2013 Democracy Award Panel & Ceremony

 NED honors young leaders from Zimbabwe, Russia,Pakistan, and Cuba

Glanis Changachirere,Vera Kichanova,Gulalai Ismail, Rosa María Payá (for Harold Cepero)
Photo taken from a tweet by Vera Kichanova

4:00 p.m.
Panel Discussion
"Our Democratic Future: the role of youth in advancing democracy"

5:30 p.m.
Reception and Award Presentation
Caucus Room 345, Cannon House Office Building


The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)’s 2013 Democracy Award will highlight the important role that youth are playing in advancing democracy in the world today.  In this, its 30th anniversary year, NED will honor three outstanding young people who are working in extraordinarily challenging environments to create a democratic future in their respective countries.  The Endowment will also make a posthumous award to a fourth young democrat whose life was cut short in the midst of his struggle.

The 2013 Democracy Award honorees are:

Gulalai Ismail, 26

Ismail is founder and chairperson of Aware Girls, a young women-led organization that seeks to provide a leadership platform to young women and girls of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan.  She has more than 10 years of experience working on leadership development for girls and young women; addressing gender based violence; encouraging peace and pluralism; promoting and protecting human rights; and striving to bring women in to the political mainstream.

Vera Kichanova, 22

Kichanova was elected in March 2012 as a municipal deputy in Moscow’s Yuzhnoye Tushino district. As a member of the municipal council she fights for more transparency on the part of the local authorities. Kichanova is an avid journalist and civic activist who has been arrested for her outspoken defense of democratic principles.

Glanis Changachirere, 30

Changachirere is the founding director of the Institute for Young Women Development (IYWD), which encourages marginalized young women in farming, mining, and rural communities to participate in Zimbabwean politics. IYWD has played an important role in calling for peaceful, democratic elections, and the need to guarantee space for the participation of all Zimbabweans in the political system, including the prevention of gender based violence.

Harold Cepero, (1980-2012)

Cepero was the leader of the youth wing of Cuba’s Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), the group that organized the Varela project -- a citizen petition movement that called for a popular referendum to establish the foundation for a democratic system in Cuba. With more than 25,000 Cubans publicly signing the petition, the Varela Project became one of the most creative challenges to the country’s totalitarian rulers. On July 22, 2012, Cepero was killed in a suspicious car crash along with Cuba’s most prominent democratic activist and founder of the MCL, Oswaldo Payá.
Rosa María Payá Acevedo, another young leader of the MCL and the daughter of Oswaldo Payá, will accept the award on behalf of Cepero and the Christian Liberation Movement.



http://www.ned.org/events/democracy-award/2013-democracy-award

Cuba, North Korea and the State sponsors of Terrorism List

"To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend." - Mohandas Gandhi 

Panama President Martinelli: "Panama captured North Korean -flagged ship from Cuba with undeclared military cargo"

Originally published in The Canal, the blog of the PanAm Post

Questions About Castro, Kim, and the State Sponsors of Terrorism List

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli tweeted the above photo with the following text yesterday, July 15, 2013 at 7:47 p.m.: “Panama captured North Korean-flagged ship from Cuba with undeclared military cargo.” This little bombshell dropped in the midst of a policy offensive to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, normalize relations, and end economic sanctions against the dictatorship.

Boneheaded political calculations are a bipartisan affair. In October of 2008, the Bush Administration declared North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism in the hopes that it would “salvage a fragile nuclear deal” with the totalitarian regime. Until yesterday it appeared that the Obama Administration was bent on following this same path with Cuba. Time will tell if this is a wake up call for the White House.

Five years after taking Kim Jong Un’s regime off the list of terror sponsors, North Korea has tested nuclear weapons and is now threatening to attack the United States with its new nukes. On the other hand, Cuba has continued to protest its presence on the list and has lobbied to be taken off.

The lessons from the Bush Administration’s cozying up to North Korea should give any reasonable person second thoughts about pursuing a similar path with Cuba.

