#StandUp4HumanRights: International Day for the Right to Truth about Human Rights Abuses

"As we inaugurate this new international observance, let us recognize the indispensable role of the truth in upholding human rights – and let us pledge to defend the right to the truth as we pursue our global mission of human rights."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 24 March 2011

 

El Salvador's Msgr Oscar Arnulfo Romero slain 3/24/1980. Poland's Fr Jerzy Popiełuszko murdered 10/19/1984.

 On December 21, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24 as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. According to the proclamation the purpose of this day is to:

• Honor the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice;
• Pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all;
• Recognize, in particular, the important work and values of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, of El Salvador, who was assassinated on 24 March 1980, after denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable populations and defending the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposition to all forms of violence.
  

It also seems appropriate today to honor and pay tribute to Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, of Poland, who was kidnapped, tortured and assassinated on October 19, 1984 by sharing an excerpt from his February 28, 1982 sermon:

"The church always stands on the side of truth. The church always stands on the side of people who are victimized. Today the church stands on the side of those who have lost their freedom, whose conscience is being broken. Today the church stands on the side of Solidarity, on the side of the working people, who are often placed in one line along with common criminals. Dedication to freedom is tightly knit with human nature and with mature national awareness. This dedication is intertwined with the law and duty. It is intertwined with the law, and thus every man and every nation must experience the suppression of freedom as painful and unjust."

Both Archbishop Romero and Father Popiełuszko were victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and sadly over the past forty five years there have been many more:

• Scores of Germans were murdered trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989;
  
• In June of 1989 thousands of Chinese were massacred at Tiananmen Square for nonviolently defending human rights and freedom;
• In July of 1994 thirty seven Cuban men, women and children were massacred for nonviolently trying to seek freedom. 
• In February of 1996 four men were murdered in international airspace by Cuban government agents as they sought to save the lives of Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits;
• There are over 120,000 Mexicans registered as missing. In March of 2024 an extermination camp with secret ovens, and human remains were discovered on a ranch in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

15 years, one month and one day ago Cuban prison officials announced the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo at 3:00pm. He had suffered beatings, torture, and years added to his unjust prison sentence because Orlando continued to denounce human rights abuses in prison. He refused to look the other way and remain silent. The secret police and prison guards drove him to the last recourse of a non-violent activist: the hunger strike. Even there the regime sought to torture and humiliate denying him, a man on a water only hunger strike, water. It is believed that act of torture contributed to the failure of his kidneys and to his death. Oswaldo Payá said that Orlando died for the dignity of all Cubans. Following his death the dictatorship and its apologists continued to attack and smear this human rights defender. It is for that reason that especially on this day that Orlando Zapata Tamayo be remembered.

 

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, tortured and denied water, while on hunger strike murdered on Feb 23, 2010 

On July 22, 2012, Havana's secret police murdered Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante. In 2023, following a ten year investigation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the two human rights defenders were killed by Cuban government agents.

Oswaldo Payá  was sixty years old when he was assassinated. He was a family man and lay Catholic from Havana, an engineer who, in September 1988, founded the Christian Liberation Movement with fellow Catholics in the El Cerro neighborhood, and over the next 23 years would carry out important campaigns to support human rights and a democratic transition in Cuba.  Oswaldo would speak out against human rights breaches and demand victims' dignity, even if it meant denouncing the United States for mistreating Al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base prison in 2002. Oswaldo was a consistent defender of human rights, but not the only one.

Harold Cepero  was 32 years old when he was extrajudicially executed alongside Oswaldo. He was from the town of Chambas in Ciego de Ávila.  Harold began studying at the University of Camaguey when he was 18 years old, and in 2002, he and other students signed the Varela Project. It was a legal measure inside the existing Cuban constitution sponsored by the Christian Liberation Movement. Despite this, Harold and other students were expelled from the university for signing it and sharing it with others. The secret police would organize a mob to "judge", scream at, insult, threaten and expel the students who had signed the Varela Project. Following his expulsion on November 13, 2002, Harold wrote a letter warning that "those who steal the rights of others steal from themselves. Those who remove and crush freedom are the true slaves."  Expelled from university for signing the Varela Project with fellow students. He enrolled in a seminary and began studying for the priesthood before leaving to join the Christian Liberation Movement, embracing a new vocation as a human rights defender. 

This is not an exhaustive accounting, there are thousands of Cuban victims alone.

