
cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all."
"Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak
without hypocrisy."
"It is the duty of man to raise up man. One is guilty of all
abjection that one does not help to relieve. Only those who spread
treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are
undeserving of pity."
Martí
also criticized the writings of Karl Marx, observing they were
antithetical to his own values. If one considers that he wrote, "It is
the duty of man to raise up man. One is guilty of all abjection that one
does not help to relieve. Only those who spread treachery, fire, and
death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of
pity." He was a contemporary of Marx who had written
in 1849, "We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn
comes we shall not disguise our terrorism." Martí recognized the dangers of Socialism and its doctrine of envy, observing:
"Socialist ideology, like so many
others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete
readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden
rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be
frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to
stand."
The observation of José Martí that “A revolution is still necessary: the one that does not make its caudillo
president, the revolution against revolutions, the uprising of all
peaceful men, once soldiers, so that neither they nor anyone will ever
be so again,”is a damning indictment of the 64 year dictatorship of the Castro brothers, but also relevant to free Cubans.
Martí wrote this before nonviolence was recognized as a powerful force to be used to achieve change. He led the effort to initiate Cuba's second war of independence and was killed in action during an early skirmish in that war in 1895.
However,
the idea of an uprising of nonviolent men and women to carry out a
"revolution against revolutions" that will usher in a democracy, and
not another dictator, is precisely what many Cubans want.
Today also marks seven years since nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp died. He
taught generations that there was an alternative to bloody conflict
and that it was non-violent armed conflict. Professor Sharp practiced
nonviolence as a conscientious objector during the Korean War, and
studied the examples of Mohandas Gandhi, the Reverend Martin Luther King
Jr., and many other nonviolent practitioners. He demonstrated that
nonviolent resistance was anything but passive, and that success in a
struggle required strategy as well.
"I say nonviolent struggle is armed struggle. And we have to take back
that term from those advocates of violence who seek to justify with
pretty words that kind of combat. Only with this type of struggle one
fights with psychological weapons, social weapons, economic weapons and
political weapons. And that this is ultimately more powerful against
oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence."
Cubans
of all ideological stripes claim him as their own, but
objectively who has maintained the spirit of his words and ideals?
Castroism is the antithesis of all that José Martí represented.
There
is a movement that seeks to restore human rights and liberties using
nonviolent means that uphold his values. These are courageous men and women who risk all
standing up to the Cuban dictatorship. Many have been jailed, some have been killed, and their families targeted for reprisals in this struggle for freedom.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas addresses the EU parliament (2002)
"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 founder of the Christian Liberation Movement was murdered by agents of the Cuban government on July 11, 2012 together with the movement's youth leader Harold Cepero. Like José Martí they too are martyrs for Cuba's freedom.
Cuba has been under a dictatorship for 73 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
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. One of them is the so-called Cuban blockade, and the above documentary seeks to expose the false narrative.
From 1959 till now, generations of Cubans have resisted this communist dictatorship.
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).
Both petitions are addressed to members of the international community.
Wishing
you all a happy new year in 2025, 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!"
A reflection on the 54 year alliance between the Assad and Castro regimes.
Hafez al-Assad
seized power in November 1970 in a bloodless coup, and remained in power through brutal means until his death on June 10, 2000. The Syrian dictator ruled his country for over 30 years, and when he died in power, was succeeded by his equally brutal son
Bashar al-Assad who ruled Syria for another 24 years. Throughout these 54 years, the Castro brothers maintained a close relationship with the Assad regime.
Fidel Castro broke relations with Israel on the eve of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. This was required for all Soviet-aligned regimes, as the international communist line defined Israel as a colonial state and an arm of U.S. imperialism. However, the Cuban dictatorship went above and beyond in their hostility to the Jewish state. Noticias de Israel (News of Israel) provided a more in-depth description of what took place next.
From the highest levels of power in Havana, a secret operation was orchestrated to send military support to Syria.A tank brigade, helicopter pilots, communications agents, and intelligence and counterintelligence officers were meticulously selected for this mission.It was imperative that these men did not arouse suspicion and that they were perfectly prepared for the task entrusted to them.