The question arises: Would the behavior of the totalitarian dictatorship in Cuba be better or worse towards the United States once taken off the list? This latest lesson, that Raul Castro’s government does not play by the rules and is apparently providing missile technology to North Korea, despite United Nations sanctions, should help answer the previous question.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry released an official statement that it was sending “240 tons of obsolete defensive weapons,” otherwise known as military equipment, to be repaired in North Korea and returned to Cuba. It included: “two anti-aircraft missile complexes Volga and Pechora, nine missiles in parts and spares, two Mig-21 Bis and fifteen motors for this type of airplane, all of it manufactured in the mid-twentieth century. . .” A new question that arises why not have North Korean technicians travel to Cuba to repair the equipment instead of shipping 240 tons of military equipment in a supposed round trip?

Panama says that it might take a week to search the cargo ship and determine what is actually there.
It should be no surprise that the regimes in Cuba and North Korea have such a close working relationship. Both are led by dynastic family dictatorships that have no concern for human life but deep concerns about preserving absolute power.

The dictatorship in Cuba has a long track record of international terrorism that merits it remaining on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, in Washington, D.C., as we saw in the case of North Korea, “realism” often trumps the facts when pursuing a policy objective.

Like its North Korean counterpart, the Castro regime has made alliances with strange bedfellows in order to pursue policies that, if successfully pursued, would lead to mass killings. Fidel Castro, for example, lobbied the Soviet Union both in the early 1960s and again in the early 1980s to attack the United States with nuclear weapons. The fact that such a war would have meant the destruction of Cuba did not deter the dictator.

The most important question responsible policy makers should be asking is not “When will Cuba be taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism?” but “When will North Korea be returned to the list of state sponsors of terrorism? Before or after they attack a US city with a nuclear weapon?”

General Raul Castro embraces North Korean ally General Kyok Sik Kim

Castro regime's war on the Ladies in White intensifies

Regime agents beat up and arrest Ladies in White threatening them with knifings and other activists with death. These threats need to be taken seriously because over the past year they have followed through committing barbaric acts against nonviolent activists.

Beaten by regime agents in December 2012. Needed nearly 30 stitches

 This past weekend, state security unleashed a crackdown across Cuba attacking the Cuban Ladies in White in Colón, Cárdenas, and in the province of Matanzas. Over twitter the reports arrived describing arrests, beatings, death threats, a fractured rib, and activists pricked with needles by regime agents.

15 year old girl repeatedly knifed in November 2012 for verbally defending Ladies in White

 The following are highlights of tweets about what took place beginning in the early hours of Sunday, July 14, 2013:

At 7:21 am Angel Moya @jangelmoya  reported over twitter: #Cuba Repressive forces maintain cumbersome operation deployed in Pinar del Rio aimed @ impeding Ladies in White move to Havana

At 7:29am Angel Moya @jangelmoya reports:  #Cuba Arrested in Pinar del Rio #Ladies in White Marelis Diaz, Amparo Morejon, Rosa Rdgz, Analuiza Santana, Reina Madera, Raquel y Dianelis Rdgz

 At 7:34am reports that Lady in White Ladies in White, Isabel Borge was also arrested.

At 10:13am Angel Moya @jangelmoya reports: Repressive forces nationalize operations against Ladies in White: arrests, homes under siege and brutal repression

At 11:20am Sayli Navarro @SayliNavarro reports: They warn us about 3 buses of paramilitary repressors, around 20 state and patrol cars circling church and surroundings

At 11:53am Sayli Navarro  @SayliNavarro reports: Mob directed by known State Security officials waited for 12 Ladies in White & 13 brothers, in Mesa street corner of Bartolome Maso

At 12:31pm Sayli Navarro @SayliNavarro #Cuba reports: 11 Ladies in White in #Cardenas ended up beaten and arrested today at the Church exit. Some already released.

At 12:33pm the Ladies in White posted recording by Caridad Burunate narrating Castroite repression in Colon via #soundcloud http://soundcloud.com/user174183585/caridad-burunate-narra?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=mshare&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=http:// 

At 1:20pm Ivan Hernandez Carrillo @ivanlibre reported: They just freed me, they took me to a town of Matanzas called 6 de Agosto. They hit me a lot in the stomach & on my back

At 1:22pm Ivan Hernandez Carrillo  @ivanlibre tweeted: When they hit me they told me: "We are waiting for the orders to kill all of you."