The right to the truth and the defense of the dignity of the victims are crucial elements in the process of obtaining justice. 

There are over 1,100 political prisoners today in Cuba. 

In Miami, on March 28, 2025 starting at 6 p.m., a march will begin at the Brigade 2506 Monument, at the corner of 8th Street and 13th Avenue in Little Havana, and will travel down 13th Avenue to the Museum of the Cuban Diaspora. The idea is to hear the names of all the remaining political prisoners on the island along the trajectory of the march. 

We must remember both the dead and the living, not for revenge, but for truth, memory, and justice.

It is a long known fact recorded in history by the great Roman statesmen Marcus Tullius Cicero that "The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong." 

Exposing the truth about these crimes and defending the dignity of the victims while seeking to hold those responsible accountable both under the rule of law and by the judgment of history will provide the greatest amount of justice that humanity can provide limiting impunity and the repetition of these crimes.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas born 73 years ago: Honoring Cuba's Consistent Human Rights Defender

 "In Cuba we are being prohibited from preparing that future, working now at night for the following morning, because someone has said that the night will not end. But the night will not be eternal, it is ending." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas was born 73 years ago on February 29, 1952 and was extrajudicially executed in Cuba by Castro's secret police on July 22, 2012 along with Harold Cepero.

Thirteen years ago Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights petitioned the  Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to examine the evidence around the deaths of Oswaldo and Harold on July 22, 2012.

On June 12, 2023 the IACHR published their report on the merits that found Cuban government agents responsible for the deaths of the two pro-democracy leaders and Christian Liberation Movement leaders.

Twenty three years ago, Oswaldo Payá along with other members of the Christian Liberation Movement in May 2002 turned in thousands of signatures from the Varela Project, a petition that called for human rights to be respected in Cuba, and that the matter be debated before the National Assembly.  

In December of 2002, thanks to lobbying and pressure from Spain, Oswaldo Payá was able to travel to Strasbourg, France to receive the European Union's Sakharov Prize and address the chamber. 

In 2011, seven Norwegian members of parliament nominated Oswaldo Payá for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Václav Havel had also twice nominated Oswaldo Payá ).

Following the untimely deaths of Oswaldo and Harold, the Cuban opposition leader's family was subjected to death threats and heightened surveillance by state security.   

On June 21, 2022 David Hoffman's book on Oswaldo Payá, "Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba" was made available for purchase. You can purchase it here.

Today on his birth anniversary, let us also remember and pray for the soul of this good man, who sacrificed all for the freedom of the Cuban people.

 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas born 72 years ago: Honoring Cuba's Consistent Human Rights Defender

"In Cuba we are being prohibited from preparing that future, working now at night for the following morning, because someone has said that the night will not end. But the night will not be eternal, it is ending." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

 Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas was born 72 years ago on February 29, 1952 and was extrajudicially executed in Cuba by Castro's secret police on July 22, 2012 along with Harold Cepero.

Ten years ago Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights petitioned the  Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to examine the evidence around the deaths of Oswaldo and Harold on July 22, 2012.

On June 12, 2023 the IACHR published their report on the merits that found Cuban government agents responsible for the deaths of the two pro-democracy leaders and Christian Liberation Movement leaders

Twenty two years earlier, Oswaldo Payá along with other members of the Christian Liberation Movement in May 2002 turned in thousands of signatures from the Varela Project, a petition that called for human rights to be respected in Cuba, and that the matter be debated before the National Assembly. 

In December of 2002, thanks to lobbying and pressure from Spain, Oswaldo Payá was able to travel to Strasbourg, France to receive the European Union's Sakharov Prize and address the chamber. 

In 2011, seven Norwegian members of parliament nominated Oswaldo Payá for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Václav Havel had also twice nominated Oswaldo Payá ).
 

 Following the untimely deaths of Oswaldo and Harold, the Cuban opposition leader's family was subjected to death threats and heightened surveillance by state security.   

On June 21, 2022 David Hoffman's book on Oswaldo Payá, "Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba" was made available for purchase. You can purchase it here.

Today on his birth anniversary, let us also remember and pray for the soul of this good man, who sacrificed all for the freedom of the Cuban people.

On this day 76 years ago Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated: Today we initiate a Season of Nonviolence

"Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong but of the weak." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism." - Karl Marx, Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vi pp 503-5 (The final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 18 May 1849)

 

Mohandas K. Gandhi and his assassin Nathuram Godse.