The Military Brigade of Senén Casas Regueiro was mobilized, and under the command of General Leopoldo Cintra Frías, a recognized name in military circles, this surreptitious plan was put into action. In a carefully planned diversionary maneuver, the soldiers left Cuba dressed in civilian clothes, with forged passports that identified them as university students. They traveled on separate flights to East Germany, where they made a technical stopover, before reaching their final destination: Syria.
Once on Syrian territory, Soviet military equipment, including modern T-62 tanks and SAM rocket artillery, was ready for operation. Figures vary, but it is estimated that between 1,800 and 4,000 Cubans were present in Syria during the 1973 confrontation.
The surprise of this operation resulted in a series of significant losses for Israel, both in human lives and military equipment. Some civilian areas were also hit during the clash.
On March 31, 1974, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan announced on US television that 3,000 Cuban troops had been dispatched to support Syria during the Yom Kippur War. The Economist published two articles in its Foreign Report in 1978 that highlighted Cuba's role in Syria beginning shortly after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Cuban tank crews fought with Syrian troops. According to Foreign Report, 180 Cubans were killed and 250 were injured.
The bodies of hundreds of victims of the 1982 massacre that Hafez al-Assad ordered against Palestinians and Lebanese in the Tel al-Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon are still interred in unidentified graves. Between 1,500 and 2,000 people, primarily civilians, are thought to have been killed, although some estimate that the total number of victims during the siege may exceed 4,000.
No criticism was made by Havana regarding the massacre of these Palestinians by Assad. On the contrary the relationship between Havana and Damascus remained strong.
"An August 1985 cable from Assad to Fidel Castro on the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Syria and Cuba praised the two countries' friendship as beneficial 'for the two peoples in their joint struggle against world imperialism and its allies.' A telegram from the
Syrian foreign minister on the same occasion expressed 'Syria's admiration for the fraternal Cuban people's great achievements and their firm stands against imperialist aggression on the Latin American people.'”
In 2011, a nonviolent movement against the Assad regime emerged, which was met with extreme brutality, and resulted in a civil war.
When the international community, belatedly, demanded an accounting for the rights violations committed by the Assad regime in Syria, the regime in Havana was one of a handful of governments that voted against investigating the crimes of the dynastic dictatorship in Damascus.
On August 23, 2011 the Cuban
government along with China, Russia and Ecuador voted against investigating
gross and systematic human rights violations in Syria.
On June 1, 2012 at a Special
Session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Syria with a special
focus on
the massacre in El-Houleh the Cuban regime and its allies took a stand against holding the Assad regime accountable for its gross and systematic human
rights abuses.
The Associated Press reported that
the U.N. Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly on September 25, 2014, to share its
evidence of Syrian atrocities in hopes it will be forwarded to the
world's war crimes tribunal. By a vote of 32-5, with 10 abstentions, the
47-nation council adopted
the resolution condemning the lack of cooperation by
President Bashar Assad's government with a U.N. commission investigating
rights violations since March 2011 in Syria. Cuba was one of five nations—the other four being Algeria, China, Russia, and Venezuela—that voted against sharing evidence of
gross and
systematic human rights violations in Syria.
Ten years of civil war and bloodshed with tens of thousands disappeared, millions displaced, and over 500,000 killed, yet the Syrian regime was being normalized in 2023 by too many in the international community.
It
appears that the Assad dynasty that ruled Syria over two generations of
incredible levels of brutality and terror has come to an end. Let us
pray that what comes next after so many decades of depravity and
repression is an improvement. Assad's
decision to engage in the mass murder of the Syrian nonviolent
opposition in 2011 sparked a civil war that has claimed hundreds of
thousands of lives. Now
is the time to make an assessment of the governments who backed the
Assad regime, and call them out as we learn of the crimes of this
dynastic dictatorship.This includes the dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. All supported Assad, and legitimized his rule.
"It appears that the Assad dynasty that ruled Syria over two generations of incredible levels of brutality and terror has come to an end. Let us pray that what comes next after so many decades of depravity and repression is an improvement." https://t.co/5dO3DpvHFn 1/4
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