Oswaldo Payá, Harold Cepero and the Future of ODCA

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. - Martin Luther King Jr.  

Senator Ocejo Moreno

Excerpt from the Statement by the President of ODCA, Senator Jorge Ocejo Moreno before the 2012 Meeting of the ODCA Council 

Santiago, Chile
August 31, 2012

A few days ago, with much pain, we have seen the departure of one of those men of ours committed to our ideals and an example of heroism for his people.

Oswaldo Payá left us on this earth the example of a heroic struggle of an entire lifetime, but also left us a role model to follow as politicians and Christians. A young man also left us, Harold Cepero, and that his memory serves us to remember so many nameless faces in our history, which also fought for democracy and freedom.
 
Today I want to represent in them, in Harold Cepero and Oswaldo Payá, what should be our fight in the future. A struggle of commitment and heroism to make reality our communitarian dreams.

He said that man tends by nature, by the character of the human spirit, sooner or later, towards freedom, to the collective and fraternal good, to the pursuit of happiness and perfection in his encounter with his other brothers and in the final encounter with God.

For them, I was moved that in the midst of the pain of the departure of Oswald and Harold, there was no time to mourn or detain the march.

At the home of Oswaldo, we were together with youth of the Christian Liberation Movement, with smiling faces, with hands symbolizing the struggle for liberty, and with the spirit and the heart disposed for the new fight.

Yes friends, this has been the history of the ODCA in these 65 years; this is the story of the ODCA in the present and must be the future story of the ODCA. It is a history built from the conviction and spirit, it is a Christian humanist and heroic struggle, a struggle that cannot be stopped even one second until reaching our dream.

I know we have all the strength of the human spirit to achieve it and also that it will be that way until the end of time.

Oswaldo Payá y Harold Cepero

Extracto de la Declaración del Presidente de la ODCA, el senador Ocejo Moreno antes de la reunión de 2012 del Consejo de la ODCA

Santiago, Chile
31 de agosto 2012

Hace muy pocos días, con mucho dolor, hemos visto partir a uno de esos hombres nuestros, comprometido con nuestros ideales y ejemplo de heroísmo para su pueblo.

Oswaldo Payá nos dejó en esta tierra una lucha heroica de toda una vida, pero también nos dejó el ejemplo de un modelo a seguir como políticos y cristianos. Nos dejó también un muchacho joven, Harold Cepero, y sirva este recuerdo para no olvidar a tantos rostros sin nombre de nuestra historia, que han luchado también por la democracia y la libertad.

Hoy quiero representar en ellos, en Harold Cepero y Oswaldo Payá, lo que debe ser nuestra lucha en el futuro. Una lucha de compromiso y de heroísmo por hacer realidad nuestros sueños comunitarios.
Decía que el hombre tiende por naturaleza, por el carácter del espíritu humano, tarde o temprano, hacia la libertad, hacia el bien colectivo y fraterno, a la búsqueda de su felicidad y también a su perfección en su encuentro con sus otros hermanos y en el encuentro final con Dios.
Por ello, me emocionó que en medio del dolor por la partida de Oswaldo y Harold, no hubo tiempo para llorar o detener la marcha.

En la casa de Oswaldo, estábamos juntos a jóvenes del Movimiento Cristiano de Liberación, con los rostros sonrientes, con las manos simbolizando la lucha por la libertad, y con el espíritu y el corazón dispuesto para el nuevo combate.

Si amigos, esa ha sido la historia de la ODCA en estos 65 años; es la historia presente de la ODCA y ha de ser la historia futura de la ODCA. Es una historia construida desde la convicción y el espíritu, es una lucha humanista y cristiana heroica, es una lucha que no se puede detener ni un solo segundo hasta alcanzar nuestro sueño.

Sé que tenemos toda la fuerza del espíritu humano para lograrlo y se también que así será hasta el fin de los tiempos.







Discurso del Presidente de la ODCA, el Senador Jorge Ocejo Moreno:  "Fundadores de Valores, Democracia y Futuro: el Legado Internacional de la ODCA"

Crackdown continues in Cuba: Antunez among detained

On August 26, the same day that José Daniel Ferrer García of the Cuban Patriotic Union was released after being held since August 23,  Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Disobedience was detained along with  Julio Columbie Batista and Arturo Conde Zamora in Holguin. It appears that the announcement that the noncooperation effort is entering a new phase has upset the regime. Below is the text of the Campaign for a National General Strike translated to English here. The document was originally made public on Antúnez's blog on August 24, 2012 in the midst of the crackdown.  It is a concrete call to national nonviolent action and the document bears close reading.

Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" detained

Campaign for a National General Strike

 The National General Strike is an important initiative sponsored by the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Disobedience. As its name indicates, this initiative seeks a partial paralysis of the entire national infrastructure through strong and systematic actions by the forces of internal resistance. In its first and second stages the General Strike is part of a continuing campaign of non-cooperation. This strike can be successful only after a real and resolute decision by a significant number of citizens to deny responsibility for, or to cooperate with, the oppressive regime.

It must be made clear that, although the National Front is calling for and sponsoring this crucial campaign, it can only be viable with the participation of each and every constituency for change, whether it be the National Front, political parties, movements, regional coalitions — in other words the energetic forces of Cuban resistance, which are the primary vehicle of democratic change.
The campaign for the National General Strike will use only peaceful means so that no constituencies which take part can in any way confuse the strike with economic sabotage, or the destruction of or attacks on state or private property.

It is the policy of the General Strike to be dissuasive and persuasive, acknowledging that, to succeed, we must work patiently, motivated by great faith and certainty. The only true potential for change comes from citizens who support us, as well as those who simply look upon us with indifference, fear or admiration for what we are doing. This includes those we see walking beside us, in line behind us, from a private office, and even those attacking us in so-called acts of repudiation. All can unite with us and contribute to the great day of the General Strike.

The campaign for a General Strike can, in a powerful way, also help to do away with the worrying fear of change that persists in many areas of society, especially among those who are ill-informed and those most compromised by the current regime.

The concept must be clearly understood, both by the promoters of the General Strike as well as by those who hear its message. The purpose of the strike is not to destroy, obstruct or cause damage to anyone or anything. Its intention is to peacefully boycott the means of production that confer profits on those who misgovern the millions of Cubans who are hungry, oppressed, and without liberty or the right to protest.

The Strike is a decision and commitment by everyone, or by a great and significant majority of Cubans, to say, “Enough!” The strategy of the General Strike is in accordance with basic, universally recognized rights and freedoms, which — together with the peaceful tactics it employs — gives it legitimacy and puts it in harmony with human dignity itself, something of primary importance.

Though a recent idea, one born that was born in Cuba, the strategy of the General Strike Campaign is based on innumerable precedents and inspired by similar actions around the globe. These have been successful in spite of a number of differing circumstances, such as culture and language.

The change which the General Strike seeks is viable under any circumstance in the struggle against the oppressive and totalitarian system.

The first phase of the campaign is outlined below:

To effect a total or partial strike before doing the necessary preparation or raising public awareness is so unlikely as to be almost impossible — even more so in a country like ours in which repression affects everyone and is everywhere, where a sinister and comprehensive system of repression controls, spies on, and penalizes the slightest and most moderate expression of discontent or dissent.

It is unthinkable and impossible to bring the country to a total or partial standstill when little or next to nothing has been done domestically to systematically provide information to the average Cuban, who is misinformed and bombarded by the state media monopoly.

Therefore, the Orlando Zapata Tamayo Front for Civic Resistance proposes an introductory phase to develop an intense and on-going public awareness campaign. This program will present the citizenry with mottoes and slogans with social themes, which will initially identify us as being concerned with the needs of the people.

This will help convince Cubans of the nature of their situation, that they have rights, and that these right must be respected. This information blitz will be carried out through visible channels such as text messaging, Twitter accounts, CD’s, flash drives, printed material, as well as through pamphlets, placards and signs posted in visible, public spaces.

We can also solicit support, through broadcasts and other media, from friends who support the Cuban cause. This duration of this initial campaign, to be called “Cubans, Defend Your Rights,” will be open-ended if it is determined that it can— given its importance  — be postponed, or rather extended, to other phases of the larger campaign.

This first phase is one of outreach, both internally and externally, to the public, which has the potential to play a leading role in the very necessary and essential change. It will be launched in light of the hard reality that most Cubans lack access to the internet, satellite television or cable.

