Cuba accuses US of organizing new protest demonstrations
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cuba-accuses-us-of-organizing-new-protest-demonstrations/2021/11/10/947e2092-4255-11ec-9404-50a28a88b9cd_story.html
Take distance from the inhuman
Silvio Rodriguez
Obama's strategy was always clear to me: "don't fight him, get close to your enemy and infuse him." We can put the epithets we want, but without a doubt it was the most peaceful policy, the least bloody of all the North American presidents that touched us after 1959. On the other hand, in the same way that we receive scholarships and stay in the homes of middle-level people In the United States, it can make a young person think differently who since childhood only knows our reality - of social advantages and material deficiencies - visiting Cuba, for a young North American, can mean a great change of mentality regarding what since child heard and read about us.
That is why I have always said that, in the exchange of influence from people to people, we had the upper hand. The why is simple. For our part, we have always known that materially lives in the United States much better than in Cuba. In this sense, there are no surprises for our citizen who passes there. But for those who would have surprises, and many, it would be for North American citizens, when they discovered the quality of solidarity of our people, despite their shortcomings. And they were not going to have to read editorials that swarm in our press, written or television; It would be enough to live among us a little to find out about the effects of the blockade to which its leaders have subjected us for more than six decades.
The CIA, USAID, Soros and the blessed Anglo-Saxon ciborium know that, and they have been warning all US presidents: if we open up with Cuba, we will lose it. The first to know are the ultra-right politicians in Florida, heirs of Batista's henchmen. That is why they have created the propaganda monster that reissues, generation after generation, a fierce anti-Castro ideology, the daughter of McCarthyite anti-communism. This monster, fed for six decades, is already an electoral factor that is sometimes decisive, as has been proven. For all this, the pressure on Cuba is intensifying. Much more so when, despite our unfortunate economic reality, we are the only third world country that has created its own vaccines against Covid19.
Regarding our internal reality, I have always said that we were not what we were going to be, whatever that was, but what the conglomeration of external pressures and our own capacities has allowed us.
There is no point in crying or lamenting. The reality is the reality. And if we want it better, we cannot start by ignoring it or drawing partial conclusions. Social justice, moral and civic exemplarity also go through understanding and assuming what generates the complex. Let's not forget the result of the pressures and / or repressions that threaten impatience — virtue or defect, depending on where you look at it. The most powerful have been trying to suffocate us for 62 years. The best reason to distance yourself from everything inhuman.
( Second Appointment Blog , November 7, 2021, 10:28)
https://mojitonews.com/2021/11/07/cuba-para-escepticos/
About a protest
Does the march bring us closer to a Law on protests? Does it pave the way for an association act scheduled for the end of next year?
Staging of plays, musical shows, performances, exhibitions of visual arts, film exhibitions…more and less crowded, more and less controversial events take place on a daily basis in Cuba, in private and state spaces.
What differentiates these means of expression from another: the call for a protest? Is it that some represent a means of freedom of expression and the others do not? Is it the participation of thousands of people that gives them a dangerous bias? Of the meaning and of the regulations with which each one can operate? Of its meaning and effects on the social peace of Cuba today? What are one and the other for?
Let’s imagine that the protest act in Cuba is already in draft right now, as a Decree-Law. And that it is based not only on Article 56 of the Constitution, but on freedom of expression, the right of citizens to demand institutions of the State and society, the improvement of socialist democracy, the guarantee of social justice, etc.
In its sections and clauses, the project details the requirements to request and grant authorization for a protest; conduct oneself within what is established by the current codes; delimit the content, characteristics and route of the march; identify the corresponding jurisdiction; the number of participants; the duration; the responsibilities incurred in case of damages to property; disrespect for authority, aggression against people or things, or other violation of the stipulations of the law or of what the authorization establishes.
If we already had a law, then the problem seems very simple: just apply it. In its complementary parts, the laws usually make it clear which institutions are responsible, what are their powers, and other technical details. So, legally speaking, the problem has been cleared. Institutions do what the law says, and that’s it. Is it not true?
Before continuing down that “simple” slope, let’s stop to consider some of the abovementioned questions. If it were answered that a public demonstration, by its nature, is a very different means of expression from an artistic representation, but also very different from any other legal recourse, such as the one used to demand a just solution to a problem, which Is its specific nature? What distinguishes it? For that?
Indeed, a work of art or thought, a simple act of freedom of expression, a cultural intervention on a specific audience, a medium that carries a message — a class, an article, a post on the networks —, or the full exercise of an individual and sovereign right, do not amount to a large mass of people going through a highly regulated public environment on their own — as they tend to be everywhere.
Even if a protest has (or claims to have) a strictly peaceful intention, it is still a conscious and deliberate act that demands, in the name of those freedoms, a public space, which as such is not for anyone in particular to use on their own, no matter how many people demand it.
In other words, no freedom of expression, constitutional order or principle, human right, etc., explains the nature of a public demonstration or exhaust its meaning and effects as a political phenomenon. So discussing it legally helps to raise it, but leaves that political sense intact. To do so requires placing it in the specific context of the situation here and now.
