Official Statement: 38th Anniversary of the Christian Liberation Movement

38th Anniversary of the Christian Liberation Movement

On this September 8th, marking 38 years since the founding of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) by Oswaldo Payá and a group of Cubans committed to freedom, we reaffirm our fidelity to the principles that gave rise to our Movement: human dignity, freedom, reconciliation, and popular sovereignty.

Cuba is undergoing a profound economic, social, and political crisis, while the absence of fundamental freedoms, repression, and the imprisonment of Cubans for exercising their inherent rights persist.

Faced with this reality, we reaffirm that the solution for Cuba must lie in the hands of the Cuban people.
Any pressure, initiative, or action by the international community regarding Cuba must aim to help restore sovereignty to its rightful holder—the Cuban people—and never to supplant their will or make decisions on their behalf.

We demand the recognition and full exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms, as well as the opening of a democratic process leading to free, pluralistic, and transparent elections, so that Cubans themselves may choose their leaders and sovereignly decide the political, economic, and social system in which they wish to live.

To our members and supporters on the Island who have kept the flame alive while under siege: you are the heart of the MCL. To those in exile: Cuba needs you, your experience, and your undiminished love. To the young people who were not present at the founding: this is your home too; this struggle belongs to you.

Thirty-eight years later, our aspiration remains intact: freedom, justice, reconciliation, popular sovereignty, and a Cuba belonging to all and for the benefit of all.

All Cubans, all brothers, and now—freedom!

Freedom and Life! 

Tony Diaz, Secretary General

Minervo Chil, Executive Secretariat

Eduardo Cardet, National Coordinator

Eliecer Porto, Coordinating Council

Ramón Antunez, Founder

Yadelis Melchor, Executive Secretariat

Santiago Cárdenas, Founder

Carlos Paya, Executive Secretariat

Jose Miguel Martinez, Coordinating Council

Michel Céspedes, Executive Secretariat

Fernando Avedo, Founder

Iran Almaguer, Coordinating Council

Ernesto Martini, Coordinating Council

Manuel Robles, Executive Secretariat

Osmel Rodriguez, Executive Secretariat

Rosa Rodriguez, Coordinating Council

Jesús Mustafa, Executive Secretariat

Dagoberto Capote, Founder

Ariel Colmenero, Coordinating Council

Regis Iglesias, Spokesperson

Christian Liberation Movement

September 8, 2026

Celebration of the Virgin of Charity, Mother of the Cuban people. 

 

XXXVIII Aniversario del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación

 

Este 8 de septiembre, al cumplirse 38 años de la fundación del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación por Oswaldo Payá y un grupo de cubanos comprometidos con la libertad, reafirmamos nuestra fidelidad a los principios que dieron origen a nuestro Movimiento: la dignidad de la persona, la libertad, la reconciliación y la soberanía popular.

 

Cuba atraviesa una profunda crisis económica, social y política, mientras persisten la ausencia de libertades fundamentales, la represión y el encarcelamiento de cubanos por ejercer derechos que les pertenecen.

 

Ante esta realidad, reafirmamos que la solución de Cuba debe estar en manos del pueblo cubano.

Toda presión, iniciativa o acción de la comunidad internacional respecto a Cuba debe tener como propósito contribuir a que la soberanía sea devuelta a su legítimo titular: el pueblo cubano, y nunca sustituir su voluntad ni decidir por él.

 

Demandamos el reconocimiento y ejercicio pleno de los derechos y libertades fundamentales y la apertura de un proceso democrático que conduzca a elecciones libres, plurales y transparentes, para que sean los cubanos quienes elijan a sus gobernantes y decidan soberanamente el sistema político, económico y social en el que desean vivir.

 

A nuestros miembros y simpatizantes dentro de la Isla, que han mantenido la llama encendida bajo asedio: ustedes son el corazón del MCL. A los exiliados: Cuba los necesita con su experiencia y su amor intacto. A los jóvenes que no conocieron la fundación: esta es también su casa, esta lucha es suya.

Treinta y ocho años después, nuestra aspiración permanece intacta: libertad, justicia, reconciliación, soberanía popular y una Cuba de todos y para todos.

 

Todos cubanos, todos hermanos y ahora la libertad!

 

Libertad y Vida!

 

Tony Diaz, Secretario General 

 

Minervo Chil, Secretariado Ejecutivo

 

Eduardo Cardet, Coordinador Nacional

 

Eliecer Porto, Consejo Coordinador

 

Ramón Antunez, Fundador

 

Yadelis Melchor, Secretariado Ejecutivo

 

Santiago Cárdenas, Fundador

 

Carlos Paya, Secretariado Ejecutivo

 

Jose Miguel Martinez, Consejo Coordinador 

 

Michel Céspedes, Secretariado Ejecutivo

 

Fernando Avedo, Fundador

 

Iran Almaguer, Consejo Coordinador.

 

Ernesto Martini, Consejo Coordinador.

 

Manuel Robles, Secretariado Ejecutivo

 

Osmel Rodriguez, Secretariado Ejecutivo.

 

Rosa Rodriguez, Consejo Coordinador

 

Jesús Mustafa, Secretariado Ejecutivo

 

Dagoberto Capote, Fundador

 

Ariel Colmenero, Consejo Coordinador

 

Regis Iglesias, Portavoz

 

Movimiento Cristiano Liberación

 

8 de septiembre de 2026

 

Celebración de la Virgen de la Caridad, Madre de los cubanos.

 

 

 

Join Cuban baseball fans outside of Marlins Baseball park at 6pm on Sept 19th to protest discrimination against Cuban players by Major League Baseball

The Association of Cuban Baseball Fans (Asociación de Apasionados del Beisbol Cubano) is organizing a protest outside of the entrance to Marlins Baseball park at 6:00pm on September 19th "to protest against the discrimination of professional Cuban baseball players who will not be able to participate in the next World Baseball Classic"

Former Cuban prisoner of conscience Regis Iglesias in an OpEd in Diario Las Américas on September 11, 2022 explained the context that has led to this protest.