At 2:28pm Ivan Hernandez Carrillo  @ivanlibre #Cuba reported: Félix Navarro @felixncuba returns from hospital, x-eays and doctor confirm fractured rib due to beating.

At 2:34pm Ivan Hernandez Carrillo  @ivanlibre #Cuba 11 Ladies in White arrested who attended mass in Cárdenas. Leticia Ramos, Ladies in White leader in Matanzas badly beaten

At 3:22pm Ivan Hernandez Carrillo @ivanlibre #Cuba tweets photo of Lázaro Diaz Sánchez moments after beating by thugs. Photo courtesy of @COliveraCuba pic.twitter.com/g1gqnPV3wS

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2013/07/15/1522249/damas-de-blanco-denuncian-acto.html#storylink=cp.

Lázaro Diaz Sánchez

 At 10:32pm Sayli Navarro  @SayliNavarro tweets  #Cuba Ladies in White Leticia Ramos and Marisol Fdez and also activist Javier Erbello pricked with needles today in #Cardenas

On July 15, 2013 at 5:24pm Sayli Navarro @SayliNavarro  tweeted #Cuba " If you return next Sunday we will knife you" said Belkis and another, in blue uniforms, to Elizabeth, a Lady in White

On July 16, 2013 at 4:48pm Ivan Hernandez Carrillo  @ivanlibre #Cuba This is Joaquín Lt Colonel of political police who said: "We are waiting for orders to kill all of you." pic.twitter.com/5264DtghUc

"Joaquín" Lt. Colonel of political police

None of this should be a surprise it was announced ahead of time on July 9, 2013, when  Lady in White Bertha Guerrero was threatened by an exasperated state security agent. The regime representative told her that the orders have been given to liquidate the Ladies in White by July 26, 2013. This was tweeted over the internet by former prisoner of conscience Angel Moya.

The Castro regime has been at war with the Ladies in White since they first came into existence in March of 2003. Cuban government agents have slandered the women, carried out beatings, made death threats, pricked members of the Ladies in White with needles, and on October 14, 2011 the founder and leader of the Ladies in White Laura Inés Pollán Toledo died under suspicious circumstances. This is a war being waged against the Ladies in White.

Nevertheless, the Ladies in White who identify themselves as nonviolent human rights defenders have proven resilient to the varied regime attacks precisely because they are nonviolent and have had a long term strategic vision of achieving their end goal: a Cuba were human rights are respected and where there are no more prisoners of conscience.

Unfortunately, the failure of the international media to be able to cover what is happening in Cuba in a timely manner has provided the dictatorship with more room to operate in a brutal and repressive fashion. It has shifted tactics and upped the ante with a policy of increasing violence while at the same time seeking to sow division within the Ladies in White to destroy the movement.

They will fail because the alternative media will take up the slack and these women now through social media can get their message out to the rest of the world. The images of brutalized women can no longer be disappeared as easily as it once was.

However, now is the time for women's groups around the world to demonstrate their solidarity and stand with Cuban women battling to have their own voice and power base on the island.

Raul Castro is reforming the system but only to make it a more efficient and effective totalitarian dictatorship. Independent attorney Lauritza Diversent, based in Havana revealed in a July 1, 2013 report to CubaNet that the reform of the penal code radically expands the power of the police to be judge, jury, and executioner in Cuba:

Currently, police officers can address directly any infringement of the Penal Law, with penalties of up to 1 year’s imprisonment and/or fines no higher than 15 thousand pesos, without being required to report the case to the court. In October, they will be granted authority over offenses of up to 3 years’ imprisonment and/or fines no higher than 50 thousand pesos, with the approval of a prosecutor.

This power enables them to judge and punish with fines, which represent 27% of the penalties established in the Penal Code. With the new amendments, these will now represent 52% of the penalties, and police officers will only need approval from a prosecutor to enforce 26%, a good way to contribute “to the consistent enforcement of the Penal Code policies outlined by the State.”