When “political” is said in Cuba, it is almost always understood as “ideological.” It is also interpreted that it “is due to a conspiracy in progress,” coming from the North or from the Plaza, according to taste. From these two axioms it follows that there is a “moral” condition involved, which automatically characterizes the subjects. So the field of political actors is aligned, like the iron parts between two magnetic poles, in ideological tendencies, interests, personalities. “Dogmatic” and “centrists,” those who “respond to the Party-State” and to “imperialism and its followers,” those who “have sold their consciences” and those who “do everything to preserve their privileges.”
Although “there is everything in the Lord’s vineyard,” I am going to limit myself here to characterizing this imagined demonstration, in terms of its implications and costs, as a concrete political action, regardless of its declared intentions and protagonists.
The march is not a spontaneous and improvised action like the sit-in on N27 and the J11 protests. There was no cohesive command then, much less a maximum leader. The N27 was made and remade on the way, until the original group fell apart, and only a name remained that had little to do with its initial meaning. As for the J11, it did not even have an agenda, but it was a chain reaction marked by anomie, food and power shortages, the cost of living, the COVID-19 surge. It is not probable that the circumstances of both events will conjugate again. Although other calls for dialogue and other spontaneous protests may occur, the government must have learned its lesson, and will try to prevent them by all means.
In contrast, the recently called march constitutes a structured and conscious political action from the moment of its enunciation. It is built on the dramatic progression that characterizes calculated political action. If compared to a staging, this progression is already present in everything that precedes its hypothetical “premiere” on N15. Like the synopsis that viewers receive in advance, its plan and management has contained all the details necessary to imagine it: subject, protagonists, accompaniment, place where the action takes place, outline of the conflict, turning points, temporal sequence, suspense, predictable outcome.
CNN says the government is afraid of the protest. I always say that “the government” is many people. But if Article 56 was drafted, included and approved in the new Constitution; and if it was put into the 2020 legislative plan, it is because in “the government” those who had the intention of creating the possibility of carrying them out prevailed. I don’t know if the President of the Republic was among them; what matters is that the legitimacy of the marches was within the logic that was considered necessary in this reordering of the system, beyond conjunctures and personalities.
If ever the idea of the march was viable in terms of negotiation, the unilateral publication of its call, and the express will to carry it out in any way, gave the request for authorization a peremptory character. Congruent with that fait accompli, or “coyunda” as it is said in Cuban, were the political operations that have accompanied it in parallel from the beginning: promotional campaigns, new slogans, gestures of support and empathy, as well as any number of debates in the networks, and wiggling on the way to its stated purpose. Last but not least, there is the entry of the established counterrevolutionary organizations, such as UNPACU, from very early on in this peaceful march project, marked it with a particular ambivalence.
The “real” political meaning of the march, expressed in this ambivalence, can be measured in the gap between what is proposed as intention and what it has produced in its virtual anticipation: a political project that proclaims dialogue and reconciliation and that all the time has sharpened polarization. Its effect on a Cuba hit by the crisis and the pandemic, especially that of those social groups most exposed, does not give them a breath of hope and relief of tensions. Nor does it make it easier for a country that has lived in quarantine for 20 months to recover its communicating vessels and foreign relations, vital for the well-being of the majority, and the continuity of the reforms.
Despite displaying the banners of pluralism, the speech of the march and its companions contribute little to understanding; on the contrary, it is characterized by its combative tone, which resonates with many followers as a call for a coup de grace to the regime. Typically, this escalation has resulted in the hardening of the most radical trends. So the political reaction on the other side is predictable. After being silent for several weeks, the authorities announced the ban. In a way, this chronicle of an announced death was part of the premises and the deployment of the project from its inception.
Let’s imagine that, despite the absence of a law that regulates it and defines its limits, the government would have accepted this political action with oppositional content, and would have given it a totally open and very central public space, in the heart of Havana. It was in the hands of the managing group of N27 to keep the peace, and prevent unknown provocateurs from introducing violent actions, among a small group sitting peacefully on a street in El Vedado. It is something very different to govern a crowd of 5,000 or more, at the crossroads between the Parque Central and the Capitol, four months after J11.
Resounding the banners of freedom of expression, respect for due judicial process of even those whose ideas are not shared, making dialogue and the debate of ideas about unilateralism and coercion prevail, could generate a degree of consensus. Planning a simultaneous march in several the island’s cities and in the heart of exile, aimed at putting critical pressure on the government, and demanding a pluralism that encompasses the most recalcitrant sectors of that opposition, openly allied with foreign powers and anti-communist causes, leaves out many of those who advocate dialogue, diversity and debate of ideas, and who oppose coercion.
Authorizing the march, and facilitating a countermarch of those and others who are dissatisfied, that same day and at that same hour, would it contribute to the climate of understanding, reconciliation, peace, stability? Would it enrich the debate of ideas and strengthen a culture of dialogue, as opposed to conflict and hatred? Or does it lead us on an indefinite escalade of marches and countermarches?
