Uncommon Sense

Declaration of Freedom for Cubans

From Oswaldo Paya's Cuban Forum Campaign, via Misceláneas de Cuba:

WE THE CUBAN PEOPLE:

We want liberty.

God created all human beings free and as such freedom is an inalienable right. Cubans want to be free. Free to express ourselves, to dream, to create, to work, to travel, to elect, to create and to display our faith.

Cubans want to be free in order to live with dignity and brotherhood.

We are calling for all the rights of all Cubans, because we are entitled to have all of our rights: civic, political, economic, social, and cultural, like all human beings.

They are merely words, at a time when what is needed is action to achieve freedom in Cuba. However, this declaration does lay out what the goals for a free Cuba should be.

Read the whole thing below the fold.

En español, aquí.

New group on the front lines

Oswaldo Payá announces the formation of a new group to fight for Cuban freedom. Via e-mail:

CREATION OF A CITIZEN’S COMMITTEE FOR RECONCILIATION AND DIALOGUE AND PROCLAMATION OF THE DECLARATION OF FREDOM FOR ALL CUBANS A new light shines upon Cuba as it begins to be reborn A new light shines upon a people who want to be free

We have founded the Citizen’s Committee for Reconciliation and Dialogue that promotes the Civic Campaign of the Cuban Forum. For months we have worked to form the first team of the Citizen’s Committee that already has a presence in all the provinces around the country, including some hundreds of citizens who today are the founders of this Citizen’s Committee. We are getting ready now to promote the creation of many teams to facilitate the voluntary affiliation and participation of all Cubans, without exclusions, in this civic movement that will promote the peaceful changes that the people of Cuba want and need today.

The Citizen’s Committee for Reconciliation and Dialogue (CCRD) has been formed to promote the Cuban Forum Campaign and contribute in this way toward “establishing a new nation of sincere democracy,” as our Apostle José Martí declared.

Citizen’s Committee for Reconciliation and Dialogue gathers all citizens, without exclusions, that are committed to work toward achieving the objectives of the Cuban Forum Campaign through legal and peaceful means.

The Cuban Forum Campaign is a civic and peaceful process that has the following objectives:

* The release of all those who are imprisoned for peacefully defending, promoting, and exercising universally recognized human rights.
* The necessary changes in the law to guarantee the exercise of fundamental rights of all Cubans, living inside and outside of Cuba .
* The establishment of free elections for a Constitutional Assembly.
* To have all Cubans walk together, without exclusions, in reconciliation, freedom, and brotherhood, constructing a more human, more just, more free society in our sovereign and independent Nation.

Moreover, because the Cuban people and all Cubans have the right to speak for themselves and with their own voice; the Citizen’s Committee for Reconciliation and Dialogue proclaims today, the Declaration of Freedom for Cubans, as a document from the people and for the people, in which Cubans offer a vision of changes and of the future they desire, signal the changes they want to take, and express their hopes and desires.

For this reason, the Declaration of Freedom will become the declaration of every Cuban, and in this way the declaration of the people of Cuba .

FOUNDERS OF THE CITIZEN’S COMMITTEE
FOR RECONCILIATION AND DIALOGUE
Cuba , November 22, 2007

For more information visit www.oswaldopaya.org or contact Francisco De Armas and Julio Hernández, International Representatives, Christian Liberation Movement, (787) 549-1805, fdamcl@cs.com, mcl2004jhs@yahoo.com

Payá: United Nations is no help for Cubans

Via e-mail, I received this news release from Cuban dissident leader Oswaldo Payá, who condemns a recent decision by the United Nations on behalf of the Castro dictatorship, and against the Cuban people.

Critics complain that Payá is too conciliatory towards the dictatorship, too willing to negotiate with the current system, instead of working to destroy it. But the fact is, Payá is well familiar with the challenge before him. Too many of his friends and allies who joined with him in the Varela Project, are in the gulag for him to be naive about the dictatorship.

He is not, and he is not shy about denouncing the regime.

And as this statement reveals, he also will not give a free pass to the useful idiots in the international community, i.e. the United Nations, who only enable and strengthen the tyranny in Havana.

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Francisco De Armas
International Representative, Christian Liberation Movement
(787) 549-1805
www.oswaldopaya.org

THE UNITED NATIONS PRAISES THE GOVERNMENT AND PUNISHES THE CUBAN PEOPLE

At times acts of torture are discussed in terms of the damage they cause to an individual’s physical and mental health when the torturers want to obtain information by means of intimidation.

I do not want to speak about concepts but rather about real people and about those prisoners, of which there are too many to mention by name, so as to make it known that they are all in cruel and inhumane conditions while serving unjust prison sentences.

