Well, the word freedom is very broad. Very broad. But what is fundamental is freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of association, that you shouldn’t feel restricted about anything, that you can have economic freedom too, social and cultural…of religion.
You can’t say bad things against the [Cuban] Revolution. And it has its consequences. Even today while they’re implementing cosmetic reforms to clean up their image. Because enacting little reforms here and there doesn’t do anything and they’re doing it because the Cuban Revolution is going bankrupt.
They do not have an economy, no one has anything and they’re looking for economic resources wherever they can. Because the current situation in the country is the most chaotic they’ve seen in all of their time; worse than the “Special Period” because now things are very expensive, and people cannot afford things. People do not have money.
The only ones who can go to a shopping center are those that have family outside of the country sending them a little money. [Cuba’s “Special Period” refers to the country’s severe recession in the 1990s sparked by the fall of the Soviet Union.]
And then you may [or may not] be able to buy something, because even with your honest hard labor in Cuba you cannot survive. That society is being downgraded every day, in the sense that people steal from the government to be able to live. If you drive a truck, you steal the diesel, steal gasoline; if you work in a bar, you steal rum. If you work in a gas station, you steal the gasoline. In the end, everyone has to steal in order to survive.
And therefore what happens is that society morally disintegrates and there comes a moment when people get used to it and accept it as their way of life. It’s a matter of survival. And precisely because of the fear of speaking out, no one takes a step forward. Because they believe that taking a step forward leads to uncertainty, and there lies the oppression, the darkness. And no one knows what’s on the other side. And people do not position themselves to find a better life; to find something…that really guides them in life. And take the bold step and break the fear like we did in that moment [the Group of 75]; like we did when we broke with fear.
Well, we suffered our consequences; but if a great majority of the people breaks with fear, then they cannot imprison half of Cuba. [In March 2003, the Cuban government arrested 75 nonviolent dissidents in an event known as the Black Spring.] And I know that more than 60 or 70 percent of the Cuban population is not with the regime. And it’s not even because of the shortages, or the needs that people have, but because of the lack of justice, the lack of equality, the lack of morals and the corruption… everything [terrible] that exists in that place.
And we turn back, and the Ladies in White continue to battle in that sense; UNPACU [Union Patriotica de Cuba], and other Cuban organizations. But I repeat, they have to unite; they have to unite and the message must be the same.
[The Ladies in White is a civil society organization founded by the mothers, spouses and daughters of the 75 dissidents who were imprisoned by Cuban authorities during the “Black Spring” crackdown in March 2003. The Union Patriotica de Cuba or Patriotic Union of Cuba is a civil society organization founded in 2011. Its mission is uniting the Cuban opposition and advocating for nonviolent struggle against the repression of civil liberties on the island of Cuba.]
When there is democracy, everyone can have his own organization that can propose its plan and offer it to the general public. And the people can choose. Now is the time to unite, not to have separate political beliefs against the government, because we won’t accomplish anything that way. We must find everything that unites us, not the things that divide us. And well, democracy is precisely the freedom of individuals to think for themselves.
There are different roads but they must all end up in the same place. Each can choose his own road. But they must reach consensus [now]; that is my message. They must find a consensus so that all those roads can join and they can arrive at the same place, and when democracy arrives, they can present their views because that’s how politics works.
Arturo Perez de Alejo Rodríguez was born in Manicarauga, Cuba on May 23, 1951. He received a degree in topography and worked in several different fields, including as a subsistence farmer and as a surveyor. As a young man, Arturo believed the 1959 Cuban Revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power would change Cuba for the better.
Arturo soon became disenchanted with the Castro regime. He was drafted into military service and sent as part of a Cuban force in Angola’s civil war during the 1970s. As a soldier, he witnessed acts of brutality that sharply contrasted with the official version of events.
In 1980, thousands of Cuban citizens stormed the Peruvian Embassy seeking asylum to escape from the Castro regime. Following the incident, the regime announced it would allow people to leave Cuba, but privately, the government encouraged its supporters to harass and brutalize those fleeing the island. The events at the Embassy of Peru led Arturo to break with the government.
In the 1990s, Arturo became more active in the Cuban opposition. In 2001, he founded the Escambray Human Rights Front, which monitored human rights violations in the region. Arturo was arrested in March 2003, as one of 75 nonviolent dissidents during a massive crackdown known as the Black Spring. He was subjected to a summary trial and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his opposition to the Castro regime.
After more than seven years as a prisoner of conscience, Arturo was freed in 2010 when the Catholic Church and the Spanish government negotiated the release of the 75 Black Spring prisoners. He and his family were exiled to Spain where they lived for several years, before resettling in the United States.
Cuba, an island nation of 11.4 million people in the northern Caribbean Sea, is a totalitarian state.
Fidel Castro led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled the country for 49 years before formally relinquishing power to his younger brother Raul in 2008. Raul Castro is the current head of state and First Secretary of the Communist Party, which is recognized by the Cuban Constitution as the only legal political party and “the superior leading force of society and of the state.” Raul Castro has said that he will step down from power at the age of 86 in 2018.
Cuba was a territory of Spain until the Spanish-American War. The United States assumed control of the island until 1902, when the Republic of Cuba became formally independent. A fledgling democracy was established, with the U.S. continuing to play a strong role in Cuban affairs.
In 1952, facing an impending electoral loss, former president Fulgencio Batista staged a successful military coup and overthrew the existing government. While his first term as elected president in the 1940s largely honored progressive politics, universal freedoms, and the Cuban Constitution of 1940, Batista’s return to power in the 1950s was a dictatorship marked by corruption, organized crime and gambling. He held power until 1959 when he was ousted by Fidel Castro’s rebel July 26th Movement.
While promising free elections and democracy, Castro moved quickly to consolidate power. By 1961, Castro had declared Cuba to be a communist nation.
Castro’s communist government nationalized private businesses, lashed out at political opponents, and banned independent civil society. As Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Cuban-American relations soured, including a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to war, after the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, prompting a U.S. naval embargo.
Since the revolution, Cuba has remained a one-party state. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the evaporation of Soviet economic support, Cuba loosened some economic policies, became more open to foreign investment, and legalized use of the U.S. dollar. By the late 1990s, Venezuela had become Cuba’s chief patron, thanks to the close relationship between the Castro brothers and Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez.
The regime continues to exercise authoritarian political control, clamping down on political dissent and mounting defamation campaigns against dissidents, portraying them as malignant U.S. agents. In a massive crackdown in 2003 known as the Black Spring, the government imprisoned 75 of Cuba’s best-known nonviolent dissidents.
The Cuban government does not respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, movement, and religion. The government and the Communist Party control all news media, and the government routinely harasses and detains its critics, particularly those who advocate democracy and respect of human rights. Frequent government actions against dissidents often take the form of attacks by regime-organized mobs. Prison conditions are harsh and often life-threatening, and the courts operate as instruments of the Communist Party rather than conducting fair trials.
Cuba relaxed its travel laws in 2013, allowing some prominent dissidents to leave and return to the country. It continues to experiment with modest economic reforms but remains committed to communist economic orthodoxy.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report, Cuba was designated as “not free” and is grouped near the bottom of the world’s nations, with severely restricted civil rights and political liberties.
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