Let’s say, finally: does the march bring us closer to Law on protests? Does it pave the way for an association act scheduled for the end of next year? This would be time to think hard, because otherwise, the spirit of the reforms can be spoiled in a series of combative actions that muddy and delay everything. Now that there is so much need, as never in the last decades, for lucidity and equanimity, the kind recommended by wise political thinkers and strategists.
I wish I had exchanged all these questions and problems with one of those wise men. When it comes to understanding Cuba, having taken advantage of the wisdom of someone like Juan Valdés Paz has been a fortune for more than 50 years. Now that he has just left, as the great old men who taught us to think are leaving, the best thing is not to lose his orientation. And to do so, after all, an imaginary dialogue also works. I think that not because he has left he will stop listening to me.
Rafael Hernándezhttps://oncubanews.com/en/opinion/about-a-protest/
U.S. Threatens Sanctions If Cuba Prosecutes Promoters of Civic March
EFEWashington22 Oct. 2021
File photo in which the U.S. government's top adviser for Latin America, Juan González, was registered, who warned that his country will respond, possibly with sanctions, if the "fundamental rights" of the Cuban people are "violated" or the promoters of the opposition civic march called for November 15 are prosecuted. EFE/Raul Martinez
The United States warned Friday that it will respond, possibly with sanctions, if the "fundamental rights" of the Cuban people are "violated" or the promoters of the opposition civic march called for November 15 in Cuba are prosecuted.
This was indicated in an interview with Efe Juan González, the main adviser for Latin America of the US president, Joe Biden, after the Cuban Prosecutor's Office threatened to charge crimes to the conveners of that opposition march in case they carry it out.
"Those individuals who are involved in violating the fundamental and universal rights of the Cuban people, is something to which we have made it very clear that we have every intention of responding," González said by telephone.
Biden's adviser thus responded to the question of whether Washington will sanction Cuban officials in case the organizers of the November march end up prosecuted or imprisoned for keeping that peaceful demonstration standing, an initiative unprecedented in 60 years.
The Cuban government has denied permission to hold that march, which it considers "illegal," and on Thursday the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Havana said that if the conveners maintain their plan, they could incur crimes punishable by economic sanctions and deprivation of liberty from three months to a year.
In a challenge to the government, activists announced last week that they would keep calling for their peaceful march, which aims to call for respect for the rights and release of political prisoners, among other issues.
The United States has sharply criticized the Cuban government's decision to prevent the protest from taking place, and González said Friday that the island's leaders are "afraid to have a national conversation with the Cuban people."
"Threatening peaceful protesters shows that you have lost the will and support of the people," Biden's adviser said.
"The future of Cuba will not be determined from Washington, (but) we are fully committed to supporting, supporting and strengthening the voice of the Cuban people who want change," he said.
González also spoke of the hardest line he has taken towards Cuba Biden, who has sanctioned senior military officials on the island for their alleged role in the repression of the protests of July 11 and has avoided following the path of the thaw that marked former President Barack Obama (2009-2017).
"What we have to recognize is that there was a world before July 11 and another after, where the regime took off its mask in repressive acts against the people," the official said.
Unlike during the so-called "maleconazo" of 1994, what happened in July in the protests in Cuba "is now being seen by the world," and "the people who are sacrificing their lives, their rights" want "to be seen, and to be defended," he added.
"We are committed to that, and we do not see that as a hard line, but it is a commitment in favor of the fundamental rights of Cubans," González said.
The adviser did not want to comment on Biden's position on the U.S. embargo on Cuba, stating that this is "an issue of the United States Congress," which is the one that has the ability to lift it.
If he wanted to, Biden could urge Congress to lift the embargo, as Obama did in his second term, but his administration chose this year to defend it during the annual vote at the UN on a resolution condemning that US measure, by voting against the text.
Spanish original https://www.efe.com/efe/america/politica/ee-uu-amenaza-con-sanciones-si-cuba-procesa-a-los-promotores-de-la-marcha-civica/20000035-4658614
The complexity of the political moment, the importance of the whole
Julio Carranza
There are many articles on the internet and in publications whose main contents are strong criticisms of the problems and deformations that the current system in Cuba currently has, with all frankness and of course that I am referring to those that have serious claims, not so much pamphlet that runs, I find extensive paragraphs of those texts that I generally share, there is everything that I have published for years, you could see the coincidences, but there are other paragraphs and especially many omissions that I do not share at all.
If you ask me why, my answer is: because I think that there is often a lack of more sense of reality as a whole, Cuba is Cuba and its circumstances, its realities, Cuba (in reality no country) is not just a "must be." .
I have said on different occasions, because that is what I believe, that true democracy can only be socialist, but that true socialism can only be democratic; However, these processes occur in specific historical conditions, with risks, threats and conditioning factors that escape any theoretical prefiguration.
In Cuba today there is a very clear political struggle, there is a struggle where different conceptions, different paradigms, different interests confront, there are also "heretics" (which makes me happy) and there are "renegades" (which I dislike), but there are also powerful Very powerful, external interventions that have little to do with the legitimate interests of the country and less with the progressive meaning of its history, although some born on the island support them or see them as "allies."
