The Cuban peaceful opposition took refuge in and read a lot about dissidents and the processes in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland. The Solidarity movement of Lech Walesa. We read a lot of Adam Michnik, Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless. For the communist system that prevails in Cuba, we identified more with what happened in the Soviet Union’s satellite countries than with the Soviet Union itself.
Personally, I identify a lot with the process that happened in Chile. It is what I see for Cuba. I think this will be one of the ways we can try. I think the main thing learned by Cuba´s peaceful opposition from Eastern Europe movements is that fear is not the only option. There are other options besides fear. Facing a totalitarian and communist system is risky but worth it. They achieved freedom and that´s what we want: Cuba’s freedom.
I had the privilege of working with Walesa, with Normando [Hernandez] and Omar [Moises Ruiz] … Yes, they are a source of inspiration for all who want freedom and democracy in Cuba. There are others, not only those, but fundamentally [Lech] Walesa, [Andrej] Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik (a writer that I admire very much).
[Normando Hernandez (1969 – ) is a Cuban independent journalist and human rights advocate. From 2003 to 2010, he was a prisoner of conscience after his arrest in the Black Spring crackdown.
Omar Moisés Ruiz: (1974 – ) is a Cuban independent journalist and a former dissident and political prisoner. He was among those imprisoned during the Black Spring crackdown in 2003. In 2010, he was exiled to Spain and currently resides in the United States.
Lech Walesa (1943 – ) was the leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement that brought down the communist regime. He served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995.
Andrei Sakharov (1921 – 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, and human rights activist. A key architect of the Soviet nuclear force, he became an outspoken opponent of the communist system. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
Vaclav Havel (1936 – 2011) was a Czech writer and dissident. He served as the last President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. His 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, discusses the nature of communist tyranny and how dissidents can work together for change.]
Adam Michnik (1946 – ) is a Polish writer and journalist and a former dissident and political prisoner. He was a key advisor to the Solidarity movement and established several anti-communist publications.]
Obviously [Abraham] Lincoln, [Jose] Martí, [Antonio] Maceo, and [Simon] Bolivar are a source of inspiration for all of us.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta. These are people who always moved ahead despite the obstacles of life, the difficulties of the way, they learned to get ahead. There are many people that we value and admire for that fight. [Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) was the 16th president of the United States.
Jose Marti (1853 – 1895) is recognized as Cuba’s national hero. Marti was a writer and essayist who advocated for Cuban independence from Spain. Lt. General Antonio Maceo Grajales (1845 – 1896) was a Cuban soldier and statesman. He was second-in-command of the Cuban Army of Independence.
Simon Bolivar (1783 – 1830) was a military and political leader in Latin America. Born in Venezuela, he led Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama (then part of Colombia), Peru, and Venezuela to independence from Spain.
Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997) was a Roman Catholic nun, who founded the Missionaries of Charity religious order. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her efforts to aid the poor.]
In prison I could devour the complete works of José Martí. When you deeply study the work of Martí, you better understand this great man that is our apostle. I think José Martí is the greatest of all Cubans. He is the figure that every Cuban should remember always.
Pablo Pacheco was born in the city of Puerto Padre in Cuba’s Las Tunas province.
He first became involved with the opposition in 1998 when he joined the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, an organization that monitors and denounces human rights violations and supports Cuban political prisoners. He became the foundation’s secretary.
In 1999, Pablo started a career as an independent journalist. He worked for several independent news agencies such as the College of Independent Journalists of Camaguey, the Avila Independent Journalists Cooperative, and the web-based Cubanet, an online compendium of independent news stories offering alternative perspectives from those of government-controlled media.
On March 19, 2003, Pablo was arrested during a massive government crackdown on activists known as the Black Spring. He was one of 75 nonviolent dissidents, human rights activists, and independent librarians arrested by security forces. In a summary judicial proceeding, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
During his incarceration, Pablo helped to establish a blog called “Voices Behind Bars” with dissident bloggers Iván García, Yoani Sánchez and Claudia Cadelo. The platform featured testimonials from political prisoners describing conditions and abuse inside Cuban jails. Their stories were recorded over the phone during the prisoners’ limited telephone privileges. In the event that guards cut off the phone lines, relatives would smuggle written testimonials out of the prison for inclusion in the blog. In 2009, “Voices Behind Bars” was recognized as the best of 187 Cuban opposition blogs in the Una Isla Virtual (A Virtual Island) competition.
After 7 years, Pablo was freed when the Catholic Church and the Spanish government negotiated the release of the 75 Black Spring prisoners. Pablo went into exile and currently lives in Miami, Florida, with his wife and son. He continues to share his experiences from his time in prison and remains active in Cuba’s freedom movement.
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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