Although tens of thousands of men and women, common and political prisoners alike, are subjected to cruel and degrading prison conditions in Cuba, some examples of the political prisoners include: Regis Iglesias, Tony Díaz, Pedro Pablo Álvarez, Nelson Aguiar, Pablo Pacheco, lawyer and former official Rolando Jiménez, Efrén Fernández, Luís Enrique Ferrer, Ricardo González, Doctor Alfredo Pulido, Antonio Villareal, Librado Linares, who is almost blind and has less than half of his stomach working, and Normando Hernández, among so many others who are very ill. (Editor's note: Read more about these prisoners by clicking on their names on the right rail.)

Unjust and cruel prison terms are consuming the health and lives of all of Cuba ’s political prisoners.

There really is no further information to be taken out of these individuals, who are imprisoned in Cuba for defending human rights, as they have already proclaimed their secret out in the streets, “We want freedom and rights for all Cubans.” The torturers do not have any information to look for, but what they do have is a lot of hate and frustration on the part of themselves and the government that orders them, which they lash out at those whose spirits they have been unable to break.

Moreover, in addition to the individual acts of torture, they have moved towards applying a “state of torture,” a method of systematic, sadistic punishment that leads to physical and mental damage, a deterioration of health, and suffering, as a permanent and regulated part of the process of destroying the individual.

But the injustices and abuses are not just against those who dare to raise their voice in support of the rights of individuals. The greatest injustice is against the entire nation, against each and every Cuban, by imposing on them a life of fear, lies, poverty, and all types of deprivations and inequality. A life marked by oppression in every minute and in every dimension of existence, except in the dimension of the soul that has faith, which can not be conquered.

Here it is necessary to pause, not for a marginal comment, but rather for a denunciation from the depths of our people, who have been betrayed and humiliated by the international community, buried by the lies of the tyrants and the complacency of the cowards who condone the oppression and violation of human rights in Cuba.

According to the declarations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cuba , they have received “an award” from the General Assembly of the United Nations. The Cuban government and its newspaper, Granma, rejoiced in what they call with good reason “a victory,” because by a vote of 168 in the affirmative and seven against, the United Nations finally gave up against the force of oppression, abandoned the Cuban people, and embarrassingly compromised the Human Rights Council, which will not defend individuals, as it remains paralyzed by cowardice, poisoned by lies, and hijacked by the tyrants of the world.

The Council has a proposal for a resolution that we presented it on the first honest and coherent act that the Human Rights Council would need to take: demand the release of those imprisoned in Cuba for peacefully defending, promoting and exercising their human rights.

But no country dares to present that resolution; no one wants to risk receiving the barrage of insults and threats that the oppressors in Cuba use to silence those who proclaim “freedom.” The non-aligned countries, previously aligned with the oppressive Soviets and Maoists, are now aligned against everything that stands for hope for rights, justice, reconciliation, truth and liberty in Cuba.

It seems that from the pits of darkness the shrieks rose in a chorus from the philosophers and champions of the frustrated tyrannies of all times yelling desperately: “hypocrites of the world unite.” And in this way the large horde arose, with people of all ranks, to sustain the antitruth that denies Cubans the rights to have rights.

In Cuba, not only are human rights violated but a state of no rights exists. In Cuba its leaders do not even recognize that these violations exist and do not demonstrate any will to overcome this situation of an absence of rights.

In Cuba , there are hundreds of peaceful political prisoners for only defending their human rights.

In Cuba , power and the law damage and rescind many rights.

The United Nations and its Human Rights Council have not helped one bit to foster reconciliation, peace or understanding among Cubans or the peaceful changes that all Cubans desire.

For decades, many have tried to stifle the Cuban people with a cloak of lies, proclaiming as freedom what is indeed slavery, justice what is in fact inequality and popular democracy what is instead a tyranny that is sustained through a culture of fear. They have institutionalized oppression. Falsehood has taken on the mask of truth in order leave Cubans without the possibility of protest, objections, or hope.

But we do have hope in God and in our determination to recapture all our rights.

The people of Cuba will accomplish peace and obtain their rights, they will achieve reconciliation. They will achieve these through the peaceful path of truth and justice. We Cubans will achieve our rights, liberty and peace by our own efforts, with the solidarity of those who want to peacefully support us or without it.

We will achieve it alone, in fact with most of the world against us, because all we need to keep in mind is that we Cubans are also children of God and that is why we have the right to exercise our rights.

The tough talk aside, Payá remains committed to reconcilation and peaceful transition to democracy. Go here to read about his latest effort.

