"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Pedro Luis Boitel was born in Cuba on May 13, 1931. He studied at the University of Havana while working as a radio
technician. Opposing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista he joined the
July 26 movement led by the Castro brothers. The majority of the movement's
members, like Pedro, were anti-communists.
Once Batista left for exile and
Fidel Castro took control, the anti-communist members of the July 26
movement became an impediment to the new regime's absolute power.
Pedro Luis was a popular student leader, and was nominated to head the Federation of University Students. The Argentine NGO,CADAL (Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina), describes what happened to the young leader.
In 1960, Boitel ran for president of the University Students' Federation (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria - FEU) at the University of Havana and was backed by the 26 de Julio Movement. Even though Castro headed this movement during Batista's dictatorship, Fidel Castro and the other revolutionary leaders removed their support for Boitel precisely due to his independence of thought and democratic convictions. Castro himself personally intervened in the student elections at the University of Havana to remove Boitel from the FEU presidency. This event and other repressive measures that were carried out by Castro against Boitel led him to begin to conspire against the recently-established totalitarian regime in Cuba.
He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1961 for his opposition to the new dictatorship. Today marks what would have been Pedro Luis's 91st birthday,
but he died in 1972 at age 41 on a hunger strike in one of Castro's dungeons, the Castillo de Principe prison in Havana.
May 25, 2022 will mark 50 years since he died after completing his unjust prison sentence, and prison officials refused to free him. This led to his final hunger strike.
The world knows about Pedro Luis Boitel because his mother, Clara Abrahante Boitel,
fought to save her son and make known the atrocities committed against him, despite the threats visited upon her.
The first time I heard about Pedro Luis was in the 1987 documentary Nobody Listened. The image and testimony of Clara Abrahante who looked forward to death to be reunited with her son is heart breaking.
Please consider organizing nonviolent vigils outside of Cuban Embassies and consulates around the world on Wednesday, May 25, 2022 in remembrance of this student leader and upload photos, and videos over your social media documenting your action.
Original Spanish quotes by Pedro Luis Boitel and English translations:
“Los hombres no abandonan la lucha cuando la causa es justa.”
"Men do not abandon the fight when the cause is just."
“Podrán matar y acabar con mi cuerpo, pero nunca con mi espíritu, ese no lo podrán doblegar jamás.”
"They can kill and destroy my body, but never my spirit, that they will never be able to break."
Protesters march across Cuba in July 2021 [REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini]
The July 11, 2021, national nonviolent protests in Cuba marked a before and after in Cuban history. Tens of thousands of Cubans across the island demanded an end to the dictatorship, rejected the official slogan Patria o Muerte (Homeland or Death) and chanted Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life).
The reaction of the totalitarian regime was swift and brutal. The Boinas Negras (black berets), formally known as the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior, were captured on video firing on unarmed protesters.
The dictatorship handed out clubs to regime agents to attack demonstrators. Thousands of nonviolent protesters were detained. Hundreds remain jailed, facing summary trials with prison sentences in excess of 25 years.
The lack of transparency in Cuba has taken on a new urgency in the current context. The International Committee of the Red Cross has not been allowed in Cuban prisons since 1989, and that was a brief period between 1988 and 1989. In comparison, the prison for Al Qaeda prisoners at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base had over 100 visits between 2002 and 2014, and continues to the present date.
Cuba is the only country in the Americas where Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other international and regional human rights organizations are unable to visit.
The largest numbers of Cubans arrested and processed following the July protests are from predominantly black neighborhoods such as La Güinera, which government officials call “marginal.”
On March 22, 1959, Fidel Castro declared that racism no longer existed in Cuba. To contradict the maximum leader was to be a counter-revolutionary and subject to punishment.
Oswaldo Payá, Regis Iglesias, and Antonio Diaz, walk to turn in petitions
Twenty years ago today on May 10, 2002, carrying 11,020 signed petitions in
support of the Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement's Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas,
Antonio Diaz Sanchez, and Regis Iglesias Ramirez delivered them to the Cuban
National Assembly.
Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, in his 1999 novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting observed
that "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory
against forgetting." Memory provides context to unfolding events today,
and helps to render informed judgements.
This blog entry is an exercise in recovering memory.
The Varela Project, named after the Cuban Catholic Priest Felix Varela, sought to reform the Cuban legal system
to bring it in line with international human rights standards. They had
followed the letter of the law in organizing the campaign. They specifically asked for the following in the petition.
Guarantee the right to free expression and free association that guarantee pluralism, opening Cuban society to political debate and facilitating a more participatory democracy.
Amnesty for all those imprisoned for political reasons.
Right of Cubans to form companies, both individually owned and in cooperatives.
Proposal for a new electoral law that truly guarantees the right to elect and be elected to all Cubans and the holding of free elections
President James Carter at the University of Havana.
Former President James Carter visited Cuba in May 2002 and on May 15th gave a speech at the University of Havana, where he advocated for the lifting of economic sanctions on Cuba and "called for the Varela Project petition to be published in the official newspaper so that people could learn about it."
The Varela
Project was not presented for debate before the National Assembly, which
according to then existing law drafted by the Castro dictatorship meant
that it should have been debated in that legislative body.
On May 7, 2022 at the West Dade Regional Library (9445 Coral Way) in Miami, Florida, the Christian Liberation Movement hosted a discussion that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Varela project in Cuba, its legacy and impact.
Project Varela organizers gathered at the West Dade Regional Library on May 7, 2022
Many of the participants on Saturday focused on the immediate aftermath of the first signatures being turned in, and the wave of repression that followed.
Less than a year after the petitions were turned in, starting on March 18, 2003 the Cuban Spring would end with a massive crackdown on Cuba's civil society with many of the Project Varela organizers, imprisoned and summarily sentenced up to 28 years in prison.
The 75 activists with long prison sentences became known as the "group of the 75."
The Castro regime announced, at the time, that the Cuban dissident movement had been destroyed.
They spoke prematurely.
First, the remaining activists who were still free continued gathering signatures and would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures on October 5, 2003, and they continued to gather more.
Secondly, the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of the activists who had been detained and imprisoned organized themselves into the "Ladies in White." A movement that sought the freedom of their loved ones and organized regular marches through the streets of Cuba, despite regime organized violence visited upon them. This new movement was led by Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, a former school teacher.
Antonio Diaz Sanchez and Regis Iglesias Ramirez were released from
prison into forced exile in 2010. Today marking this anniversary of the
Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement released the following statement.
"Exactly 20 years ago, with hundreds of political prisoners in jail and a mostly terrified people, 11,020 Cubans peacefully demanded the freedom of political prisoners and free elections, so that Cubans could freely choose their political and economic model.
The response of the tyranny was repression, exile and even murder.
Two decades later, political prisoners multiply and terror expands on the island through repression, while the solidarity of many bows to petty interests, providing impunity to the regime, today more tyrannical and more despotic than ever.
On the 20th anniversary of that civic gesture of the people of Cuba, honoring the memory of Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero and all those who have fallen in this struggle, thinking of the thousands of political prisoners who are today in communist dungeons, living with the Cuban people the lack of freedom and rights, we proclaim our will to continue working indefinitely together with the people, until freedom and democracy arrive in Cuba, which by right belongs to all Cubans.
ALL CUBANS!
ALL BROTHERS!
AND NOW FREEDOM."
President Carter made a second trip to Cuba in March 2011, and did not publicly mention Project Varela during that visit, but instead focused efforts on trading Alan Gross for the remaining members of the WASP network jailed in the United States on charges of espionage, and murder conspiracy that killed three Americans and a US resident in 1996, and calling for the lifting of economic sanctions on the Castro regime. President Carter also downplayed the threat of FARC, ETA, and ELN terrorists harbored in Cuba.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed on July 22, 2012 together with Harold Cepero, a youth leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, in a car "accident" that all the hallmarks of a state security operation copied after the East German Stasi, who trained intelligence operatives in the Castro regime.