This leads to a complex crossroads before which it is necessary to be very transparent, the nodal point is how to advance and quickly an agenda of transformations of all kinds that the country undoubtedly needs to be viable, to be efficient, to be more inclusive, etc. and that they clash with the resistance of an iron, interested and heavy bureaucracy, but at the same time doing it without favoring, but not one millimeter, an agenda alien to the legitimate interests of the country and its majorities, by the way of a small, poor country , attacked and in a very difficult geopolitical and geoeconomic location. In my opinion there is a watershed there.
Of course that no system is irreversible by decree, etc., of course that rights must be guaranteed, etc., of course that the government and any political force must be open to criticism, dialogue, renewal, greater inclusion, but of course it is also necessary to have and clearly express the challenges implied for the country, to confront without ambiguity with the external power that imposes them. The main problem is that of the nation and its sovereignty, an indispensable condition for the well-being of its population and any mistake (or conscious action) can contribute to its destruction. The US policy towards Cuba is not only against socialism, it is also against the independent nation.
Sometimes the texts that I read call my attention, as there is a deep criticism (which I often share) of the problems of the current system in the country, but only a minor whisper, if not silence, to also analyze, objectively and rejecting the serious hegemonic pretensions that they threaten, it will be because at least they see in them "temporary traveling companions" that they consider necessary and / or useful to promote what they consider to be their objectives. In my opinion, if this were the case, it is a very dangerous opportunism and perhaps with no possible return.
You have to give an account of the whole, without excluding or underestimating anything, and the whole is very diverse and very complex. It is necessary to confront clearly with knowledge of history and without naivety what is opposed to the sovereignty of the nation, without "flirting." Without sovereignty, any future would be worse, as we must also seriously criticize our own problems and deformations that must be urgently overcome, discuss, promote alternatives. Without this, any future would also be worse, that is what today is, I believe, the faithful of the policy that must be done.
(From his Facebook wall, October 22, 2021) https://mojitonews.com/2021/11/07/cuba-para-escepticos/
THEY WILL NOT SHUT US UP
Against our will we have to pause to report, for the first time in this way, acts of repression and coercion against members of our team.
As a journalistic medium, we have avoided being the protagonists of stories, we have chosen to tell other people's stories.
But in recent days, the State Security and other repressive apparatuses of the Ministry of the Interior have decided to intimidate and threaten members of our team, with a barrage of police summons.
In less than a week, four elTOQUE workers have been summoned for questioning at National Revolutionary Police stations in Havana; the last three in less than 48 hours. These are four young women, with responsibilities as different as journalist, designer, producer and visual artist of the graphic supplement Xel2 .
The pressures and questions of the agents turn in the same direction: accuse the work we do of mercenarism and try to find ties that unite us to the Archipelago group or to any of the assumptions that inhabit the minds of the anonymous officials.
With all our energy we denounce the harassment to which our colleagues are being subjected . We understand this abuse of authority as an act that seeks to punish and instill terror in them and in our entire team, simply by assuming our professional responsibility and exercising our inalienable right to express ourselves, to exist as a means of communication, to inform and to contrast the discourse of the can.
Our work is that of a press outlet that accompanies citizens. For this reason, we will reflect and give space to any political current or citizen group that exercises their rights, without prejudice to the rights of others. Today we are talking about the Archipelago because it is an agenda , as before we have talked about the social outbreak of June 11, November 27, the San Isidro Movement ... We have offered and will offer tools and arguments to all people who can access our content to understand the changing reality in the who live.
We are not the first and we will not be the last to experience the persecution of Cuban police agencies for professional and ideological reasons. In fact, it is not the first time that we have faced attempts at censorship through repression.
In order not to get carried away by passions, to avoid falling into the polarization to which the institutions of the Cuban political system unfailingly wish to lead us, and out of respect for the will of the affected people to remain silent, we have decided not to denounce previous abuses. We have preferred (and prefer) to respond to them with sustained work.
The escalation that the Cuban authorities seem to have undertaken against our project, as part of their offensive against all political expression of civil society that they do not control, makes it impossible to remain silent.
With the same determination that we denounce these police summons today, we will denounce in all the spaces within our reach every act of intimidation that the Cuban security forces undertake against members of our team and against civil society.
We hold the Cuban authorities responsible for any physical or emotional damage that our colleagues may suffer. We also hold them responsible for the damages that these interrogations may cause in the family, professional and social environment of these people. We ask organizations, international agencies and the media to continue to denounce the harassment to which hundreds of people are being subjected in Cuba.
We advocate for the peaceful solution of differences between Cubans, we promote understanding and understanding, and we will continue to strive to deliver a product that is as objective and useful as possible to our audiences. We are truthful, not neutral, and our responsibility is to the Homeland, to the Cuban Nation, which are not the fiefdom or exclusive domain of a political organization and its supporters.