Cuban students expelled

Ten Cuban university students have been expelled, after they participated in September in a peaceful protest demanding better security after a student was raped. What is most revealing are the conditions the dictatorship has set for they students if they wish to later be re-admitted. From Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, director of the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement Center for Alternative Studies and leader of the University Students without Borders initiative, via Cuban Democratic Directorate:

In order to return to their studies, all will be required to work during the time of their expulsión. They will be required to present a letter from their workplace vouching for their good behavior halfway through the time of their penalty. The rector advised them to remain silent, not to appeal, and to accept culpability. The remaining students have yet to be located. Some 300 students took part in the peaceful protest requesting a greater degree of security at the university, after one student was raped without any subsequent action being taken by the authorities. University authorities promised the students that they would solve the problem. The Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement and the University Students without Borders initiative publicly condemn the Island’s government for these repressive measures and for condemning the students, a decisión which has been rejected by the students’ classmates. Today’s University Student Federation of Cuba (USF) is subservient to and complicit with the fundamentalist laws appled under the direction of the extremist youth wing of the only student organization in Cuba: the Young Communists’ Union (YCU). For this reason, we do not recognize the legitimacy of the YCU, nor of today’s USF, but rather that of the USF that was an exemplary symbol of the student striggles against tyrannical regimes before 1959. The only ones responsible for the incidents that took place in September are the leadership of the University of Oriente. I call upon the international community, and all the world’s governments and universities, to condemn these apartheid measures against Cuban students and to join in solidarity with this noble and just cause.

CAMBIO for Cuba

Cuban dissident Dr. Darsi Ferrer is leading the charge. Via Babalú:

Havana, November 20, 2007.

We call upon all Cubans to commemorate International Human Rights Day on December 10th, by exercising our right to demonstrate in a PEACEFUL SILENT MARCH as a protest of the immoral and illegal APARTHEID policy imposed by the Cuban government.

It is the duty all people to assume individual responsibility and confront the tragedy facing the nation, to urge political, economic and social changes that benefit EVERYONE, and to facilitate an end to this humiliating situation in which a powerful few violate sovereignty and enjoy privileges all while discriminating against the majority simply because they are citizens.

Governments, institutions, organizations and human beings in general have an obligation to promote respect for fundamental rights and freedoms, as well as ensure their recognition and universal and effective application.

Our appeal, by our participation on that day, will be for the recognition, in every corner of the earth, of the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.

For information on how you can show your support, go here or here.

Cuban gulag is a death trap

Jorge Luis García Pérez, better known as "Antúnez," survived more than 17 years in Fidel Castro's dungeons, suffering some of the worst tortures imaginable, and certainly some that are not. Antúnez was not broken, as once he was out prison, he did what he did on the inside, and resumed his position on the frontline in the struggle for Cuban liberty.

But Antúnez, thanks to Fidel Castro, is a sick man, as revealed this week by reports that he has been hospitalized.

Several dissident leaders have pleaded with government authorities to provide Antúnez with the same level of care given to foreign patients, according to Martí Noticias. They also asked that Antúnez be allowed to travel to the Dominican Republic, where a doctor has offered to treat him.

Meanwhile, behind bars, the dictatorship continues to do all it can to destroy the health of its political prisoners, as revealed by pleas for assistance by their family members. This week, those pleas come on the behalf of:

— Ernesto Borges Pérez, whom I previously wrote about here.

— Luis Enrique Ferrer García, whom I previously wrote about here.

— José Antonio Mola Porra, whom I previously wrote about here.

These and other prisoners are serving terms of varying lengths, but the reality is that every prisoner of conscience in the gulag, is serving a potential death sentence. They are considered "enemies of the state," and are treated as such, as enemies that must be destroyed.

They are beaten mercilessly. They are fed shit. They are forced to sleep on concrete floors. They share their cells with rats. Their medical needs are ignored.

That those deaths come slowly, even after a prisoner has been released, makes them that much more cruel.

(Cross-posted at Babalú.)

Prisoner's health in decline

Pablo Pacheco Ávila

Cuban Democratic Directorate has more on the declining health of Cuban politicial prisoner Pablo Pacheco Ávila:

Prisoner of conscience Pablo Pacheco Ávila, arrested during the crackdown of 2003 and now detained at the Morón Provincial Prison, is in a critical state of health. According to his wife Oleivys García Echemendía, source of this information, Pacheco Ávila suffers from a renal ectopia on his right kidney, which causes severe pain on his right side. Currently, Pacheco Ávila is receiving venoclisis, also known as an epidural catheter.

