Open Letter from Cuba's Ladies in White

Ladies in White rename themselves Ladies in White "Laura Pollán" Movement

Berta Soler at La Merced church entrance in Sept 2011

We hereby declare that:

On October 18, 2011, the day that Literary Tea # 101 was held, The Ladies in White there agreed with the following:

First, For respect and honor of Laura Pollan, begin to identify the feminist group Ladies in White "Laura Pollan" Movement.

Second: Maintain discipline, courage, dignity and peaceful struggle for freedom of political prisoners and the defense and promotion of human rights.

Third: To ratify as representatives of the group Ladies in White "Laura Pollan" Movement

- Blanca Reyes Castañón -In Europe, Spain
- Yolanda Huerga Cedeño - In U. S.
- Berta Soler Fernández - In Cuba

They remain authorized for all matters relating to the Ladies in White "Laura Pollan" Movement.

Given in Havana, Cuba on the 18th day of October 2011.

Ladies in White "Laura Pollan" Movement.
Berta Soler Fernández

Original hand written letter in Spanish. Text reproduced below:

Por este medio hacemos constar lo siguiente:

El día 18 de octubre del 2011, día que se realizó el Té Literario #101, Las Damas de Blanco allí acordaron con las presentes:

Primero: Por respeto y honor a Laura Pollán, comenzar a identificar la agrupación feminista: Mov. Las Damas de Blanco “Laura Pollán”

Segundo: Mantener la disciplina, valor, dignidad y pacifismo en la lucha por la libertad de los presos políticos cubanos y defensa y promoción de los Derechos Humanos.

Tercero: Ratificar como representantes del Mov. Damas de Blanco “Laura Pollán”

- Blanca Reyes Castañón- En Europa, España
- Yolanda Huerga Cedeño - En E.U.
- Berta Soler Fernández - En Cuba

Quedando autorizadas ellas para todo lo relacionado con el Mov. Damas de Blanco “Laura Pollán”.

Dado en La Habana, Cuba a los 18 días del mes de octubre del 2011.

Mov. Las Damas de Blanco “Laura Pollán”
Berta Soler Fernández

Taken from the official Ladies in White website

Honoring Laura Pollán while seeking a full accounting around circumstances surrounding her death

To honor, brings honor. - Jose Marti


Today as 50 Ladies in White marched through the streets of Havana, Cuba and only three Ladies marched through Santiago de Cuba (several other women were detained to prevent them from attending a Mass for Laura Pollán in the Cuban province) in Tampa, Florida first at 10 am at Al Lopez park and later at Casa Cuba, people of good will gathered to pay homage to Laura Pollán.

Marc Masferrer of Uncommon Sense, pictured above at the Silent Walk in Honor of Laura Pollán provides additional photos, commentary and context on the activity held at 10:00am.


Meanwhile across town at Casa Cuba at 1:30pm Cuban exiles gathered for a day of music and food but first held a moment of silence for the recently deceased leader of the Ladies in White.



Since her death on October 14, 2011 there have been a number of activities both inside and outside of Cuba and numerous essays honoring the life of Laura Pollán and her achievements as a human rights defender. At the same time a number of articles have been written questioning the circumstances surrounding her death. Today the Wall Street Journal's Mary O'Grady has cataloged and provided context to these questions in her essay A Dissident's Mysterious Death in Havana:

Over the life of the Cuban dictatorship, suspicious deaths (most commonly heart attacks) of otherwise healthy individuals who were considered disloyal to the Castros are not unheard of. The most famous was José Abrantes, a former interior minister and confidant of Fidel, who had a falling out with his boss, was imprisoned, and though known for being fit died of a heart attack in his cell in 1991. More than one defector from inside the regime has claimed that Abrantes was murdered.

Pollán took up her cause when her husband, Hector Maseda, was arrested, along with 74 others, in an island-wide crackdown on dissent in March 2003. Seeking a way to resist the injustice, she joined other women whose loved ones were handed down long sentences in Cuba's Black Spring. Together they organized a simple, peaceful act of disobedience: After attending Mass at St. Rita's church in Havana, they marched in the street, dressed in white and carrying gladiolas. The group was peaceful and nonpolitical. But to the regime it was dangerous. Mobs were unleashed against it.

