If unity is respect for others’ opinions, if it is consensus, if it is to say “Present!” each time there is a situation involving one of our brothers, if unity is being there when Orlando Zapata Tamayo was in agony, if it is attending the funeral of one of our assassinated leaders, Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, and if unity is protesting and supporting each other, then the Cuban political opposition is united.
[Orlando Zapata Tamayo (1967 – 2010) was a Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience. He died while on a hunger strike. Oswaldo Paya Sardinas (1952 – 2012) was a Cuban dissident who founded the Christian Liberation Movement. He was awarded the Andrej Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament for his opposition activity. He died in a mysterious automobile accident, which many have alleged was orchestrated by the Cuban government.]
There are many organizations and many movements, but that is precisely civil society. It is the democratic, pluralist spirit of the opposition. The regime needs the opposition to concentrate on a single coalition, on one group under a single mandate to be able to decapitate it. But it is not so. We have learned much during this totalitarian darkness. We have learned much from what happened with tyrants like Gerardo Machado, [Fulgencio] Batista, and Fidel [Castro]. We know the cost of not diversifying the fight along different fronts.
[Gerardo Machado y Morales (1871 – 1939) was a hero in the Cuban War of Independence and was later elected president of Cuba in 1924. His rule became increasingly authoritarian until he was forced into exile in 1933. Fulgencio Batista (1901 – 1973) served as the president of Cuba from 1940-1944. In 1952, he returned to power via a bloodless coup and ruled the island through a military dictatorship until being overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959. Fidel Castro (1926 – ) led the Cuban Revolution and seized power in 1959. He established a communist dictatorship in Cuba and led the country until 2008.]
It is true that we must progress more. Not everything is as we’d wish it to be. We sometimes struggle to articulate our message and connect with others, but that does not mean we are not united. We have great difficulty in Cuba with regard to resources. Travel that would take three hours here [in the United States] could take a day or more in Cuba. This can make communications a challenge. There have been many mistakes as we’ve focused too much energy, or given that perception, on the external opposition. We overlooked the main audience in Cuba, the nation, our homeland.
If we could reverse that, and reconcile the exiles’ political agenda with the internal resistance we would ruin the dictatorship. Many outside of Cuba, understandably, will not be pleased because when we imagine 10,000 or more people [protesting] in the streets of Cuba, it is not realistic in our situation.
Remember that in Tunisia, in Egypt and the other Arab Spring countries, the people did not have a Defense of the Revolution Committee government office next to their homes. They had the Internet, something we do not have. But as I see it, the repression that we face, the police state, the constant repression… I think any demonstration, any opposition voice, no matter how small or insignificant it may appear, is gigantic compared to the situation we face.
[The Arab Spring refers to a series of uprisings across the Middle East that began in 2010 starting with Tunisia and spreading to countries such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and others. Committees for the Defense of the Revolution are a network of neighborhood associations across Cuba composed of pro-regime Cubans. Their official purpose is to promote social welfare and report on “counter-revolutionary” activity.]
Jorge Luis García Pérez (better known as “Antúnez”) was born in Placetas, Cuba in 1964. He is the leader of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Resistance Front. The Front is a Cuban civil society organization named for a political prisoner who died while on a hunger strike in 2010.
As an Afro-Cuban, Antúnez experienced the regime’s discrimination against minorities in restricting both educational and career opportunities. Such treatment, along with severe political repression, contributed to his disenchantment with the regime.
Antúnez, inspired by freedom movements in Eastern Europe, became active in the Cuban opposition. In March 1990, he was arrested for publically denouncing the Castro regime and sentenced to five years in prison. Despite his incarceration, Antúnez remained defiant by refusing to wear a prisoner’s uniform and rejecting the government’s re-education programs.
Antúnez also created the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners group in honor of the famous prisoner of conscience who died during a hunger strike in 1972. Through this organization, the prisoners drew inspiration and encouragement to continue their struggle. As a result, Antúnez was subject to solitary confinement, torture, and an extension of his five year sentence. He endured 17 years of prison before being released in 2007.
Antúnez continues advocating for freedom and democracy in Cuba with his wife, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, leader of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights. His work involves supporting Cuban political prisoners, and expanding political freedoms and civil liberties.
Twitter: @antunezcuba
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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