During a recent visit from his wife, she was able to speak with the chief doctor of the prison, who informed her that her husband was receiving symptomatic treatment via Peroxidan suppositories and analgesics or venoclisis, if necessary. He also informed her that he would be receiving antibiotics due to the results of a urine culture. However, Pacheco Ávila continues to suffer from strong pains due to this illness.

“We, his family and wife of Pablo Pacheco Ávila, part of the 75 activists arrested in 2003, for his freedom, as well as freedom for all political prisoners because they are unjustly imprisoned simple for struggling to freely saying what they think, like all Cubans should; the only thing they are guilty of is being innocent,” expressed Oleyvis García Echemendía via a telephone conversation from Ciego de Ávila.

García said she has not sought a medical parole for her husband, because she does not think it has been effective in winning the release of other prisoners.

Pacheco, a 37-year-old independent journalist, is serving a 20-year prison term.

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta: "I will not give up"

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta

Cuban political prisoner Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta is a dying man, thanks to the cruelties brought to bear on him by the Castro dictatorship. But, as this testimony reveals, he has only begun to fight for liberty — a struggle with only an inevitable conclusion as long as warriors like him are taking up arms for battle.

Here is an English translation of Herrera's testimony, as provided by the Coalition of Cuban American Women, via e-mail:

CUBAN PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE, JUAN CARLOS HERRERA ACOSTA, FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE

Personal testimony

November 16, 2007

APLO Press / www.PayoLibre.com

Kilo 8 Prison
Camagüey, Cuba

I’m letting it be known that my state of health is failing at an extremely dangerous pace. My physical well-being remains under the Sword of Damocles, and I could die. My days are slowly coming to an end because of the various dangerous illnesses from which I suffer: high blood pressure, a right bundle branch block in my heart, hypertensive retinopathy, a heart murmur, a pyloric-duodenal prolapse, chronic dermatitis, asthma, cervical arthritis, lumbo-sacral arthralgia, vitiligo, kidney and liver disorders, and an obvious immunological deficiency. I’m extremely underweight, which is quite worrisome.

Faced with this dangerous picture, prison authorities have demonstrated a policy of disinterest and indifference until last October 23rd when I sewed my mouth shut as a fair complaint against the violation of my rights and the awful living conditions under which I am kept as if I were a wild animal while the prison officials’ dogs live under exceptional conditions.

I held firm for 8 days without eating and taking in very little water, which made the state and prison police take note. On November 2nd, I was moved to the Department of Medical Services of MININT during the night. This step was in vain because the favorable conditions did not exist to do tests on me. They were postponed until the next day around noon when I was submitted to an endoscopy and a biopsy in the area of the esophagus, stomach, and intestine. The exams showed a large inflammation around there, giardiasis and a hiatal hernia, as well as bacteria that, from what became clear and from the silence shown, are a malignant kind. (H. Pylori)

The situation turned out to be much more threatening to my life that expected. I don’t harbor a single hope of getting out of this monstrous place alive. Clearly my days are numbered, and, as usual, the Cuban regime will not let me meet with those whom I love before I die—it’s a policy of vengeance and settling of scores. Since I don’t reject the possibility of a clinically induced death, neither do I reject the possibility of being the next Miguel Valdés Tamayo. Yet, in spite of this dangerous outlook, I’m letting my brothers know that I’ll continue giving as much as I can. I will continue my firm stance in defense of human rights with my campaign of accusations towards murders and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatments.

Life is of little importance when firm and true ideas exist to defend. Eleven million Cubans suffer the vengeful shots of a tyranny in order to defend the right to a free, inclusive, pluralistic, and respectful country for everyone, one like the most highly regarded of all Cubans, José Martí, dreamed of. Until the last moment of my life, I will continue to stick to my patriotic ideals. When I die, one more political assassination will fall upon the back of this tyranny.

I will not ask for pity from those who torture me physically and psychologically. I proclaim my critical situation to the international community, and may it, along with my fellow Cubans in exile, accuse the regime in Havana. I will not be the first or the last to lose my life in Castro’s dungeons. There have been others throughout these fifty years of harsh dictatorship who have tried to restore a civil society. Cubans have the right to freedom, to a plurality of criteria, to free and transparent elections. Cuba deserves to occupy the empty seat that is waiting for her among the elite number of democratic nations.

Let all Cubans in exile and those that determinedly and peacefully struggle in the streets know that I will not give up. As a dignified follower of the ideas of Varela, Martí, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, I will not bow down, nor will my knees give way. I will continue from this dark place in support of this noble and just cause.

I cannot deny that it’s been a hard blow for me to know that I’m dying. I would love to contribute more so that a bright and promising future could add luster to our currently tarnished country from a entelechy, a breed of gangsters and mafia. I’m not afraid to face death. I’m not afraid for them to kill me. Whatever happens will happen; all will unfold as it’s supposed to be. I ask my brothers in the struggle not to become discouraged, to continue forward. From Castro’s gulag, I extend my message of hope.