Beatings, detentions, intimidation and harassment of the group were fruitless. The Ladies repeatedly returned to their "counterrevolutionary" practices: Sunday Mass, silent processions, Wednesday women's "literary teas" held in Ms. Pollán's home, prayer vigils for the persecuted.

The movement took on enormous visual power, and when images of the ladies being attacked in the streets went viral, the dictatorship was humiliated. The Castros were forced to offer the Black Spring prisoners "liberation" through exile with their spouses.

Pollán and her husband refused. Instead she expanded the movement across the country and promised to convert it to a human rights organization open to all women. Speaking from the Guanajay prison as her condition was deteriorating, jailed former Cuban counterintelligence officer Ernesto Borges Pérez told the Hablemos Press that making public those objectives likely sealed her fate.

On Sept. 24, Pollán was attacked by a mob as she tried to leave her house to attend Mass. Her right arm was reportedly twisted, scratched and bitten. This is notable because for more than a year, the Ladies had alleged that when Castro's enforcement squads came after them, the regime's goons pricked their skin with needles. Those same women claimed that they subsequently felt dizzy, nauseous and feverish. Independent journalist Carlos Ríos Otero reported this for Hablemos Press before Pollán was hospitalized.

According to interviews with Pollán's daughter and husband and with Ms. Soler, conducted by the Miami-based nongovernmental organization Directorio, eight days after the Sept. 24 assault Pollán came down with chills and began vomiting. Wracked with pain in her joints the next day, she was taken to the Calixto García hospital. After a battery of tests she was told everything was normal and released. On Oct. 4, she had a fever and shortness of breath. A prescribed antibiotic did not help. On Oct. 7 she was admitted to the hospital, later transferred to intensive care and the next day put on a respirator.

Her family was denied visitation rights until Oct. 10, when only her daughter was allowed to see her. State security agents surrounded her bed and monitored the doctors. On Oct. 12 doctors reported that she had a syncytial respiratory virus, which is otherwise known as a cold. She was obviously much sicker.

On Oct. 14 she died.

A vigil for Laura Pollán in Coral Gables one week after her passing

“If we must give our own lives in pursuit of the freedom of our Cuba that it be what God wants.” (September 24, 2011)

Vigil for Laura Pollán in Coral Gables at Merrick Park on October 21

Last night in Coral Gables on the one week anniversary of her death there was an act of remembrance for Laura Pollán and in solidarity with the Ladies in White who continue the nonviolent struggle for freedom in Cuba. An account of her final days was presented followed by readings of quotes by Laura from different women. Recorded messages from Bertha Soler and Sara Martha Fonseca for the activity were played and the event concluded listening to a past recording of Laura Pollán speaking.

Below are photos and video excerpts taken at the vigil. Along with quotes by Laura.



They tried to silence 75 voices, but now there are more than 75 voices shouting to the world the injustices the government has committed. (2004)

"We fight for the freedom of our husbands, the union of our families. We love our men." (2005)



Physically, I am tired. But I am still fighting, as long as I am alive and my husband is jailed, I am going to keep fighting. – Laura Pollan (2006)


“We are calling for freedom for all political prisoners.” (2006)



"They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." (2010)

"We are going to continue. We are fighting for freedom and human rights.” (September 24, 2011)



"As long as this government is around there will be prisoners because while they've let some go, they've put others in jail. It is a never-ending story." (2011)

"We are not going to stop. If you have imprisoned our sisters thinking that we would give up, they are mistaken. We are very united (...) all the women's movements are very close." (October 2, 2011)




“We ask on this Christmas Day for freedom for our political prisoners and for the Cuban people to have a better future.” (2005)


In the same manner that the vigil concluded with the words of Laura so does this blog entery.

Laura Pollán and The Ladies in White one week later

"We plan to march tomorrow on Fifth Avenue like we do every Sunday. It will be a special march for Laura." - Bertha Soler

Hector Maseda and Laura Pollán in 2011

Laura Pollán passed away one week ago tonight at 7:50pm in Havana, Cuba after being hospitalized for one week. Her death has impacted the entire world. In the United States and Spain high ranking officials honored her memory and struggle. In Poland, Nobel Prize winner and former President, Lech Walesa sent a letter of condolence to Hector Maseda, Laura's husband and himself a former prisoner of conscience now free thanks in no small part due to his wife's efforts.