Today we affirm it with total conviction: they will not silence us.
Original in Spanish https://eltoque.com/no-nos-callaran
Following difficult months of pandemic, a disturbing world economic crisis, and an unrelenting, intensified blockade, which have hit our people hard, Cuba is beginning to revive social life, public spaces and services, schools, tourism and other sectors of the economy.
We are currently the country in the Americas with the highest percentage of the population to have received at least one dose of an anti-COVID 19vaccine; the highest daily vaccination rate in the world against the disease; and the only nation that has been able to undertake a massive immunization campaign for children two years of age and up. All this has been possible because of the country's capacity to produce our own vaccines, as a result of the scientific policy designed and promoted by Fidel and the talent of men and women educated by the Revolution.
We are recuperating on the basis of our own strengths, with the unwavering spirit, dignity and capacity for resistance of our people, the serene, firm direction of the country’s leadership, in the spirit of victory and the creativity that we have developed over so many years of hard battles.
Those who have bet on the failure of socialism in Cuba and saw July 11 as the definitive blow to the Revolution, are frustrated and in a hurry to implement their plans. They intend to prevent any possibility of wellbeing, individual and collective development, citizen tranquility and peace in our homeland.
Toward this end, they are promoting a diversity of destabilizing actions in the country, in order to provoke an incident that would lead to the social explosion that would produce the longed-for military intervention, which they are loudly advocating in Miami and even in front of the White House itself.
Neither 62 years of blockade, nor its 243 additional measures, have been able to defeat us, nor will they succeed in doing so - thus the repeated attempts to produce a "soft coup," part of the intense unconventional warfare they wage against us. One blow on top of another.
In the Central Report to the 8th Party Congress, Army General Raul Castro Ruz warned:"The program of subversion and ideological/cultural manipulation has been redoubled, directed toward discrediting the socialist model of development and presenting capitalist restoration as our only alternative.
"The subversive element of U.S. policy toward Cuba is focused on rupturing national unity. In this sense, priority is given to actions focused on youth, women and academics, the artistic and intellectual sector, journalists, athletes, people with diverse sexualities and religions. Matters of interest to specific groups related to animal protection, the environment, artistic and cultural expressions are manipulated, while totally disregarding existing institutions.
"Acts of aggression continue to be financed with the use of radio and television stations based in the United States, while monetary support for the development of platforms for the generation of ideological contents that openly advocate overthrowing the Revolution, call demonstrations in public spaces, incite the execution of sabotage and terrorist acts, including the assassination of agents of public order and representatives of the revolutionary government. Without a trace of shame, the amounts to be paid from the United States to compensate individuals who carry out these criminal acts are publically announced.
"Let us not forget that the U.S. government created the "Internet Task Force for Cuba"
which aspires to use social networks as channels of subversion, establish wireless networks beyond state control and conduct cyberattacks on critical infrastructure...
"Lies, manipulation and the dissemination of fake news no longer know any limits. Through them, a virtual image of Cuba as a dying society with no future, on the verge of collapse and leading to the longed-for social explosion, is crafted and spread to the four winds."
Sectors of the traditional counterrevolution and new characters, educated in the leadership courses financed by U.S. foundations and the federal budget, have articulated their efforts toward these ends. They lack a social base within the country, but are well instructed, financed and supported from abroad.
The empire supplies money and raises the expectations of the annexationists they train, who under the false banner of pacifism seek to provoke more disturbances, generate chaos and destabilize the country.
Over the last few weeks, the intention was announced to hold an allegedly peaceful march in November, conceived to take place simultaneously in several of the country’s cities. The declared purposes and organizational scheme reveal a provocation articulated as part of the "regime change" strategy for Cuba, previously tested in other countries.
Dates with a certain symbolism were chosen, but this time it seems they also wanted to exhibit their stature as annexationists. Did they want to celebrate President Biden's birthday with an attack on the Revolution that has so annoyed imperial administrations for 62 years? They were left empty-handed. One of their promoters was trained in courses sponsored by the right-wing Argentine foundation CADAL, U.S. universities and think tanks like the Carnegie Fund for International Peace, led until recently by current CIA director William J. Burns. Among the topics addressed in his indoctrination were the training of leaders, confrontations with government structures, the dynamics of mobilization, and the role of the Armed Forces in the "democratic transition".
Last July 11, this person was the organizer of an attempted takeover of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT), following Step no. 167 outlined in the Nonviolent Action Workshop which proposes: Nonviolent "attacks, “takeovers which begin with a march and (lead to) the peaceful occupation of a site or building.
More recently, he has joined a subversive project in academic garb, assuming a seat on its Deliberative Council along with the terrorist Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, who is accompanied by counterrevolutionary leaders of the so-called Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba, a platform that is articulates efforts to organize an anti-constitutional coup in the country, who have openly acknowledged receiving funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a front for the U.S. government.
As soon as it was announced by its organizers, the march received strident public support from U.S. legislators, political operators of the anti-Cuban mafia and media that encourage actions against the Revolution. Tweets, declarations, Resistance Assemblies and other frenetic actions fill Miami these days, as if the demonstration were set to take place in that city. Regime change, overthrowing the government and military intervention are once again the prevailing narrative in South Florida.