 

“In politics you cannot follow nonviolence. You cannot follow honesty. Every moment you have to give a lie. Every moment you have to take a bullet in hand and kill someone.” -  Gopal Godse,  co-conspirator in Gandhi's assassination, Time Magazine, February 2000.

Seventy six years ago Mohandas Gandhi was shot three times in the chest and killed by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse at 5:17pm. Godse was part of a team of assassins that had tried 10 days earlier to bomb and kill Gandhi.

Body of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi lies in state at Birla House in New Delhi.

 

Gandhi despite his successful struggle for independence and the establishment of the largest democracy on the planet was felled, after repeated assassination attempts, gunned down as he went to worship. 

The assassins murdered the independence leader because they did not believe that India could survive with Gandhi promoting Satyagraha and a Muslim state next door. Gopal Godse, a co-conspirator and brother of the assassin Nathuram Godse, argued as late as February 2000 in a Time magazine interview that: “In politics you cannot follow nonviolence. You cannot follow honesty. Every moment you have to give a lie. Every moment you have to take a bullet in hand and kill someone.”

Communists view nationalists as a threat to their revolutionary project, and nationalists often have a critical view of Marxist-Leninists, but they both agreed in their hostility to Mohandas Gandhi. 

The nationalists were open and transparent about their evil intent, but the communists had more guile, and their reasons for rejecting him more complex. 

 

The Soviet press published an article written by S.M. Vakar in 1948 following Gandhi's assassination on January 30, 1948 titled "The Class Nature of the Gandhi Doctrine" subtitled "Gandhi as a Reactionary Utopian" in the Soviet philosophy journal Voprosy filosofii (Questions of Philosophy). The Marxist Leninist argument was outlined as follows:

Although Gandhi regarded the union and independence of the Indian peoples as his goal, his reactionary-Utopian social theory and the reformist methods of struggle connected with it caused his activity to fail in facilitating overthrow of the colonial yoke [...] The social essence of the Gandhi doctrine and its fundamentally reactionary role in the history of India's national liberation movement has hardly been treated in Marxist literature. Yet this doctrine still retards the development of class awareness among the Indian masses.

What was this social essence of Gandhian thought that so troubled the Marxist-Leninists in the Soviet Union? First, the reformist methods of struggle referred to in the above quote was nonviolent resistance and secondly his social theory rejected class struggle as another manifestation of destructive violence. On September 11, 1906 a new word came into existence that would give a better understanding of Gandhi's social theory and method of struggle which he described as:

'Satyagraha.' Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement 'Satyagraha,' that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase 'passive resistance,' in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word 'Satyagraha' itself or some other equivalent English phrase.

The Marxist-Leninists embrace revolutionary violence and a movement led by a small vanguard of intellectuals and professional revolutionaries that carry out the changes "necessary" by whatever means necessary and reject nonviolence as naive. They follow the doctrine of  Vladimir Lenin as presented in his 1902 revolutionary tract "What is to be done."

 

Over a century has passed since both sets of ideas have been set out and applied around the world. An analysis done by Maria J. Stephen and Erica Chenoweth systematically explores the strategic effectiveness of both violent and nonviolent campaigns using data on 323 campaigns carried out between 1900 and 2006.[1] Their findings demonstrate that major non-violent campaigns were successful 53% of the time versus only 26% for major violent campaigns and terrorist campaigns had a dismal 7% success rate.

Today, India with all its flaws is the world's largest democracy with a growing economy that presents new competitive challenges to the developed world and Communism has amassed a body count of 100 million dead and counting. It would appear that Gandhi's criticisms of the communists were prescient:

"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." - Mohandas Gandhi

"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." - Mohandas Gandhi

It is Satyagraha that is relevant today in 2022 and offers an alternative to the conflagrations suffered in the 20th century and the wars that plague the world now. Gandhi's Satyagraha is a call to principled non-violence but even pragmatists and realists looking over the historical record cannot fail to be influenced by the fact that non-violent civic resistance works and offers a better chance of a better life for more people.

The author in Geneva, Switzerland paying his respects to Bapu.

His example has inspired me to commit to nonviolent strategic resistance as a method of struggle, and others have also embraced his legacy, and that of one of his disciples, Martin Luther King Jr., to observe their death anniversaries of January 30, 1948 and April 4, 1968 as a Season of Nonviolence, a time for right action.     

Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mohandas Gandhi, founded the Season of Nonviolence in 1988 as an annual celebration honoring the philosophies and lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. Dr. Michael Beckwith assisted in the development of this initiative.2024 marks 36 years of this observance. Over 174 days on a weekly basis there will information highlighting the nonviolent philosophies of Gandhi, King, and Oswaldo Payá .

A 2018 documentary by Deutsche Welle about the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi is available online. It is also available in Spanish.

There are many disciples of Gandhi and King that have continued their good works around the world.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, a non-violent icon born in Havana, Cuba on February 29, 1952 who's compatriots lovingly called him "Bapu" is one of them.   

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas spent his entire adult life defending the human rights of the Cuban people. He founded the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) in 1988 and used nonviolent means to demand that human rights be respected in Cuba. He mobilized tens of thousands of Cubans through the Varela Project on the need for a democratic transition. However, he did not only focus on the human rights violations of the Castro regime and consistently defended human rights in stark contrast to the current government in Oswaldo's homeland.

Two instances separated by a decade involving the United States and Iran demonstrate this courageous consistency in speaking truth to power.

On January 12, 2002, the Cuban Communist Party's daily newspaper Granma offered the official position of the dictatorship on the prison camp in Guantanamo: "We will not create any obstacles to the development of the [U.S. military] operation, though the transfer of foreign prisoners of war by the U.S. government to the base—located on a space in our territory upon which we have been deprived of any jurisdiction—was not part of the agreement that the base was founded upon."

The first Cuban on the island to criticize and denounce the United States for housing Afghan prisoners in Cuba and demanding they be treated with dignity was Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on December 17, 2002:  

"It's obviously a matter of shame that our land is being used for that purpose, having foreign prisoners brought to Cuba. Even if they are terrorists, they deserve respect. Their human rights should be respected."

Ten years later, on January 11, 2012,  Oswaldo Payá was criticizing the honoring of the Iranian despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denouncing both his antisemitism and brutal human rights record:

"Tyrant lizard on the hill. Currently, Ahmadinejad speaks at the University of Havana. It is an insult to the students and an outrage to the sacred remains of Father Varela, and against the virtue and homeland of the Cubans." 

"Mahmoud, why do you deny the Holocaust? Would you repeat it? Never again against any people."

Twelve years ago on July 22, 2012 this consistent human rights defender was killed in what was a premeditated state security operation that led to the car crash, together with the killing of MCL youth leader Harold Cepero Escalante. Over the past decade his family and friends have demanded an investigation into these two deaths, and in June 2023 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the two human rights defenders had been assassinated by Cuban government agents.

The hatred and violence promoted by communists and ultra-nationalists only end in death and destruction, but time has also demonstrated the constructive power of love and nonviolence.  On this Martyr's Day lets us remember Gandhi, King, and Payá and their constructive nonviolent legacies that decade later continue to have positive results.

Over the next 64 days this site will be highlighting some of them.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream: 60 Years Later in Cuba and the United States

"On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. led the Civil Rights Movement in a march on Washington. It culminated in his "I Have a Dream" speech." Like him, I have a dream of a free Cuba without dictatorship, where the rule of law is practiced and human rights are respected." - John Suarez, August  28, 2023 over Twitter. 

Sixty years ago on August 28, 1963 much of the United States was in the midst of a struggle to do away with segregation and civil rights activists were struggling to pass voting rights legislation. The march on Washington D.C. that culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a dream speech sought to pressure legislators into voting for the legislation, and they succeeded.

This was a nonviolent revolution that sought justice, and changed the United States of America and 50 years later an African American president sat in the White House evidence that part of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream has been achieved.

Lamentably, on August 26, 2023 a white man with an AR-15 "covered in swastikas killed three Black people Saturday at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, before fatally shooting himself, local law enforcement said, describing the attack as racially motivated."

The three black persons killed this past Saturday by a white supremacist are Anolt "AJ" Laguerre Jr., age 19 Jerrald De'Shaun Gallon, age 29 and Angela Michelle Carr, age 52.

The struggle for a society in which people are judged for the content of their character continues, is still needed for the dream to be fully fulfilled.