Regrettably, outside of Cuba a not insignificant number of people are able to analyze Cuban reality from the viewpoint of an open society with a free flow of information, one of numerous advantages common in other countries. In Cuban society only the official version can be published, and only when and how the governing elite decide to publish it.

Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez

Secretary General of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience, who will neither be silenced nor will leave Cuba, and who reiterates that his primary objective today is the “National General Strike.”

Placetas, Cuba

August 24 2012

Crackdown underway in Cuba and many in the media remain silent

News is something someone wants suppressed. Everything else is just advertising. - Lord Northcliff

Major crackdown underway in Cuba.

 The Cuban Patriotic Union observed the one year anniversary of its founding inside Cuba on August 24 suffering a massive crackdown its movement by State Security in which key leaders of the Union were arrested. José Daniel Ferrer García a key leader and founder of the Union had his home assaulted and was arrested on August 23, 2012 and still remains detained as of this hour with scores of other activists. In Santa Clara, Guillermo Fariñas was detained three times in the span of one week.  Former prisoner of conscience Felix Navarro and his daughter Sayli Navarro were arrested on Saturday and released later the same day but political police stole her laptop.

Over the previous two days Thursday, August 23rd and Friday, August 24th more than 60 Cuban dissidents have been arrested reports Hablemos Press and they are still receiving additional reports of detentions. There is a crackdown underway in Cuba that began in the East of the island and has spread westward through the rest of the island. Unfortunately, the international media in Cuba are not reporting on this. Only El Nuevo Herald based in Miami broke the story on Friday interviewing dissidents on the island. Juan O. Tamayo reported:

Cuban dissidents Friday reported a crackdown across the island, with several activists detained to keep them from marking the monthly "Day of Resistance" and the one-year anniversary of one of the most active opposition groups.
Fourteen members of the Cuban Patriotic Union were detained in Havana as they gathered for the anniversary of the group, according to Pedro Arguelles, another member of the Union.
Five other dissidents were reported detained in the central city of Santa Clara during a vigil demanding the release of all political prisoners. Another four were arrested in the eastern town of San Luis and three more in the central town of Placetas.
Police told a dozen dissidents in eastern Camaguey province they would be arrested if they left their homes to attend an opposition gathering, and told seven others gathered in a Placetas home that they would be arrested if they did not leave.
Another 11 Union members gathered in the eastern town of Palma Soriano reported late Friday that they were headed outside to demand the release of all the activists detained. There was no further word from them.
Dissident Osmani Cespedes said more than 30 signs with anti-government slogans such as "Down with Raul" and "Raul Murderer" appeared Friday morning in several spots around the eastern town of Palma Soriano.
The Cuban Patriotic Union was founded a year ago by a group of opposition activists that include Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, a peaceful dissident who served eight years in prison and was freed last year. Based in Palma Soriano, his hometown, the Union has been one of the most active opposition groups in recent months.
Police detained Ferrer himself during a police raid of his home early Thursday morning, and seized several documents, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation noted Friday in an "urgent communique."
Dissidents also have been marking the "Day of Resistance" on the 24th of each month, recalling the Feb. 24, 2010, death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a lengthy hunger strike to demand an end to prison abuses.
The dissident Ladies in White, meanwhile, urged democratic governments and human rights organizations to "take urgent and coordinated action to stop the violence unleashed by the Cuban regime" against the women and other peaceful opposition figures.
Their statement alleged that the Raul Castro government "has stepped up the intimidations, the arbitrary jailings and the cruelty against all those who fight to install a democratic system in our country."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/24/163486/dissidents-report-a-crackdown.html#storylink=cpy

The failure of international news bureaus based in Cuba to report on this news is not new. It is also worthwhile to explore why this is taking place. In addition to well grounded fears that serious and tough reporting on the reality in Cuba would lead to having ones press credentials revoked and being expelled from the island there are others that apparently have ideological affinities with the regime. The Calgary Sun's Ezra Levant  reported on one such correspondent by the name of Stephen Wicary of the Globe and Mail:

He’s condemning Cubans who want to flee to freedom — the freedom he himself will presumably exercise one day, probably when he needs free health care and doesn’t want to go to a filthy Cuban hospital. Stephen Wicary is the Walter Duranty of our age. Duranty was a New York Times “reporter” in the 1930s who, like Wicary, went to the Communist country of the U.S.S.R. He was the Times’ bureau chief in Moscow from 1922 to 1936, a time of horrendous massacres, including the man-made Ukrainian famine called the Holodomor, where Stalin starved to death as many as 12 million souls.

