Cuban dissident movement

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The Cuban dissident movement is a political movement in Cuba whose aim is "to replace the current regime with a more democratic form of government".[1] According to Human Rights Watch, the Cuban government represses nearly all forms of political dissent.[2]

Background

1959 – the Cuban Revolution

Fidel Castro came to power with the Cuban Revolution of 1959. By the end of 1960, according to Paul H. Lewis in Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America, all opposition newspaper had been closed down and all radio and television stations were in state control.[3] Lewis states that moderate teachers and professors were purged, about 20,000 dissidents were held and tortured in prisons.[3]

Homosexuals as well as other "deviant" groups who were barred from military conscription, were forced to conduct their compulsory military service in camps called "Military Units to Aid Production" in the 1960s, and were subjected to political "reeducation".[4][5][6] Castro's military commanders brutalized the inmates.[7]

One estimate from The Black Book of Communism is that throughout Cuba 15,000-17,000 people were executed.[8] Meanwhile, in nearly all areas of government, loyalty to the regime became the primary criterion for all appointments.[9]

Government authority

1989 – Communism ends in Europe, but not in Cuba

While the communist governments in Europe fell, Cuba continued communism.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who had unsuccessfully tried to replace hardline communists in Eastern Europe with reformers, might have supported Arnaldo Ochoa, a general who was executed on charges of drug trafficking. Cuba banned Soviet publications Sputnik and Moscow News in August 1989, because they were accused of "justifying bourgeois democracy".[14]

In 1991, Castro stated that Cuba should "forget [the] world's criteria" for democracy. Castro alleged that Western "bourgeois democracy" has nothing to do with democracy and is "complete garbage".[15]

Thousands of Cubans protested in Havana and chanted "Libertad!" ("Freedom") during the Maleconazo uprising on 5 August 1994. The uprising lasted a few hours before it was dispersed by the government's security forces, and an intervention by Fidel Castro himself.[16] A paper published in the Journal of Democracy states that this was the closest that the Cuban opposition could come to asserting itself decisively.[16]

Cuban dissidents formed the Concilio Cubano in late 1995. The Concilio planned to hold a meeting on 24 February 1996, a plan which was blocked by the government. The government arrested many of the leading activists and labeled them as "counterrevolutionary grouplets".[16]

The Varela Project started in 1998.

Situation today

In 2010, Cuba was described as the only "authoritarian regime" in the Americas by The Economist's 2010 Democracy Index.[17] The island was the second largest prison in the world for journalists in 2008, second only to the People's Republic of China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international press organization.[18] The military of Cuba is a central organization; it controls 60 percent of the economy and is Raúl Castro's base.[16]

According to a paper published in the Harvard International Review, dissident groups are weak and infiltrated by Cuban state security. Media is totally state-controlled. Dissidents find it difficult to organize and "Many of their leaders have shown enormous courage in defying the regime. Yet, time and again, the security apparatus has discredited or destroyed them. They do not represent a major threat to the regime."[19]

The paper Can Cuba Change? in the National Endowment for Democracy's Journal of Democracy states that about nine-tenths of the populace forms an economically and politically oppressed underclass and "Using the principles of democracy and human rights to unite and mobilize this vast, dispossessed majority in the face of a highly repressive regime is the key to peaceful change".[16] Working people are a critical source of discontent.[16] The only legal trade union is controlled by the government and strikes are banned.[16] Afro-Cuban dissidents have also risen, fueled by racism in Cuba.[16]

In 2012, Amnesty International warned that repression of Cuban dissidents was on the rise over the past two years, citing the Wilmar Villar hunger strike death, as well as the arrests of prisoners of conscience Yasmin Conyedo Riveron, Yusmani Rafael Alvarez Esmori, and Antonio Michel and Marcos Máiquel Lima Cruz.[20] The Cuban Commission of Human Rights reported that there were 6,602 detentions of government opponents in 2012, up from 4,123 in 2011.[21]