More about #Nonviolence365 from @BerniceKing#TheKingCenter #WorkingOnADream #DreamAgainMarchForward pic.twitter.com/SXqRONOsad

— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center (@TheKingCenter) August 26, 2023

Let us compare this with the violent revolution that sought to end a dictatorship ninety miles away from U.S. shores in Cuba that in 1963 was just four years old. Sixty four years later and the Castro dictatorship that replaced the Batista dictatorship is still in power killing and repressing. Despite fraudulent statistics in areas of health care and education the reality of its failure on both fronts was made evident during the pandemic, and the continuing mass exodus of millions of Cubans demonstrates the nightmare that exists in Cuba today. Today there are over a thousand Cubans imprisoned for demanding to be free.

Let us also not forget that many of those who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the 1950s took up arms again against him in the 1960s in an armed struggle that although courageous, failed, and the new dictatorship wiped out all opposition: both violent and nonviolent for years.

A nonviolent movement began to emerge out of the prisons in the mid 1970s and onto the streets in the mid 1980s yet there are voices that claim that nonviolence hasn't worked and counsel either collaboration with the dictatorship or violent resistance.

Sadly, despite the successes of the civil rights movement in the United States by 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. found his nonviolent posture challenged by a black power movement that instead of accelerating change in areas of social and economic justice brought it to a halt. Reverend King warned black activists not to take the way of Castro and Guevara:

“Riots just don’t pay off,” said King. He pronounced them an objective failure beyond morals or faith. “For if we say that power is the ability to effect change, or the ability to achieve purpose,” he said, “then it is not powerful to engage in an act that does not do that–no matter how loud you are, and no matter how much you burn.” Likewise, he exhorted the staff to combat the “romantic illusion” of guerrilla warfare in the style of Che Guevara. No “black” version of the Cuban revolution could succeed without widespread political sympathy, he asserted, and only a handful of the black minority itself favored insurrection. King extolled the discipline of civil disobedience instead, which he defined not as a right but a personal homage to untapped democratic energy. The staff must “bring to bear all of the power of nonviolence on the economic problem,” he urged, even though nothing in the Constitution promised a roof or a meal. “I say all of these things because I want us to know the hardness of the task,” King concluded, breaking off with his most basic plea: “We must not be intimidated by those who are laughing at nonviolence now.”

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., like Gandhi before him, was assassinated on April 4, 1968 meanwhile Raul Castro has survived to the present day hanging on to power as the island of Cuba sinks into misery and despair with Miguel Diaz-Canel his puppet president, and his son Alejandro Castro Espin sharing power with his dad behind the scenes.

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Meanwhile two other courageous men, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, opposition leader and founder of the Christian Liberation Movement, and Harold Cepero, a youth leader from his movement who had been a seminarian were assassinated on July 22, 2012 for advocating nonviolent change in Cuba. Oswaldo had managed to obtain more than 25,000 signatures in a Stalinist dictatorship demanding a vote to change the system and recognize the rights and dignity of Cubans. Like Martin Luther King Jr. he was killed but his ideas and example live on to inspire others.

The dream survives in others even when the dreamer has been cut down by the forces of repression and hatred. 

This is why on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington the King Center is saying "dream again, march forward." For as T. S. Eliot observed in 1927 "If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause."

60 years ago yesterday, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the U.S. from the Lincoln Monument’s steps. Yesterday images of Cuban martyrs and political prisoners were placed on this sacred ground.

Five lessons from Ukraine for the captive nation of Cuba.

Right now the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy. -  Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy Address to the US Congress (16 March 2022)

Cubans and Ukrainians suffered under communist regimes. In Cuba today, a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship continues in power. Last year on July 11th, tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets demanding freedom, and were met with deadly repression across the country. The aftermath? Political show trials, militarized streets, new censorship laws, and hundreds of new political prisoners. Despite this, sporadic protests continue.

It is also important to mention that in three days we will be observing the day 10 years ago when Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante were murdered by the secret police in Cuba. You can learn about Oswaldo in this building at the Museum of the Victims of Communism.  

I want to review some lessons from what has happened in Ukraine, and not just over the past few months, but over the longer term.

Lesson #1 Appeasement encourages more aggression

On January 16, 2022, in an OpEd co-authored by myself and Frank Calzon titled " Flashback to 1962, but Vladimir Putin is no Nikita Khrushchev, Joe Biden is no John F. Kennedy," in which we called on the Western world not to wait for an invasion, but to apply tough sanctions to avoid war. We return to an earlier lesson given by Winston Churchill following the Munich Agreement, when Western democracies believed they had achieved peace by giving Hitler parts of Czechoslovakia.