Among the most fervent supporters of the provocation are Congress members Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar; refashioned terrorist Gutierrez Boronat, who has declared his support for the action "to overthrow the regime;" the Cuban American National Foundation; and the mercenary Brigade 2506, whose current president declared in Miami, "With these steps, an explosion will be fomented inside Cuba, so that once again our brothers will take to the streets and this will lead us to the collapse of the regime..."
As denounced by the U.S. media outlet MintPressNews, many of the operators of the campaign on digital social networks in support of the demonstration live in Florida or other U.S. states. "The participation of foreign citizens in Cuba's internal affairs has reached a level which would be inconceivable within the United States," the publication states. The direct involvement of the U.S. government in this counterrevolutionary farce is also explicit and provocative. No care has been taken to conceal this and no one can do so honestly. High ranking government officials are directly involved in the demonstration’s promotion and, with the support of special services, in its organization.
An important instrument, though not the only one, is the U.S. embassy in Cuba, which has issued public statements often including open interference in the nation's internal affairs.
This office, a product of the bilateral agreements signed in 2015 to formalize diplomatic relations between the two countries, has not played any diplomatic role for years. It does not even provide the immigration and consular services upon which citizens of both countries depend and demand. Its officials, including the chargé d'affaires, are obliged to play the undignified role of babysitters of counterrevolutionary proponents and provocateurs in our country, with the thankless task of keeping them in line, providing them with logistical and material support, as well as advice and guidance. All of this is well-known and documented. The embassy's own activity on digital networks provides evidence of what is occurring and what the counterrevolution is doing.
This conduct is in total contravention of international law and in particular of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
With such sponsors and stated purposes, it is very difficult to make claims about civility and pacifism with respect to the action called for November. Much less of legitimate, sovereign intentions.
What is at stake here, and no one should have any doubt, is Cuba's right to defend itself from foreign aggression, regardless of the disguise it assumes.
The organizers attempt to cloak themselves in the Constitution to legitimize the provocation. They use constitutional precepts to defend anti-constitutional strategies. They invoke the right to demonstrate expressed in the Magna Carta, but they perversely forget that the Constitution itself, in Article 45, states that the rights of the people are limited by, among other aspects, respect for this supreme legal norm: "The exercise of the rights of the people is limited only by the rights of others, collective security, the general welfare, respect for the public order, the Constitution and laws."
This Magna Carta, approved in a referendum just three years ago by 86.85 % of the voters, clearly defines in its Article 4: "The socialist system is recognized by this Constitution as irrevocable."
Article 229 also states, "In no case shall stipulations on the irrevocability of the socialist system, established in Article 4, be subject to reform, nor the prohibition of negotiations under the circumstances foreseen in appendix (a) of Article 16."
It is clear that neither now, nor in the future, can the right to demonstrate be used to subvert the political system, to overthrow Cuba’s socialist project or to establish alliances with groups and organizations that receive foreign financing with the objective of promoting the interests of the government of the United States or other foreign powers.
The right does not exist in our country to take action in favor of a foreign power’s interests or to put the stability of the public order at risk. It is unconstitutional, illegitimate, and immoral to subscribe to an annexationist project. Our laws say so and our history says so.
This is how our national hero José Marti warned us: "In our land there is another plan more sinister than that we have known to date, and this is a heinous plan to force the island to precipitously launch a war, to create a pretext for intervention and, assuming credit as the mediator and guarantor, appropriate it ... Why die, to lend support to these people who push us toward death for their own benefit? Our lives are worth more, and it is necessary that the island understand this in time. And there are Cubans, who, with simulated avowals of patriotism, serve these interests!"
Enough of lies and crude manipulation of the facts. No one is going to be crushed by tanks in the streets, as the spokespeople of this next provocation have widely claimed. The Moncada exercise is part of the training we regularly provide in preparation for our defense. In the face of such provocations, it is only right that we conduct this most legitimate act in defense of the people and their conquests.
Dignity, resistance and unity are our most powerful strengths in confronting this dishonorable, devious annexationist action that serves the historical enemy of the Cuban nation in its plans to split and divide us, in order to defeat us. Something they have not, and will not be able to do. Truth is our shield.
https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-10-19/truth-is-our-shield
Yunior Garcia's Personal Agenda is Regime Change
https://translatingcuba.com/message-from-yunior-garcia-aguilera-of-the-archipielago-collective/
In
the year 2022, the country of our birth will mark 70 years without democracy. My
parents have never been able to freely choose their ideology, their party, or
their president. They have had to resign themselves to the decisions of others
and have had to ratify those decisions to avoid trouble. In Cuba, unfortunately,
to keep quiet about what we really think is seen by many as a sign of
intelligence. They always ask us to wait for the right “time” and “place”
which never really come. ....