Dissident groups

Dissidents

During the "Black Spring" in 2003, the regime imprisoned 75 dissidents, including 29 journalists.[25][26][27][28] Their cases were reviewed by Amnesty International who officially adopted them as prisoners of conscience.[29] To the original list of 75 prisoners of conscience resulting from the wave of arrests in spring 2003, Amnesty International added four more dissidents in January 2004. They had been arrested in the same context as the other 75 but did not receive their sentences until much later.[30] These prisoners have since been released in the face of international pressure. Tripartite talks between the Cuban government, the Catholic Church in Cuba and the Spanish government were initiated in spring 2010 in reaction to the controversial death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo in February 2010 following a hunger strike amid reports of massive abuse at the hands of prison staff. These negotiations resulted in a July 2010 agreement that all remaining prisoners of the 'Group of 75' would be freed. Spain offered to receive those prisoners who would agree to be released and immediately exiled together with their families. Of the 79 prisoners of conscience 56 were still behind bars at the time of the agreement. Of the total group, 21 are still living in Cuba today whereas the others are in exile, most of them in Spain. The final two prisoners were released on 23 March 2011.[31]

Independent bloggers

The Foreign Policy magazine named Yoani Sánchez one of the 10 Most Influential Intellectuals of Latin America, the only woman on the list.[32] An article in El Nuevo Herald by Ivette Leyva Martinez,[33] speaks to the role played by Yoani Sanchez and other young people, outside the Cuban opposition and dissidence movements, in working towards a free and democratic Cuba today:

“ Amid the paralysis of the dissident movement, bloggers, with Yoani Sanchez in the lead, rebel artists such as the writer Orlando Luis Pardo, and musicians such as Gorki Aguila are a promising sign of growing civic resistance to the Cuban dictatorship. And el castrismo, without doubt, has taken note. Will they succeed in sparking a popular movement, or at least consciousness of the need for democracy in Cuba? Who knows. The youngest sector of Cuban society is the one least committed to the dictatorship but at the same time the most apolitical, the one most permeated with political skepticism, escapism, and other similar 'isms.' It would seem, however, that after 50 years of dictatorship, public rejection of that regime is taking on more original and independent forms. Finally, a breeze of fresh, hopeful air. ”

On 29 March 2009, Yoani Sánchez, at Tania Bruguera's performance where a podium with an open mic was staged for people to have one minute of uncensored public speech, Sánchez was among people to publicly criticize censorship and said that "the time has come to jump over the wall of control". The government condemned the event.[34][35]

Yoani Sánchez is under permanent surveillance by Cuba's police force, which camps outside her home.[36]

June 2010 letter to United States Congress

On Thursday, 10 June 2010, seventy-four of Cuba's dissidents signed a letter to the United States Congress in support of a bill that would lift the US travel ban for Americans wishing to visit Cuba. The signers include blogger Yoani Sanchez and hunger striker Guillermo Farinas, as well as Elizardo Sanchez, head of Cuba's most prominent human rights group and Miriam Leiva, who helped found the Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White, a group of wives and mothers of jailed dissidents. The letter supports a bill introduced on 23 February by Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat, that would bar the president from prohibiting travel to Cuba or blocking transactions required to make such trips. It also would bar the White House from stopping direct transfers between US and Cuban banks. The signers stated that:

We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government, while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society.[37]

The Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington-based group supporting the bill, issued a press release stating that "74 of Cuba's most prominent political dissidents have endorsed the Peterson-Moran legislation to end the travel ban and expand food exports to Cuba because in their words it is good for human rights, good for alleviating hunger, and good for spreading information and showing solidarity with the Cuban people. Their letter answers every argument the pro-embargo forces use to oppose this legislation. This, itself, answers the question 'who is speaking for the Cuban people in this debate?' - those who want to send food and Americans to visit the island and stand with ordinary Cubans, or those who don't. If Cuba's best known bloggers, dissidents, hunger strikers, and other activists for human rights want this legislation enacted, what else needs be said?"[38][39] The Center also hosts English[40] as well as the Spanish[41] version of the letter signed by the 74 dissidents.