 

Abandoning Ukraine in the short term may appear to guarantee peace, but the words of Winston Churchill following the 1938 Munich betrayal should give today’s policymakers pause; "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war. "

Lesson #2 Words must be backed by actions.

"People don't really believe in words. Or rather, people believe in words only for a stretch of time. Then they start to look for action." - Volodymyr Zelensky (2020 on joining the EU).

President Volodymyr Zelensky

President Zelensky's observation, made in 2020 with reference to Ukraine's relations with the European Union, applies today with Western promises of support for Kiev following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Prior to the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea, Ukraine did believe in words from the West.

When negotiations between Ukraine and Russia broke down on removing nuclear weapons from Ukraine in September 1993, Washington engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. Yes, Ukraine had nuclear weapons in the 1990s. This resulted in the January 1994 Trilateral Statement. Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia. In exchange, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

The failure of the West to restrain Russia from invading Ukraine in 2014 and expanding the war of conquest in 2022 gives a lesson to captive nations and others that giving up nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees is a foolish bargain. Putin's war in Ukraine is a blow against nuclear disarmament.

By 2019, with regards to Russia and the West, President Zelensky observed in a Time interview: " I don’t trust anyone at all." 

Many Cubans understand that statements condemning the actions of the Cuban dictatorship after July 11th without specific actions by the international community to hold the regime accountable will not end the ongoing repression by the dictatorship in the same manner that Vladimir Putin's aggression was not met with strong resolve, and stopped.

The Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Payá's movement that still exists in Cuba, offered an eleven point action plan to the international community to isolate the Cuban dictatorship, but the international community has failed to take action and the Cuban regime continues to go forward with its repressive practices.

Lesson #3 We must not confuse the dictatorship with the people.

I know that they [the Russian state] won’t show my address on Russian TV, but Russian people have to see it. They need to know the truth, and the truth is that it is time to stop now, before it is too late. And if the Russian leaders don’t want to sit with us behind the table for the sake of peace, maybe they will sit behind the table with you. Do Russians want the war? I would like to know the answer. But the answer depends only on you, citizens of the Russian Federation.” - President Zelensky, February 23, 2022

Ukraine also provides an important lesson in distinguishing between the Cuban dictatorship and the Cuban people.

Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar

Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar, on February 27, 2022,  tweeted: "The MFA of Ukraine in a diplomatic note expresses its strong protest against the statements of the Government of Cuba in support of Russia's aggression against Ukraine and calls on Cuba to urge Russia to put an end to this aggression."

Free Cubans in Cuba, in contrast, were, and are, demonstrating their solidarity with Ukraine, criticizing the Castro regime's support for Putin's actions, leading to arrest by the political police.

Many Cubans rejected (and continue to reject) the war on social media and in messages to the Ukrainian Embassy in Havana. The volume of the calls was so "extraordinary," the Ukrainian embassy in Havana said, that it asked Cubans to send their messages of support to a dedicated email address to clear the phone lines.

Cuban activist Pablo Enrique Delgado Hernández on Saturday, February 26, 2022 went to the Ukrainian Embassy in Havana to demonstrate his solidarity. Pablo Enrique after meeting with a Ukrainian diplomat and presenting her flowers was arrested by the National Revolutionary Police and taken to the Seventh Unit police headquarters and interrogated.

 Lesson #4 Importance of disobedience

“Liberation from dictatorships ultimately depends on the people's ability to liberate themselves.”

Gene Sharp, a nonviolent scholar made that observation in his work From Dictatorship to Democracy

Resistance to tyrants, defined by a total refusal to obey them, is key to achieving a democratic transition or the end of a foreign occupation.

 

This sounds like a simple answer, and this is where I will close with the fifth lesson.

Lesson #5 There are simple answers, but no easy answers.

"There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right." - Ronald Reagan

 

Fourteen years of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy: A look back

"The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it." - Albert Einstein

The 14th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy convenes in Switzerland on April 6, 2022. Over the past fourteen years this summit has been and continues to be a vital space for dissenting voices to gather and engage in an important conversation: to diagnose the problems challenging human rights and dignity and to do better and be better in order to turn around the 16 year global decline in human rights.  

 

The first edition was held on April 19, 2009, "one day before the international community gather[ed] in Geneva to address racism, intolerance and persecution in the High-Level Segment of the UN Durban Review Conference (DRC)" and it had a longer title, "Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy" and the tag line, "Stop Discrimination, Go for Human Rights." UN Watch, a Geneva based NGO whose mission is "to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter", brought together an international coalition of nineteen organizations to co-sponsor the summit. 

