The opposition in Cuba is very poor in terms of resources. The dissident movement is just a poor movement and the government tries to smother it so that they don´t have the time to oppose them. The government tries to squeeze them economically so that they are forced to commit crimes and put them in jail for these common crimes. There is an external alliance of the Cuban people and the dissident movement opposing the Cuban government, along with the U.S. government.
And the opposition doesn’t need what they have given them, not even double, triple, or quadruple of what they have spent. We need support, the support of the United States and of all democratic governments in the world. To dissolve the fascist government of the Castro brothers. The support of all of the NGOs of the world to dissolve the fascist government of the Castro brothers. We need it. The opposition and the dissidents is not interested in the Cuban government. The last thing that they want to think about is the Cuban government. We do not want them in power anymore. The term “help” can be confusing. It is a very general term.
Sometimes we talk about help and we think that it is financial help or some other direct help. But there also exists moral support. And moral support, this moral acknowledgement of the opposition and of the dissidents is the recognition that was needed all along within Cuba. The opposition and the Cuban dissidents need material things, but they also need spiritual and moral support. And we have a lot of governments around the world that have given us this kind of help. Help from the government of the Czech Republic, the government of Spain and the European Community. There are a number of governments. Poland, for example.
I do not want to keep on mentioning more because I may offend some that I did not mention. There are a lot. The European Union in a broad sense when the government is sincerely concerned about the Cuban people. There are even very decent organizations in favor of the opposition movement and the Cuban dissidents against the Cuban government. But unfortunately these positions are not at the level that the opposition movement wants them to be. The Cuban opposition movement is asking for more. Why? Because through solidarity, when it is united from the outside to support the opposition movement, the dissidents within Cuba will accelerate change by transitioning to a system that recognizes liberty and democracy in my country.
All of this depends on the types of presidents that exist in these governments, on political and economic balances and the particular interest of each country. But all of this has its pros and cons. But yes, we have received support. Not at the level that we want it to be, but we have received support.
Normando Hernández is an independent journalist who has dedicated his career to providing alternative sources of news and information in Cuba. In 1999, he co-founded the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights, and in 2000, he established the Camaguey Association of Journalists, the first independent organization in Camaguey province since 1959. Declared a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International following Cuba’s “Black Spring” (2003–2010), during which dozens of dissidents and journalists were imprisoned for their activism, Mr. Hernández was exiled to Spain in 2010 and has since resettled in the United States.
The author of numerous articles and publications, including the book El Arte de la Tortura: Memorias de un Ex Prisionero de Conciencia Cubano (The Art of Torture: Memories of a Former Cuban Prisoner of Conscience, 2010), he has received several journalism and human rights awards, including the Norwegian Writers Association’s Freedom of Expression Award (2009), the PEN American Center’s PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2007), and a special mention by the Inter-American Press Association for excellence in journalism (2003). Mr. Hernández is currently a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, where he is examining the Cuban communications monopoly and considering strategies by which independent journalists may combat totalitarianism.
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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