Notable people

Hunger strikes

Pedro Luis Boitel, a poet who died on hunger strike.[43]

On 3 April 1972, Pedro Luis Boitel, an imprisoned poet and dissident, declared himself on hunger strike. After 53 days on hunger strike without receiving medical assistance and receiving only liquids, he died of starvation on 25 May 1972. His last days were related by his close friend, poet Armando Valladares. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Cólon Cemetery in Havana.

Guillermo Fariñas did a seven-month hunger strike to protest against the extensive Internet censorship in Cuba. He ended it in Autumn 2006, with severe health problems although still conscious.[44] Reporters Without Borders awarded its cyber-freedom prize to Guillermo Fariñas in 2006.[45]

Jorge Luis García Pérez (known as Antúnez) has done hunger strikes. In 2009, following the end of his 17-year imprisonment, Antúnez, his wife Iris, and Diosiris Santana Pérez started a hunger strike to support other political prisoners. Leaders from Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Argentina declared their support for Antúnez.[46][47]

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, an imprisoned activist and dissident, died while on a hunger strike for more than 80 days.[48] Zapata went on the strike in protest against the Cuban government for having denied him the choice of wearing white dissident clothes instead of the designated prisoner uniform, as well as denouncing the living conditions of other prisoners. As part of his claim, Zapata was asking for the prisoners conditions to be comparable to those that Fidel Castro had while incarcerated after his 1953 attack against the Moncada Barracks.[49]

In 2012, Wilmar Villar Mendoza died after a 50+ day hunger strike.[50]

Cuban exiles

Main article: Cuban exiles

More than one million Cubans of all social classes have left the island to the United States,[51] and to Spain, The UK, Canada, Mexico and other countries. Because leaving requires exit permit and a substantial amount of money, most Cubans can never leave Cuban soil.

Dissidents are allowed to leave, but not to return. However, a dissident who returns must stay in Cuba.