I have begun a new battle, this time for my life. A young Canadian named Terry Fox, knowing that cancer was eating up his whole body and with an amputated leg, ran thousands of kilometers before dying, and he never lost heart in his efforts. For me, it would be a very high honor to be added to the list of Castro’s victims. They will not succeed in extracting a cry of pity. I believe I can give even more and provide much more for our children and this country so that all can live in complete freedom.

I am very physically weak, but I’m strong spiritually. I know nothing is in vain, and I reiterate that my situation has become much more critical. I face this harsh reality. Nothing will dishearten me. Since November 3rd when I found out just how critical my health was, I have received a show of solidarity on the part of many prisoners that strengthens me.

To my brothers of the honorable political prisoners group, Pedro Luis Boitel, and especially to that tireless fighter, Jorge Luis García Pérez, “Antúnez,” I want you to know that Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta will stand up and face the terror until his last day. My weakened and critical state of health is one more example of the cruel and inhumane Cuban prison system. The world should not support the pain that those behind bars suffer for defending the right to life, to total liberty. This is the price one pays under the auspices of Castro and to which I aspire with stoicism and as a worthy son of this country.

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, 41, was sentenced to 20 years in jail in March, 2003. He is a prisoner of conscience of the Group of 75. He is an independent journalist, a member of the Cuban Council of Rapporteurs of Human Rights and the national coordinator of the Youth for Democracy Movement. His address is Calle 3 Oeste #1105 e/ Pintó y Varonal, Guantánamo, Cuba.

This testimony was given from Kilo 8 Prison on November 7, 2007.

All rights reserved: PayoLibre.com

Translation: The Coalition of Cuban-American Women (www.coalitionofcubanamericanwomen.blogspot.com)

Tanya S. Wilder / Email: tswilder@suddenlink.net
Original article in Spanish: http://www.payolibre.com/articulos/imprimir.php?id=1060

(Cross-posted at Babalú.)

Prisoner Antonio Diaz's health is "worsening"

Antonio Díaz Sanchez

El Marielito has the latest news on his uncle, political prisoner Antonio Díaz Sánchez, a member of the Group of 75:

A few moments ago, I had a chance to chat with (Díaz's wife) Gisela about Tony's health. The latest news is quite discouraging. Following a doctor's visit on the 14th of November, which included an endoscopic examination, Gisela was informed that a) Tony's condition is worsening (no details provided on what "worsening" means and b) he is in dire need of an operation. However, the doctor is not willing to take responsibility for his recovery as long as he is confined in his current environment, which, as I have described them on this blog before, is substandard. Not only is Tony's diet inadequate, but his cell is unsanitary. The only recourse available to the doctor is to increase the dosage on Tony's medication to the maximum safe level. To make matters worse, Tony's guards seem to be ignoring the doctor's instructions. The medication has been withheld from him regularly and is only made available after Tony protests. On the legal front, Gisela has been unable to get the attention of Tony's lawyer for the past month, so his conditional release (or transfer to medical facilities) is still pending. She plans to write to the Cuban Government to complain about Tony's mistreatment.

Díaz, a member of the Christian Liberation Movement and an organizer of the Varela Project, was in 2003 sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Fariñas is arrested

Guillermo Fariñas

Debating and arguing about Cuba, and what the United States should do, is about taking sides.

Do you side not with the dictatorship — sometimes, it is too simplistic to dismiss those who disagree with us as "idiots" — but with the business interests, and their political allies, who see Cuba as an untapped market waiting to be exploited?

Or do you side with the freedom fighters, Cuban men and women of extraordinary courage, like the independent journalist Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas, who again has demonstrated why so many of us are proud to be on his side.

Independent journalist Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia is reporting that Fariñas this past Saturday was arrested and detained for about six hours.

Fariñas, no stranger to the dictatorship, apparently was caught up in a recent roundup of dissidents in Santa Clara. Rodríguez reported that Fariñas was told by police that he was not being allowed to participate in "counter-revolutionary" activities, i.e. a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of the Marta Abreu Women's Movement.

During an interrogation at a local jail, a police official told Fariñas that he was considered a "high danger," to the stability of the dictatorship, and issued the journalist a written warning to stop.

Police, perhaps knowing there is nothing they can do to sway a giant like Fariñas, then gave him a ride home.

Like I said, it's an easy choice.

Independent journalist Tania Maceda Guerra has more on the recent arrests in Santa Clara.

(Cross-posted at Babalú.)