Gdańsk, 17 October 2011

Mr. Héctor Maseda

Havana, Cuba

Dear Sir,

I was deeply saddened to receive the information about the passing of your wife, Laura Pollan.

The tragedy, you are experiencing now, is affecting all of us – those to whom close were the values Laura Pollan believed in. She managed to inspire not only her compatriots but also the international society to defend the democratic activists who were unfairly sentenced and imprisoned for their beliefs. The cause of a free and democratic Cuba became our common dream and aim. Ladies in White, the movement founded by Laura Pollan, has been the evidence that peaceful struggle and determination brings always the victory.

Please accept my sincere condolences and assurance of my continual support of the mission initiated by your wife.

Yours faithfully,

Lech Wałęsa

While she lived the dictatorship treated her shamefully wrote journalist and writer Achy Obejas describing how on:

One Sunday, Pollan withstood hours of screaming in her face without saying a word, stuck in a park and unable to get home. Less than a month ago, state security blocked Pollan’s street, filled it with government supporters and blocked her door, making it impossible for the Ladies to attend a mass for the patron saint of prisoners.

Yoani Sanchez writing in The Washington Post described Laura's final days:

Given the seriousness of her condition, government officials asked her family if the patient could be transferred to a luxury clinic designed for the military. But Pollan herself said, before losing consciousness in an induced coma, "I want to stay in the hospital of the people." And there she died Oct. 14, after a five-day delay in diagnosing dengue fever, in a country that has been experiencing an intense outbreak of the disease for months now.

Though newspapers around the world reported on the death of Laura Pollan, Granma, the official paper of the Communist Party, and all the papers of Cuba's provinces remained silent. This reaction is a given, considering the pettiness of a government that cannot feel sympathy at the death of an opponent. The Castro regime has never been able to pause in its belligerence, never been able to offer condolences.

But this silence also stems from its fear of this little teacher of Spanish, the fear that sticks, even now, in officials' throats. The leader of the Ladies in White is dead, and no one in Cuba will ever carry a gladiolus in his or her hands without thinking of Laura Pollan.

Following her death the reaction of the dictatorship, to use the death of Laura Pollán to crush the Ladies in White, has also been in evidence along with the courage and ingenuity of the women to circumvent the crackdown. First the Ladies in White marched on the Sunday following her passing despite a nationwide crackdown. On Tuesday, state security agents detained 20 women going to attend the Ladies in White customary literary tea. “The state security agents told them, ‘There’s no Tea. That’s over,’” said Lady in White Berta Soler on what detained women where told. In both cases, despite many women being detained, many still managed to carry out both activities and denounce the repression.



Over the past week the world has learned who Laura Pollán was and that the Ladies in White that she founded are still today struggling for the day when there are no more political prisoners in Cuba.

Despite the immediate family of Laura Pollán indicating that she received adequate treatment at the hospital some dissidents have expressed their suspicions surrounding her death. Juan Manuel Cao, a former political prisoner and human rights defender now a journalist in exile, wrote a column explaining the historical context that gives a grounding to their suspicions. He cites the history of the intelligence services that trained the Cubans. Both the East German Stasi and Soviet KGB were known to use poisons and other instruments to induce death and illnesses that led to death. He also wrote about previous Cuban cases and asked:

"Who killed Sebastian Arcos Bergnes? The opposition leader and prisoner of conscience who from his cell complained for at least two years about a pulsating pain that would come down his leg and would not allow him to sleep. The regime ruled that he was faking it; they made a political diagnosis instead of a clinical one."

Sebastian's son, Sebastian Arcos Cazabon, has spoken on the record about what was done to his father.



A half century old dictatorship with a long litany of crimes against the people of Cuba is what is behind the suspicions and distrust raised by elements of the Cuban opposition. Sadly, these suspicions are not unfounded.

However once again tonight in Coral Gables as has been done repeatedly over the past week in Miami, Madrid and Havana there will be an act of remembrance for Laura Pollán and in solidarity with the Ladies in White who continue her struggle in Cuba today.