In the amendments the guarantees of due process were not taken into account. The police officers decide whether or not to take the citizen to court and the amount of the fine. In addition, the assistance of a defense lawyer has not been foreseen for any of these cases. Undoubtedly, a subtle way of violating the right to a public hearing in “court.”

According to Lauritza these "reforms" go into effect on October 1, 2013. These are reforms to perfect and preserve a totalitarian apparatus not transition into a more open system. The Ladies in White and Cuba's nonviolent opposition in general needs international attention and solidarity otherwise repression will increase and atrocities will multiply.

Murdered human rights defender Natalia Estemirova: Four years later her killers are still free

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. - Elie Wiesel

Murdered on July 15, 2009 for her work as a human rights defender

 Never met Natalia Estemirova and thanks to some unknown thugs I never will. She was a human rights defender in Russia defending the rights of the people of Chechnya. Four years ago today, on July 15, 2009 she was abducted at around 8:30am local time. Natalia was dragged into a white car (VAZ-2107) and driven off in an unknown direction. According to witnesses, Natalia Estemirova managed to shout out that she was being abducted.  

 

According to staff members of Memorial, she was on the way to a business trip to the Stavropol region of Russia. Her colleagues started to worry when she didn't arrive at the scheduled meetings. The same day at approximately 5.20 pm, Natalia Estemirova was found dead near Nazran in Ingushetia with evidence of two shots to the head.

Speaking in Germany on July 16, 2009 as her funeral was being held in Chechnya, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised a thorough investigation and pledged those responsible would be caught, reported the BBC at the time also observing that Medvedev said it was "obvious" to him that her murder was linked to her professional work. Forty days after her murder friends gathered in the Caucasus to remember Natalia.  

Four years later and her killers still remain at large. The government has now claimed in 2013 that it has ascertained the motive and that the murder probe was never suspended. "Investigators believe the crime was committed in connection with Estemirova's professional activity and with the view of unsettling the situation in Ingushetia and Chechnya."

Today protests are being held around the world in her memory and in France, the Paris based group ACAT, Amnesty International, Comité Tchétchénie, Le Convoi Syndical, l’Union des Electeurs russes, FIDH, Reporters Without Borders, and Russie-Libértes have called for a joint protest at “Place Igor Stravinsky (Beauborg)" in Paris at 6:30pm.

 

Two years ago Amnesty International announced that little progress had been made and 2939 messages were sent to Russian authorities calling on them to effectively investigate the murder of this human rights activist. In the urgent action, Amnesty International briefly outlined Natalia's work:

Natalia Estemirova was one of the leading researchers in the Grozny office of the Russian human rights organization Memorial. Since 2000 she had exposed numerous human rights violations committed during the second Chechen conflict and documented extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and other human rights violations committed by law-enforcement agencies and government officials in post-conflict Chechnya. She was fighting injustice and refused to leave the Republic despite the criticism and frequent threats she received from Chechen officials.

There is a link of solidarity between Natalia Estemirova and Cuban exile activists and that is the Russian human rights organization Memorial. Back in 1997, a member of the student group Free Cuba Foundation visited Russia and met with members of Memorial who joined the campaign to obtain the freedom of a Cuban political prisoner, a member of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights. Thanks to international solidarity he was freed a short time after the campaign began. This act of solidarity with an imprisoned human rights defender was in keeping with Natalia Estemirova's core beliefs expressed in testimony she gave in September 2003 at Steps to Protection: The Second Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders, organized by the Irish nonprofit Frontline where she wrote about Zura Bitieva, a human rights defender who had been murdered along with her family. Natalia's testimony is reproduced below:

Chechnya I would like to tell you about a woman of whose life and death, I believe, the people must know.
Her name was Zura Bitieva. She lived in a small Chechen village. During ‘95-‘96, when the Russian army occupied Chechnya, she was actively involved in anti-war protests. She was not afraid of the fatal consequences. In 1999, the Russian army again invaded Chechnya, and in February 2000 she and her son Idris, were taken into the Chernokozov prison by a Russian soldier. Conditions of this prison were appalling in their brutality. Torture, killing, assault and human degradation were all part of this institution.