..."The MLB institution or the MLB Players Association come up with the idea of ​​allowing some franchises to visit Cuba for "friendly" matches or much worse, to make "agreements" with who enslave not only our athletes, but all our people. I will always protest and condemn those unsupportive positions. MLB cannot be a repressive extension of the Cuban Baseball Federation and the criminal and segregationist regime in Cuba. 

Rob Manfred is not the owner of the farm like the commandos of the island and he cannot pressure the players with simplistic reasoning and opportunism to maintain the status quo with the tyranny or take shameful steps of recognition of it." ... "MLB's agreement with the Cuban Baseball Federation cannot be proudly brandished as it is part of the recognition of an institution, supposedly independent from a free country, to a repressive and segregationist institution from a country subjected to the tyranny of a communist party."

Major League Baseball (MLB) has repeatedly made two crucial mistakes, one that has been made by others, the professional baseball organization has confused the Castro dictatorship's junta with the Cuban people, and to highlight social justice issues in the United States, but ignoring them outside the United States, in places like Cuba.

On April 11, 2021 Mary O'Grady reported "Major League Baseball says 'values' compelled it to move this summer’s All-Star Game out of Georgia. But this piety doesn’t square with its long record of collaboration with Cuba’s military dictatorship, one of the world’s most notorious human-rights violators."

In 2016, Major League Baseball sent a proposal to the U.S. Treasury Department that would have turned Cuban baseball players into foreign workers of the Castro family while playing in the United States.  This is not hyperbole, the point man that Major League Baseball was dealing with is Antonio Castro, vice president of the Castro regime's International Baseball Federation, and Fidel Castro's son.

Antonio Castro, Castro regime's point man for baseball business

In 2018, after making their initial proposal, MLB was still trying to go into business with the Castro family.  Cuban baseball players would've been able to play in the Majors, but at a cost. According to Reuters, "MLB teams will pay the Cuban Baseball Federation a release fee for each player to be signed from Cuba." This raised some questions. How big will this release fee be? Will Cuban baseball players have to give up a big chunk of their salaries, like Cuban doctors have had to do?  The proposal was shot down by the Trump Administration.

MLB is tone dead on how this impacts Cuban fans. Even a team based in Miami paid a high price making the same mistake. 

When the Miami Marlins hired Ozzie Guillen to manage the team, who in an interview in Time Magazine on April 9, 2012 declared" I love Fidel Castro" and that he respected both Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, I wrote an OpEd published on April 10, 2012 in Fox Latino.  

In it, I gave a brief and incomplete summary of why Cuban exiles were upset with Ozzie Guillen's comments regarding Fidel Castro.

It began with the observation that "thousands of Cubans have been extra-judicially executed and millions have been driven into exile, while millions more have had their human rights systematically violated. The atrocities and systematic human rights violations have continued to the present."

The essay concluded with my announcement that I would be boycotting the Marlins. Ten years later, and I have not gone to a Marlins game, nor do I plan to. ( I had gone to games prior to Guillen's outrageous defense of tyrants.) 

However, I do encourage all Cuban and Cuban American baseball fans to go to Marlins Baseball Park at 6:00pm on September 19th to demonstrate this community's solidarity with Cuban baseball players, and to hold the Major Baseball League accountable. Cubans should be able to play in the World Baseball Classic representing the Cuban people, and it should be held in Miami, not the other side of the world.

Reflection from the radical opposition to the Castro dictatorship

"A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots." - Jose Marti

Regis Iglesias Ramirez: Former prisoner of conscience

Following a presentation of two of his books on October 26, 2019 at Cafe Demetrio in Coral Gables, Regis Iglesias Ramirez answered questions from the audience and explained the Christian Liberation Movement's radical position and the root problem that confronts Cuba.

"Our position is radical not only in discourse, it is in our actions. Because we go to the root of the problem. The root of the problem in Cuba has not even been the violence, repression, jail, and exile that has been exerted against persons. It has been precisely that the Cuban people have not been able to decide for themselves in 60 years. Therefore, all the proposals of the Christian Liberation Movement have gone to the root of the problem that is to give tools to the Cuban people so that they can reclaim their rights and truly take their sovereignty into their hands. 

We, the Christian Liberation Movement, have always said that we are willing to die for what we want but we are not willing to kill. And in this sense I believe that it is the spirit of the gospel that Oswaldo always referred to by which we have been guided and by which we have been consistently determined to work for the freedom of Cuba."

Regis Iglesias Ramirez with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in May 2002

Original text in Spanish: 

Nuestra posición es radical no solo en el discurso, es en nuestro accionar. Porque nosotros vamos a la raíz del problema. La raíz del problema en Cuba no ha sido incluso la violencia que sé ha ejercido contra el pueblo, no ha sido incluso la represión, la cárcel, el exilio contra las personas. Ha sido precisamente que el pueblo Cubano no ha podido decidir por si mismo en 60 años. Por lo tanto todos las propuestas del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación han ido a la raíz del problema que es darle instrumentos al pueblo Cubano para que pueda reclamar sus derechos y verdaderamente tomar en sus manos la soberanía popular.

El Movimiento Cristiano Liberación, nosotros siempre hemos dicho que estamos dispuesto a morir por lo que queremos pero no estamos dispuesto a matar. Y en este sentido creo que es el espíritu del evangelio que hacia siempre referencia Oswaldo por el cual nos hemos guiado y por el cual hemos estado consecuentemente decididos a trabajar por la libertad de Cuba.