Founding members of the Coalition are: The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), AVEGA (Rwanda), CADAL (Argentina), Directorio (Cuba), Darfur Peace and Development Center (Sudan), Fondation Généreuse Développement (Cameroon), Freedom House (USA), Freedom Now (USA ), Groupe des Anciens Etudiants Réscapés du Genocide (Rwanda), Global Zimbabwe Forum (Zimbabwe), Human Rights Without Frontiers (Belgium),  International Federation of Liberal Youth, (United Kingdom), Ingenieurs du Monde (Switzerland) LICRA (France), SOS Racisme (France), Stop Child Executions (Canada), Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (USA), East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (Uganda), UN Watch (Switzerland). Fourteen years later the partners coalition has grown to 27.

Arielle Herzog, Leon Saltiel, Hillel C. Neuer and other UN Watch staff were the chief organizers of the first six editions and responsible for their great success and establishing this space for dialogue. UN Watch today continues to lead this coalition and build on this great legacy, but it is important to return to the beginning to see how we arrived were we are today.

The UN Durban Review Conference (DRC) of 2009 was one more example of the ongoing moral bankruptcy of the United Nations. The star speaker, and apparently the only head of state invited to speak, was Iran's notorious president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who engages in holocaust denial and has called for the destruction of Israel. This conference, ostensibly to confront the problem of racism, began a gathering point of the worse dictatorships on the planet to legitimize themselves and demonize Israel.

Meanwhile, in marked contrast, the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy was held at the Centre International de Conférences Genève, just down the street from the Palais des Nations UN compound where the DRC was being held. Human rights defenders, victims of repression and political dissidents gathered to share their experiences, bear witness, and attempt to wield real political force from the power of human conscience. This is what the martyred Czech dissident and philosopher Jan Patočka called the "solidarity of the shaken". This coalition called for an end to discrimination and for human rights promotion.

The first summit's inaugural speech was given by by Iranian Activist and President of Stop Child Executions, Nazanin Afshin Jam, who outlined the human rights situation in Iran. She addressed that under Iranian laws the life of a woman is worth half of a man's and other sexist practices, the execution of homosexuals, and the executions of minors. The Iranian activist also gave an overview of the summit that began at 9:00am and ended at 6:30pm.

The inaugural summit was divided into four sessions that were tied into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Session I was titled "Racism, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity: Assessing the Genocide Convention After 60 Years" and the panel was made up by Irwin Cotler, Counsel for genocide victims and dissidents, Canadian MP, Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch and International Association of Genocide Scholars, Ester Murawajo, Tutsi survivor, founder of AVEGA and Dominique Sopo, President of SOS Racisme.  

Session II was titled "Resisting Authoritarianism: Human Rights, Democracy, and the Dissident Movement" with speakers Bo Kyi, Burmese dissident and winner of the Human Rights Prize from Human Rights Watch, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egyptian dissident, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience, and Esra'a Al Shafei, dissident blogger, Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead.

Session III was titled "Torture and Cruel and Inhuman Treatment" with speakers Nazanin Afshin-Jam, president of Stop Child Execution,  Parvez Sharma, Producer of the documentary Jihad for Love, and Ahmad Batebi, Iranian dissident.

Session IV was titled "Freedom of Expression and 'Defamation of Religion'" with panelists  Mohamed Sifaoui, Journalist, Algeria, Floyd Abrams, U.S. advocate for First Amendment press freedom,  Patrick Gaubert, President of LICRA and Member of the European Parliament.

The 2nd Geneva Summit was held on March 8-9, 2010, strategically timed to coincide with the main annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The objective of the 2010 Geneva Summit was to give voice to victims of the world’s worst abusers, empowering those who suffer repression under closed systems of government.

The program featured plenary sessions, workshops and training sessions over two days. A large portion of the program was dedicated to presentations—personal and compelling testimony—from victims of the world’s worst abusers.

On March 8, 2010 gave the opening address on behalf of the Geneva Summit Coalition for the second edition of the Geneva Summit. Sadly, these words remain relevant today, but now the global decline in political freedoms and civil liberties has expanded from four to thirteen years in a row.