Many Cuban exiles have actively campaigned for a change of government in Cuba.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Cuban Democracy movement"
  2. ↑ "Cuba". Human Rights Watch. 2006.
  3. 1 2 Paul H. Lewis. Authoritarian regimes in Latin America.
  4. ↑ Katherine Hirschfeld. Health, politics, and revolution in Cuba since 1898.
  5. ↑ Ian Lumsden. Machos, Maricones, and Gays.
  6. ↑ Dilip K. Das, Michael Palmiotto. World Police Encyclopedia. p. 217.
  7. ↑ Ian Lumsden. Machos, Maricones, and Gays. p. 70.
  8. ↑ Black Book of Communism. p. 664.
  9. ↑ Clifford L. Staten. The history of Cuba.
  10. ↑ "10 most censored countries – The Committee to Protect Journalists". Archived from the original on 2010-12-22.
  11. 1 2 3 "III. IMPEDIMENTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBAN LAW". Human Rights Watch. 1999.
  12. ↑ "II. CUBA'S INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS". Human Rights Watch.
  13. 1 2 3 "VIII. ROUTINE REPRESSION". Human Rights Watch. 1999.
  14. ↑ Jay Mallin. Covering Castro: rise and decline of Cuba's communist dictator. p. 175.
  15. ↑ "Defiant Castro Calls Western Democracy 'Complete Garbage'". New York Times. 14 October 1991.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gershman, Carl; Gutierrez, Orlando (January 2009). "Ferment in civil society" (PDF). Journal of Democracy 20 (Can Cuba change?, number 1): 36–54. doi:10.1353/jod.0.0051.
  17. ↑ The Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy 2010
  18. ↑ "CPJ's 2008 prison census: Online and in jail". Committee to Protect Journalists. Archived from the original on 2014-03-29.
  19. ↑ "Challenges to a Post-Castro Cuba" (PDF). Harvard International Review.
  20. ↑ Paul Haven (21 March 2012). "Amnesty denounces detentions of Cuba opposition". The Guardian. Associated Press. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
  21. ↑ Jeff Franks; Jane Sutton; Paul Simao (3 January 2013). "Cuban group says political detentions rose dramatically in 2012". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2013-06-26. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
  22. ↑ "Cuba: Massive crackdown on dissent". Amnesty International. 28 August 2003. Archived from the original on 2006-10-20. Retrieved 22 October 2006.
  23. ↑ "Cuba backs permanent socialism". BBC News. 27 June 2002. Archived from the original on 2007-06-11. Retrieved 22 October 2006.
  24. ↑ "Yo No Coopero Con La Dictadura website". Archived from the original on 2013-10-26.
  25. ↑ Carlos Lauria, Monica Campbell, and María Salazar (18 March 2008). "Cuba's Long Black Spring". The Committee To Protect Journalists. Archived from the original on 2011-08-30.
  26. ↑ "Black Spring of 2003: A former Cuban prisoner speaks". The Committee to Protect Journalists. Archived from the original on 2011-08-30.
  27. ↑ "Three years after "black spring" the independent press refuses to remain in the dark". The Reporters Without Borders. Archived from the original on 2009-03-21.
  28. ↑ "Cuba: No surrender by independent journalists, five years on from "black spring"" (PDF). The Reporters Without Borders. March 2008.
  29. ↑ "Cuba: "Essential measures"? Human rights crackdown in the name of security". Amnesty International. 3 June 2003. Archived from the original on 2012-10-06.
  30. ↑ "Cuba: Newly Declared Prisoners of Conscience". Archived from the original on 2013-03-12. Amnesty International, 29 January 2004
  31. ↑ "Fecha histórica: concluye liberación de prisioneros del Grupo de los 75". Archived from the original on 2011-06-25. In: Café Fuerte, 22 March 2011
  32. ↑ "Foreign Policy Espanol: Los 10 intelectuales mas influyentes de iberoamerica". Archived from the original on 2012-07-16. Retrieved 21 February 2009.
  33. ↑ "El Nuevo Herald: The wall of the dissidence". Archived from the original on 2009-02-28. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
  34. ↑ "Cuba accuses blogger of "provocation"". Reuters. 1 April 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-04-05.
  35. ↑ "Participants in art show branded as `dissidents'". Miami Herald. 1 April 2009.
  36. ↑ "Yoani sends a thank you note to her spies". France24. Archived from the original on 2011-07-21.
  37. ↑ Cuban dissidents cheer bill to end US travel ban{{dead link|date=February 2016
  38. ↑ "74 of Cuba's Leading Dissidents Urge Congress to End Travel Ban and Increase Food Sales to Cuba". Archived from the original on 2013-12-12. Archived 14 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
  39. ↑ 74 of Cuba’s Leading Dissidents Urge Congress to End Travel Ban and Increase Food Sales to Cuba Archived 13 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
  40. ↑ English version of the letter by Cuban dissidents (PDF)
  41. ↑ Spanish version of the letter by Cuban dissidents (PDF)
  42. ↑ "Castro opponent free after 17 years in jail". Reuters. 23 April 2007. Archived from the original on 2009-06-15.
  43. ↑ "Foreword to 'Boitel Vive'". Archived from the original on 2013-11-14.
  44. ↑ "Guillermo Fariñas ends seven-month-old hunger strike for Internet access". Reporters Without Borders. 1 September 2006. Archived from the original on 2008-02-22.
  45. ↑ "Cyber-freedom prize for 2006 awarded to Guillermo Fariñas of Cuba". Reporters Without Borders. Archived from the original on 2008-06-20.
  46. ↑ "Additional Latin American Leaders Join in Solidarity with Antúnez". Archived from the original on 2012-10-27.
  47. ↑ "Young Uruguayans Support Antúnez, Cuban Political Prisoners". Archived from the original on 2012-10-27.
  48. ↑ "BBS News: Americas". BBC News. 24 February 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-08-16. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
  49. ↑ The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro, by Ann Louisse Bardach and Luis Conte Aguero
  50. ↑ "Jailed Cuba dissident dies in hunger strike". Reuters. 20 January 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-06-26.
  51. ↑ Pedraza, Silvia 2007 Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics)) Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0-521-68729-4, ISBN 978-0-521-68729-4 p. 2 and many other sections of this book

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