Libya and the Big Lie: Denying Qaddafi's Human Rights Atrocities

'To witness a crime in silence, is to commit it.' - Jose Marti

Libyan burning image of Qaddafi (2011)

The end of the Qaddafi regime in Libya is a bloody and disastrous affair for the Libyan people and the new regime appears to have embraced some of the sordid practices of the old regime. The decision of the opposition to embrace violence and invite NATO intervention guaranteed that the struggle for a free Libya would become far more difficult and fraught with even more danger to the populace. As of today one could credibly make the argument that it has been a failure.



At the same time deniers of Moammar Qaddafi's bloody reign have emerged claiming that the Libyan tyrant had not been engaged in the systematic gross human rights violations that invited condemnation from the United Nations Human Rights Council and the United Nations Security Council. Furthermore that organizations and individuals that signed an Urgent Appeal to Stop the Atrocities in Libya calling for the condemnation of the dictatorship at the United Nations and its expulsion from the UN Human Rights Council are liars who are responsible for this conflict.

The chief villain according to the defenders of Qaddafi is the Libyan League for Human Rights. They fail to mention that one of the founders of the group, Mansour Kikhia, was abducted in Cairo on December 10, 1993 and taken to Libya where he was executed on Qaddafi's orders. According to The Washington Post: "Kikhia, who defected to the United States in 1980, served as Gadhafi's foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations before turning into a sharp critic of the regime." Nor do the apologists mention "the Abu Salim Prison killings in June 1996, when the security forces allegedly killed up to 1,200 inmates" reported by Amnesty International in its 2011 annual report (which covers 2010). There are many more atrocities committed by the Qaddafi regime prior to the crisis of 2011 that are well documented prior to the "fog of war" which requires greater discernment.

However, the document makes no mention of the numerous reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch denouncing mass killings and systematic human rights abuses by Qaddafi's regime in Libya. For example on February 18, 2011 Amnesty International reported at least 46 people shot dead by security forces over the previous 72 hours. Two days later on February 20, Amnesty International called on the Libyan leader to "end the spiraling of killings," stating that “[l]arge numbers of people are being killed and the situation is escalating alarmingly. More than one hundred have been killed so far.”



Amnesty International on February 23rd accused both the Security Council and the African Union of failing the people of Libya referencing and describing the above speech: "Colonel al-Gaddafi gave a speech in which he called protesters 'cockroaches' and 'rats', and compared the situation to China, saying that national unity had been “more important than the people of Tiananmen Square." Also in the course of the speech Qaddafi threatened to “cleanse Libya house by house”. Human Rights Watch documented beginning on February 17, 2011 on how Qaddafi's forces had opened fire on peaceful demonstrators and disappeared scores of people.

On February 25, 2011 Amnesty International called on the Security Council to refer Qaddafi to the International Criminal Court. In the video below Philip Luther outlines the egregious acts of Al-Qaddafi and Western complicity in torture:



On March 2, 2011 Libyan medical teams attempting to treat the wounded reported to Amnesty International that they were being targeted by Pro-Qaddafi forces. On March 21, 2011 Amnesty presented a fact sheet on what had turned into a conflict between pro and anti-regime forces.

The regime of Moammar Al-Qaddafi systematically violated human rights and engaged in mass atrocities. It is a pity that the opposition to the Al-Qaddafi regime would use the same methods as the dictator to dislodge him from power. It does not bode well for the new government in Libya. Early on in the conflict when the resistance chose to embark on the path of violence I wrote about the negative consequences of such a course of action and involvement of NATO forces only compounded that opinion.

Nevertheless, if I had it to do over again I would not remain silent and would once again sign the document calling for the international community to condemn the atrocities being committed against the Libyans. At the same time refusing to remain silent today when the new government commits human rights violations against former regime officials and African immigrants. To remain silent when a crime is being committed is to be complicit.

Photograph of Castro and Qaddafi. Taken from Libyan despots residence

The Libyan episode has only further proven the need to speak out in a timely manner and to also call on opposition movements to reject violence and embrace strategic non-violent conflict strategies to end brutal dictatorial regimes increasing the probability of a lasting victory.