Regrettably, the chief international body charged with protecting human rights is failing to live up to its mission to stop these and other abuses. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council—as acknowledged in a recent report by 17 of its 47 member states, supported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists—falls short in its handling of country situations, in the efficiency of the process involved in highlighting violations, and in its reactivity to crisis situations. Strong politicization of the Council, driven by bloc-based voting patterns, has led to inaction in face of atrocity and abuse. We saw this sad spectacle last week within the Council, first with the secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights denying the documented and rampant instances of torture, executions, and mass detentions of Iranians followed by the Cuban Foreign Minister’s speech who echoing his Iranian colleague also denied Cuba’s horrible human rights record and to add insult to injury went on to blame the United States for the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo as well as slander the deceased Cuban prisoner of conscience as a criminal.

Little wonder that the March 1st magazine issue of Newsweek contains an article titled “The Downfall of Human Rights.” The article highlights Freedom House's report "Freedom in the World," released in January, and reveals a global decline in political freedoms and civil liberties for the fourth year in a row, the longest drop in the almost 40 years that the survey has been produced.

According to Summit organizers, "[m]ore then 800 people registered to attend the summit and over 1600 watched the live webcast. 35 dissidents and human rights activists took the floor to condemn and testify about some of the worst human rights situations around the world and issued a joint call for Internet Freedom around the world."
Cuban dissident Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina was denied an exit visa by the Castro regime despite being invited to attend the Geneva Summit, but the coalition did not stop there and started a campaign for him to attend.

30 NGOs from this Summit called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to intervene on behalf of Cuban human rights defender Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina barred by the Cuban dictatorship from attending this meeting. The Cuban ambassador protested loudly when Hillel Neuer of UN Watch raised the matter in an interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner, but Nestor on the other hand was grateful that the UN Watch representative spoke up for his human rights.

In the end Nestor addressed the summit by phone, and would attend and address the 2012 Summit in person. Still remember the powerful and haunting testimony of Caspian Makan, human rights activist, and fiancé of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was murdered in Iran by pro-regime agents months earlier on June 20, 2009. Another speaker who made a powerful impression was Yang Jianli, activist in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, a former political prisoner, and founder of Initiatives for China and today a friend. The Geneva Summit created network of activists that remain in contact and continue to collaborate.

Cuban human rights defenders and victims of repression have had a voice at this gathering over the past fourteen years to denounce their plight and call for human rights and freedom for Cuba. Former Cuban prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo (2009, 2010), Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia (2011), Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina (2012), Regis Iglesias (2013), and Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya (2015), human rights defender and daughter of martyred actvist Rosa Maria Paya (2013, 2016), human rights defender Damarys Moya Portieles (2014), human rights defender and social democrat Manuel Cuesta Morua (2015), former prisoner of conscience, human rights defender and artist Danilo Maldonado El Sexto (2017), Sakharov laureate Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (2018), human rights lawyer Juan Carlos Gutiérrez representing Cuban prisoner of conscience Dr. Eduardo Cardet (2019), Cuban lawyer, journalist, and human rights defender who serves as Executive Director of the nonprofit Cubalex Laritza Diversent (2020), Cuban political performance artist Tania Bruguera (2021), and Cuban visual artist and political activist Hamlet Lavastida (2022).

2013 was the last time I addressed the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy during the fifth edition of the gathering and less than seven months after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante had been murdered by State Security on July 22, 2012. Present in the room were Rosa María Payá Acevedo, and Regis Iglesias Ramírez of the Christian Liberation Movement. Both had addressed the meeting.

The 5th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy today is an opportunity for reflection. Unfortunately, the human rights situation around the world has not improved over the past five years and in many instances worsened. The question is why? Cuban democratic opposition activist, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought on December 17, 2002 observed that “The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized.” The past decade has demonstrated that he was right.

Cuban state security has worked for decades trying to discredit and silence authentic dissident voices and continues to today with their spies and agents of influence.  It is a constant struggle to frustrate their efforts. They are willing to lie, slander, assault and even murder those who have the courage to dissent. The 2012 killings of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero and the firing on unarmed protesters during the 11J protests in Cuba demonstrate this.

For decades Cuban victims of repression said that nobody listened, and in 1987 an award winning documentary titled "Nobody Listened" interviewed Cuban political prisoners and human rights defenders describing the lack of international solidarity.  

Over the past fourteen years thanks to the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy their voices have been and continue to be heard.  

The next summit begins on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 9:00am Central European Time. For more information visit the Geneva Summit website here. Use hashtags #GenevaSummit2022 and #GS22