Revisiting and remembering these historic moments is part of the struggle against forgetting, and the conversation that it may arouse will only serve, when backed up with facts, to strengthen memory with
truth. Memory, and retentiveness are defenses against the Castro regime's totalitarian rewriting of history.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs bill designating Le Jeune Rd Oswaldo Payá Way
On May 9, 2022, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the first Varela Project petitions being turned in to the National Assembly in Cuba, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that designated "a portion
of State Road 953, known as Le Jeune Road, between Northwest 11th Street and Northwest 14th Street in Miami-Dade County" as Oswaldo Payá Way.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in a July 14, 2003 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times provided context to the aftermath of Project Varela, and the March 18, 2003 crackdown in which 75 Cuban dissidents, many of them organizers of the petition drive were sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years.
"Cuba finds itself in a grave crisis. In the last few years,
thousands of its citizens have participated in what’s known as the
Varela Project, overcoming a culture of fear and calling for a national
referendum on civil rights, the peaceful evolution of freedom and
reconciliation. But now a cloud of terror hangs over that quest for
change."
We
do not forget, we do not betray our principles and values, we are
consistent, without fanfare, with serene courage, with generosity,
without hatred but without fear: Long live the Varela Project !!! - Regis Iglesias Ramirez, May 10, 2021 over Twitter
Oswaldo Payá,
Antonio Diaz, and Regis Iglesias walk to turn in petitions
Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, in his 1999 novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting observed
that "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory
against forgetting." Memory provides context to unfolding events today,
and helps to render informed judgements.
Twenty years ago on May 10, 2002, carrying 11,020 signed petitions in
support of the Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement's Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas,
Antonio Diaz Sanchez, and Regis Iglesias Ramirez delivered them to the Cuban
National Assembly.
The Varela Project, named after the Cuban Catholic Priest Felix Varela, sought to reform the Cuban legal system
to bring it in line with international human rights standards. They had
followed the letter of the law in organizing the campaign.
Former President James Carter visited Cuba in May 2002 and on May 15th gave a speech at the University of Havana, where he advocated for the lifting of economic sanctions on Cuba and "called for the Varela Project petition to be published in the official newspaper so that people could learn about it."
President James Carter at the University of Havana.
The Varela
Project was not presented for debate before the National Assembly, which
according to then existing law drafted by the Castro dictatorship meant
that it should have been debated in that legislative body.
Today at 3:00pm at the West Dade Regional Library (9445 Coral Way) in Miami, Florida, the Christian Liberation Movement is extending an invitation to "the struggle of memory
against forgetting" and ask the rest of us to join "in this discussion commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Varela project in Cuba, including its legacy and impact."
"We must not wait passively. A free Poland is our aim, but no one will
give us that freedom. Our passivity will result in their murdering more
and more of us, in more and more people suffering." - Anna Walentynowicz, January 1985
Anna's quote above from 1985 is relevant to the situation in Cuba today. Replace Poland with Cuba, and no one would be the wiser. May Day 2022 is an excellent moment to reflect on and celebrate this woman who was a worker, and spent her life organizing workers to empower them.
The situation in Cuba demonstrates the opposite of worker empowerment.
Over 120 workers and trade unionists are jailed today in Cuba reports the Asociación Sindical Independiente de Cuba ( Independent Trade Union Association of Cuba ) in a "Declaration for May First" published on April 30, 2022.
— Center for a Free Cuba (@cubacenter) May 1, 2022
Communist apologists did not believe the leaders of the Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s and they do not believe Cuban labor activists today.
However, the fact is that Fidel Castro and the communist dictatorship that he imposed in Cuba destroyed Cuba's national independent labor movement, and replaced it with one controlled by the communist dictatorship that does not permit strikes, or collective bargaining by workers.
You need not take my word for it, you should take the word of Cuban workers suffering under the communist dictatorship in Cuba, but you cannot ignore the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) which is the global voice of the world’s working people, and "represents 200 million workers in 163 countries and territories and has 332 national affiliates."