What is disappointing is that even when the dictatorship itself makes clear for example that the policy of banning of musicians such as the late Celia Cruz and their music will continue despite Cuba based reports from international press stationed on the island. The reporters do not retract or correct their story. Meanwhile, as they report on the non-story of the Castro regime ending its censorship of musicians like Celia Cruz, Arturo Sandoval and Olga Guillot (which the regime has stated explicitly that it will not do) the Cuba based international journalists remain silent of the island wide crackdown on dissidents.

This is troubling on a number of levels. First this conduct raises not only questions of journalistic ethics but if the best way to learn what is happening in Cuba is not to read the reporters but the tweets from dissidents and persecuted independent journalists on the island who are breaking stories. Secondly, the failure of the international media to explain what is actually happening on the island. The nature of the regime's repressive apparatus and the rising discontent in the populace and the role of civic nonviolent opposition in the island, in the short term, gives the regime a free pass to repress and kill more opposition leaders and in the long term sow the seeds either for continued totalitarian rule or bloody change. A nonviolent movement needs to be able to communicate effectively with both the populace and the international community and the facts on the ground need to be made known in order to properly inform policy makers and Cubans on the island. This is also why independent news broadcasts are needed to break through the regime's information monopoly and get the facts out.

Waiting for Fidel Castro to die in order to cover the story of his death and burial from inside the island at the expense of covering the struggles and realities of the Cuban people is not only short sighted and a disservice to Cubans. It is also bad journalism.

Celia Cruz still banned in Cuba but International media remains silent

Celia Cruz's music remains banned in Cuba by the dictatorship

On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that Cuba's ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and on August 10 the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news. The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio.

There is only one problem. It is not true. Diario de Cuba reported on August 21, 2012 that Tony Pinelli, a well known musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned. The e-mail clearly stated: "All those who had allied with the enemy, who acted against our families, like Celia Cruz, who went to sing at the Guantanamo Base, the ICRT arrogated to itself the right, quite properly, not to disseminate them on Cuban radio "

Olga Guillot's music is still banned on Cuba radio

 Cuba's cultural genocide continues in 2012 and icons of Cuban music such as Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot remain banned from the airwaves and must be discovered on the black market and in the underground. 

The Castro regime has demonstrated a great ability to distract attention from the real news in the country with non-stories such as this one.  It is one of the tools that they have used to remain in power. Unfortunately, when an activist on the island succeeds at exposing the true nature of the regime and exposes the smoke screen of distraction and demands concrete progress they are terrorized, imprisoned, become suddenly ill and die, or die in a car "accident."

Sadly international journalists on the ground in Cuba do not report on these patterns because if they do they are expelled from the country by the dictatorship as many have been over the years for even mild critical reporting of the regime.

Nevertheless, one needs to ask reporters that published articles that the music of Celia Cruz and Gloria Estefan would be heard over the airwaves in Cuba now that the regime has confirmed that is not the case will they print a retraction or a clarification? Or will the dictatorship get away with using the press once again?

Speaking truth to power can save your life in Cuba

"What’s past is prologue" - William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I

 @RosaMariaPaya Angel is in danger. Will the world once more accept the rules of the Cuban government?

There are important lessons to be drawn from the past 53 years of totalitarian rule under the Castro brothers but despite this people of good will fail to see the patterns or learn the lessons of history. Our friends in Europe who co-existed with these type of regimes and had in their midst men of the caliber of Václav Havel who understood the power of the truth against a system built on lies.

In the case of Cuba the power of the truth was able to shake the regime from the its very beginnings while going along with the regime’s lies would destroy the complicit liar. It is not easy to hold on to the truth when one has been subjected to the techniques of interrogation, manipulation, torture and blackmail that Cuban state security are experts in. Even democratic governments can be duped into thinking that remaining silent and going along with the lie will benefit an imprisoned citizen or subject.

They could not be more mistaken.