It is true that there were some
achievements and wins it’s not all gloom and doom. But what good are benefits
if they will be used to blackmail me later? What is the value of my education if
I am later forbidden to think with my own mind? Many slaves also learned to
read. And they did not pay with money for their little corner of the barracks or
their lunch, they paid with obedience and the sweat of their backs. If any of
them happened to demand a change of regime, the whip, the stocks and the shackle
would certainly await them. ...
What they call “alliances” is nothing
more than honest dialogue involving all Cubans, without discriminating against
anyone. No regime will ever again tell us which Cuban we can or cannot talk
with. We are not going to reproduce their scheme of prejudice, stigma and
demonization. ...
On
November 15 we will march without hatred. We are assuming a right that has
never been respected in 62 years of dictatorship, but we are going to assume it
with civility. Everyone will be looking towards Cuba that day. We know that the
power structure plays dirty, that it gives combat orders against its own people,
that it lies to our faces, that it would even be capable of infiltrating its
paramilitaries into the march to generate violence and later blame it on us.
Each citizen must be responsible for their conduct and defend the peaceful and
firm attitude that we have called for.
November 15 can and should be
a beautiful day. Wherever a Cuban lives, we know that his heart will be in Cuba.
May the powerful not insist on behaving in a cowardly fashion against their own
citizens. Do not repeat the crime of July 11. May officers and
soldiers understand that there is no honor in obeying immoral orders. I also
hope that no foreign power interferes in an issue that we ourselves must resolve
with true sovereignty, that of citizens.
Denial of permit to demonstrate
November 20 and the right to demonstrate in Cuba
Recognition of the right of Cubans to demonstrate has been a hot topic for decades. Throughout 62 years of Revolutionary Government, the exercise of freedom of expression, as well as the rights of association and demonstration,have been restricted by a restrictive interpretation and by the selective application of the law.
In the 1976 constitutional text,these rights were expressly limited to the "aims of socialist society". This phrase of immense ambiguity allowed any authority to exercise prior censorship according to its criteria, that is, arbitrarily. For practical purposes, any opinion capable of being interpreted as contrary to the ideology and doctrine of the PCC could be repressed and persecuted.
The 2019 Constitution,on the other hand, introduces a much more flexible recognition framework. However, this has not meant a change in policy in this regard by the government, which continues to treat as a crime the exercise of the right to demonstrate and free expression that implies a denunciation or criticism of the system.
Following the letters signed by several people and delivered to the administrations of different cities, in which the intention to hold a peaceful demonstration scheduled for November 20 is notified, a question has been placed at the center of the national debate: Can citizens be denied the exercise of constitutional rights?
In its article 61, the Constitution of 2019 recognizes the right of people to address petitions to the authorities, "those who are obliged to process them and give timely, pertinent and substantiated responses within the deadline and according to the procedure established by law." So, can complaints and petitions be submitted to the administration? Yes. Is it legal to sign them? Yes. Therefore, the letters of request for the realization of the peaceful march are within Cuban law.
Cartel publicado en el grupo Archipiélago para convocar a la marcha ciudadana del 20 de noviembre (Foto: Facebook)
So what about the possibility of manifesting ourselves? Article 56 of the Constitution recognizes the rights of assembly, demonstration and association for lawful and peaceful purposes. In practice, however, instead of such recognition, it is punished in flagrant violation of the provisions of the Constitution. Do we have the right to demonstrate peacefully? The answer is: absolutely, yes.
What would happen if the administration denies the request for the November 20 demonstration? Does this invalidate our right to do so? No. Even if the authorities do not grant permits to take the appropriate administrative measures, such as closing avenues and facilitating the march, we still have the right to demonstrate.
So much so, that article 292 of the Criminal Code establishes the offence against the rights of assembly, demonstration, association, complaint and petition. Under the same, they are punishable by deprivation of liberty from three months to one year or a fine of one hundred to three hundred quotas or both, to anyone who prevents the celebration of a lawful demonstration or the attendance at it; it also punishes anyone who refuses or hinders a person from addressing complaints or petitions to the authority. If the offender is a public official, the penalty ranges from six months to two years or a fine of two hundred to five hundred installments.
That is, it is not only illegal to obstruct the exercise of these rights, but it can also constitute a crime. The Constitution is the law of laws; you cannot prohibit what you allow. It should also be noted that rights imply duties in return. In this case, the demonstration implies the duty of both citizens and the authorities to respect it.
The natural limits to the exercise of rights will always be direct harm to other individuals or groups. This is the meaning that should be used for terms such as "public order", which are usually used to try to justify repression.
Being aware of this is the best way to empower ourselves as citizens and as a nation. Permission is not requested to have rights, nor are they granted or approved, they are exercised.
FERNANDO ALMEYDA RODRIGUEZ
Degree in Law and In Sciences of Religion. Lawyer, researcher, journalist and essayist.