The government violates the right to collective bargaining, freedom of association
and the independent representation of workers. It has decided to make
mass redundancies, leaving hundreds of thousands of people jobless, and
announced tougher repressive and disciplinary measures in the workplace.
It is trying to develop a model that preserves the essence of the
system, i.e. collectivism, state ownership of the means of production,
centralised decision making, planning and prohibition of the individual
accumulation of wealth, at the same time as demanding greater
productivity from companies and workers, and denying economic, political
and cultural freedom through increased control and repression.
According to the Plenary of the National Council of the CTC, “we have
to show the world that the workers, the backbone of our society, will
forge ahead until the economic situation has been overcome, certain that
they are taking the only correct and just path possible”. Salvador
Valdés, general secretary of the CTC, underlined the need to ensure that
the 2011 Plan draws on the lessons of 2010: “The major economic
challenges facing the country require the trade union movement to change
its methods and approaches, to act as a healthy counterbalance to the
violations and transgressions that may arise with the implementation of
the changes”.
The initial results of this process demonstrate that, despite the
prior preparation for these changes, there are still problems that need
to be resolved. Although this is a predominantly administrative process,
the union cannot be neutral and must be the first to ensure that
workers are given the help they need and are not abandoned.
Repression stifles labour rights 30-11-2011
The number of politically-motivated arrests was
estimated to have reached 1,224 in November 2010, which discourages the
formation of independent trade unions, as the authorities view
exercising freedom of association as a political activity.
Political legislation overrides trade union laws 31-12-2010
There have been no changes in the Cuban labour
legislation. The trade union movement is controlled by the Cuban state,
and the leaders of the single union CTC are not elected by the workers
but appointed by the state and the Communist Party of Cuba.
Workers’ rights violations persist 10-06-2009
On 10 June, the former political prisoner José
Ramón Castillo denounced various trade union rights violations in Cuba
to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Amnesty International had
declared him a prisoner of conscience and he testified before this forum
as a victim of repression in Cuba. He stated that Cuban workers’ right
to self-determination is not respected on the island. Workers do not
have the right to organise trade unions independent of the state and
five Cubans are currently serving prison sentences for having tried to
organise independent trade unions. This information has been widely
documented by the relevant international institutions.
The
strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard in 1980 led to the Solidarity labor union
forming. The firing of Anna Walentynowicz,
a welder and crane operator on August 7, 1980, was the
spark that led to the strike on August 14, 1980. She played an important role and
became a life long trade union activist. Radio Poland reported in 2015 that Polish intelligence services had planned to murder Anna.
"Secret police files apparently indicate that a plan was hatched to
poison Walentynowicz, and that the crime was set to take place in Radom
between 19 and 21 October 1981, just two months before the imposition of
martial law. However, Walentynowicz left the city, where she had been visiting workers, before the plan could be put into action."
Below is a 2019 video from
the Polish Foreign Ministry on Anna's life.
The following video was made in 1980 during the last week of the strike
inside the shipyard and reporter Julian Manyon interviewed Anna.
She is described as a "simple 51 year old woman who works as a welder
in the shipyard became a kind of saint to the striking workers. a
reminder of their grievances a symbol of their courage. Everyday she
walked to pay her respects at a memorial for the 27 shipyard workers
killed by the police when the government crushed the first strike in
1970. Since then Anna has fought a lonely battle for workers rights that
climaxed on August 7 when she was sacked."
This courageous woman, together with Lech Walesa, and many other courageous Poles liberated their country in June 1989 and brought about a new birth of freedom, but she remained unsatisfied with the progress made for workers in Poland and continued to advocate for workers rights in Poland.
During the strike at the docks in Gdynia, Poland in February 2002 Anna said:
"The 21 demands that we put up in 1980 are still relevant. Nothing was fulfilled. People still have to struggle to be treated with dignity. That's scandalous."
Anna Walentynowicz died on April 10, 2010 in the Smolensk air disaster, along with 95 other Poles, including the then president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński. Russia claims the crash was an accident, but a Polish Commission accuses Moscow of responsibility for the disaster.
On this May Day 2022 we honor how Anna lived, and her legacy of union activism.
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