Cuban history provides two parallel examples in which high ranking military officials in the regime were told that if they went along with the lie and pleaded guilty to the charges made against them that they could go home.

Towards the end of 1959, less than a year into the Castro regime, as it was still consolidating power and holding mass executions by firing squad the regime wanted to eliminate Huber Matos. Matos was one of the Commandants of the revolution who had entered Havana at Fidel Castro’s side but he was a fervent anti-communist who had fought Batista’s regime to re-establish democracy in Cuba not install a communist dictatorship. He had tried to resign his position but was repeatedly refused by Fidel Castro. Until the moment came to accuse Huber Matos of conspiracy and treason and set up a summary military trial in order to have him speedily executed. While being held in custody Fidel Castro sent a messenger to Huber Matos to tell him that if he confessed to everything that he had been accused of over the proceeding days and remained silent during the trial that he would not be executed and could go home.


Huber Matos in the above video describes how they asked him to go along with the lie to save himself

Huber Matos rejected the offer and said he would defend himself. He went on to do so at his military trial and was able to shift the opinion of military officers in the room who applauded his courage during the trial. The Castro brothers had planned to execute him but instead, fearing they would make him a martyr, sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Monsignor Agustin Roman in an important essay on the importance of the Cuban dissident movement in Cuba described the role that the truth played in its genesis:

The concept of nonviolent civil resistance is introduced into the history of Cuba. Take the truth as a weapon, placing it in practice in the civic field, what Scripture proposed in the spiritual realm: "the truth shall make you free". Hence its importance at that time and its transcendence for the future of Cuba.

If the truth shall make you free then what does the lie offer? The Ochoa case offers a dramatic answer. Nearly 30 years later in June of 1989, General Arnaldo Ochoa is arrested. He had been declared a “Hero of the Revolution” by Fidel Castro in 1984 but was deemed too dangerous by the dictatorship because he had been contaminated with ideas of Glasnost and Perestroika while visiting the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era. He was also popular within the ranks of the military due to his exploits in Africa. As was done with Huber Matos he was slandered and accused of conspiracy and treason this time tied to drug smuggling and corruption. He was also approached with the offer that if he confessed to everything he had been accused of and did not mount a vigorous defense that he could go home into retirement.


Confession of General Arnaldo Ochoa during military trial 

Unlike Huber Matos he went along with the lie and pled guilty in an abject fashion reminiscent of the 1930s Stalinist show trials and was executed days later by firing squad on July 13, 1989.

These are two high profile and historic examples but there are many others in which the families of political prisoners have been told that if they remain silent and behave that their loved ones would be sent home to them.

Years and in some cases decades would go by before the family would understand that it was a lie. At the same time those who organized international campaigns and spoke out were able to obtain improved conditions for their imprisoned relatives and in many cases an early release. The most high profile examples of this practice are the Ladies in White. Their husbands, fathers and sons had unjust prison sentences that ranged up to 28 years yet thanks to their efforts all were out of prison within eight years.

The obvious questions raised by the previous examples outlined are why is the truth uttered by an individual so powerful and how can it possibly protect an individual instead of going along with the regime’s desire that one lie?

Václav Havel in his 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless which he dedicated to the memory of Jan Patocka explained the power of confronting the lies with the truth saying:

As long as appearance is not confronted with reality, it does not seem to be appearance. As long as living a lie is not confronted with living the truth, the perspective needed to expose its mendacity is lacking. As soon as the alternative appears, however, it threatens the very existence of appearance and living a lie in terms of what they are, both their essence and their all-inclusiveness. And at the same time, it is utterly unimportant how large a space this alternative occupies: its power does not consist in its physical attributes but in the light it casts on those pillars of the system and on its unstable foundations.

Living in truth is a powerful shield of protection within a totalitarian regime but it doesn’t mean that one is still not in danger. Jan Patocka, a great Czech philosopher and dissident and Charter 77 signatory, that Havel dedicates his essay to, died after an 11 hour interrogation at the hands of state security in his country on March 13, 1977.

However, once one goes along with the lie their life is in greater danger because as long as the one who has gone along with the lie lives they can still recant and for the dictatorship it is more convenient to silence them. They have the video confession giving their version of events and no one to contradict it.

This is why when Rosa Marie Paya tweets that Angel [Carromero] is in danger she is telling the truth.