*******************************
Cuba absolutely
and categorically condemns all manifestations of terrorism
New York, October 5, 2021." Cuba's energetic action and
condemnation of terrorism is absolute and categorical against all terrorist
acts, methods and practices in all their forms and manifestations by whomever
it wants, against whomever it wants, and wherever they are perpetrated,
whatever their motivations, including those in which governments are directly
or indirectly involved"; Ambassador Pedro L. Pedroso Cuesta, Cuba's permanent
representative to the United Nations, said strongly on Tuesday.
In his statement, which took place during the debate on Item 111
of the Un Sixth Committee, entitled "Measures to eliminate international
terrorism", the Cuban representative pointed out that terrorism cannot and
should not be linked to any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic
group. Their confrontation must be holistic, through direct actions also aimed
at prevention to eradicate their root causes, he added.
Likewise, he strongly rejected the manipulation of an issue as
sensitive as international terrorism to turn it into an instrument of policy
against any country. He explained that the harmful practice of certain States
of financing, supporting or promoting subversive acts of "regime
change", as well as messages of intolerance and hatred against other
peoples, cultures or political systems, through the use of modern information
and communication technologies, is in violation of the principles of the
Charter of the United Nations and international law; this is the case, for
example, of the political-communication campaign of the United States against
Cuba.
Pedroso Cuesta also condemned the unilateral acts of certain
States that abrogate the right to certify conduct and make politically
motivated lists, also contrary to international law, since these acts undermine
the central authority of the General Assembly in the fight against terrorism.
The international community cannot accept that, under the banner
of an alleged fight against terrorism, certain States carry out acts of
aggression, directly or indirectly against sovereign peoples, and flagrant
violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law are committed, he
said.
(Cubaminrex-Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations)
http://www.cubaminrex.cu/es/cuba-condena-absoluta-y-categoricamente-todas-las-manifestaciones-de-terrorismo
***************************
Upping the Ante
Alexander Perez Rodriguez is a Seventh Day Adventist minister in Florida who sparked the protest in San Antonio de los Banos. He is projecting a more militant version of November 20th: “hit the streets until they [the government] fall,” “all of Cuba is preparing for this!”. I saw it in an article republished by Progresso Weekly by the US conspiracy oriented Mint Press News https://progresoweekly.us/private-facebook-group-that-organized-july-cuba-protests-plans-bigger-ones-soon/
On
the government side, Marc Frank suggests the timing of annual military exercises
is not coincidental Is it designed to take people away from protesting, to send
a signal of the power of the government or for potential direct
confrontation?
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-calls-national-defense-day-date-dissident-protest-2021-10-08/
*******************************
Seeking a Rational Path
an excerpt from interviews with Rafael Hernandez and Carlos Alzugaray that bear
on the planned November 15th protests.
Rafael is the creator and editor of
Temas, the social sciences magazine that pushes the envelope on discussion of
many issues. He has been a visiting professor at both Harvard and Columbia and
a leader in the Latin American Studies Association's Cuba section.
Carlos is former ambassador to the European Union and a widely published author on US-Cuba relations.
- (Alzugaray) Second, it is urgent that legislation be passed on peaceful protest. In a press conference before foreign correspondents, the president of the Supreme Court, Rubén Remigio Ferro, affirmed that in Cuba it was not a crime to hold a different political opinion and express it in public. He added: "We are not troglodytes." It is an important clarification. As it is also important to insist on compliance with the rules of due process and a Socialist State of Law.
- In the criteria of the Doctor of Historical Sciences, everything established
in the laws that prevent arbitrary detentions and other common practices must be
applied; legislating on how citizens can protest peacefully; render a report of
what happened with total transparency; amnesty or pardon, as appropriate, those
who demonstrated without violence; establish a kind of truce and promote spaces
for dialogue.
- Rafael Hernández, for his part, prefers not to mix the analysis of the political system and the legal order.
- “If law and politics had a coincident identity, it would be enough for the Communist Party of Cuba to define itself as the Party of the Nation (art. 5) for it to be in a position to exercise that role of representation, politically speaking. It would be enough for a Press Law to recognize non-state media, as the Constitution leaves open (art. 55), for anti-government digital media to engage in a balanced informative role, instead of a very belligerent one, such as the one they exercise.
- “The fact that the Law is nowhere the mirror of politics does not mean that
the norms agreed upon in the recently approved Cuban Constitution are
meaningless. On the contrary, that Constitution, even with its limitations,
represents a new legal framework for doing politics. Let's say, for example, the
recognition of the right to public demonstration, assembly and association
(art. 56) . That the State turns towards there does not happen
automatically, it requires a process that makes it effective, through a practice
that adjusts it, not just in a written norm that stipulates it, and that may
have more than one application.
- The original Spanish is here
- https://medium.com/revista-alma-mater/desaf%C3%ADos-del-consenso-pol%C3%ADtica-812e6493746c
- **********************************************************
- Look in right margin for other resources posted recently and in previous months.
- My own evolving analysis of July 11th and afterwards is here
- https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/08/evolving-personal-thoughts-about-cubas.html
- My comments to US government officials are here https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/07/mcauliff-messages-to-white-house-and.html
- --John McAuliff
- Fund for Reconciliation and Development
- director@ffrd.org
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