Zura was a small, aged and very sick woman. But her soul and the strength of her spirit, withstood the threats and beating of her captors. She defended other inmates in prison, with this strength. Zura went on hunger strike. She was released in a very ill condition. Her friends helped her go to Turkey. But once her health was slightly better, she went back to Chechnya, and began collecting evidence of crimes committed by the Russian soldiers and militia against the peaceful citizens of Chechnya. This evidence she submitted to UN and organizations for human rights. In the middle of a spring night 2003, her house was broken into by camouflaged and masked men. These men were part of the Russian forces. They killed her, her son Idris, her husband and her brother. Her one year-old grandson was gagged and left in a puddle of blood. Only her other son, escaped death by hiding in time.

Half a year passed, and the crime has still not been investigated.

Exactly two years before this event, Islamic fundamentalists in conjunction with the Russian forces, mortally wounded human rights defender Viktor Popkov. Still, the killers have not been brought to justice, even though this is quite possible.

In spring this year, men in camouflage and masks kidnapped a defender Imran Ezhiev. The press raised a storm, and after a few days Imran was dropped and left on a dirt road. To this day, he does not know where he had been, as he was gagged and cuffed. But he does know that his kidnappers were part of the Russian forces. He was saved by the press outcry.

I suggest that whenever a human rights defender is suffering, we should hold massive press gatherings to free the defender and lead proper investigations into their arrests. I also think that the Frontline website should have current and detailed information and news of human rights defenders – to be discussed by participants of this conference.

We owe it to Natalia and to human rights defenders in Russia and around the world that her killers be brought to justice. Other journalists continue to be killed with impunity in Russia. On July 9, 2013  Akhmednabi Akhmednabiev, a journalist whose work was critical of local authorities was shot and killed in Degestan. We maybe powerless to prevent these injustices but we must never stop denouncing them.

This is why in the Cuban context, 19 years after the "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and 17 years after the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down there are still protests and vigils demanding justice.  This is also why we must remember and protest these murders in Russia and say a prayer today for Natalia Estemirova and why on July 22 we will be doing the same for Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

The Four Pillars of Fraudulent Change in Cuba

 One of the reasons that Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed on July 22, 2012 was that he denounced the fraudulent change taking place in Cuba. Former prisoner of conscience  Antonio Díaz Sánchez lays out what are the four pillars of this fake change.

Antonio Díaz Sánchez

WHAT IS THE FRAUDULENT CHANGE?

By Antonio Díaz Sánchez. 

Member of the Coordinating Council of the Christian Liberation Movement

-To deny the existence of the opposition, if not, discredit and deny we have projects and alternatives for peaceful change.

-Compensate the state of exile and humiliation of the Cuban Diaspora with their supposed insertion into the same political system, without rights, that condemns them to their exile status

-Substitute the National Dialogue, we are proposing, for a negotiation that is high level, exclusive, elitist and without transparency.

-Lowering the dignity of Cubans spreading slander that they do not want, nor deserve, political rights but allegedly only aspire to live better economically.

AND MANY OTHER STRATEGIES AIMED AT MAINTAINING TOTALITARIAN POWER

Fraudulent Change

Original text in Spanish taken from official Christian Liberation Movement website reproduced below:

 ¿QUE ES EL CAMBIO FRAUDE? 

Por Antonio Díaz Sánchez. Miembro del Consejo coordinador del MCL

 -Negar la existencia de la oposición, cuando no, desprestigiarla y negar que tengamos proyectos y alternativas de cambios pacíficos.

-Compensar el estado de destierro y humillación de los cubanos de la Diáspora con su supuesta inserción en el mismo sistema político, sin derechos, que los condena a su condición de exiliados

-Sustituir el Diálogo Nacional, que estamos proponiendo, por una negociación en las alturas, excluyente, elitista y sin transparencia.

-Rebajar la dignidad de los cubanos propagando la injuria de que no quieren, ni merecen, derechos políticos, sino que supuestamente sólo aspiran a vivir mejor económicamente.

Y MUCHAS OTRAS ESTRATEGIAS DIRIGIDAS A MANTENER EL PODER TOTALITARIO