The Varela Project had five points and was made possible by the 1976 Cuban Constitution, in articles 63 and 88G of the constitution, it stated that when more than 10,000 citizens submit a request to the National Assembly, the assembly is to meet and respond to the request, or take that request to the people in a referendum.
[The Varela Project was a civil society initiative advocating for free elections and improved human rights in Cuba. It gathered signatures from Cuban citizens in favor of a plebiscite on elections, as permitted by the Cuban constitution. When originally submitted to the government in 2002, the petition contained 11,000 signatures, since that time the number has increased to more than 25,000.]
The first point calls for individual freedoms: freedom of association, and freedom of assembly.
The second point calls for economic freedoms: that everyone could have his own business and contribute as they do in a capitalist society, such as pay taxes, which is explained as well [in the Varela Project].
The third point: force a referendum and take it to the National Assembly , then have the people vote on the project, whether they support it or not. Also, reforming the electoral system in Cuba because as the whole world knows, the delegates of the National Assembly in Cuba are hacks; sometimes they move people from one position to another and hand out tasks to the party’s youth organization and then they just do as they please while in power.
Well then, what we want is the right for every municipality to choose its own delegates from the their own community; so that members from each municipality are chosen by their own municipalities, not by a committee of candidacy which is what exists in Cuba. These committees determine who runs and who gets elected to the National Assembly. Of course, these are people who have been compromised by the regime and will not defend the interests of the people, only the interests of the government.
And the fifth point calls for freedom for political prisoners who did not commit violent crimes. I did not agree with this point because [at the time] all political prisoners had spilled blood; Cuba had a violent history and many had fought, you know? There were those who committed sabotage, used bombs. That doesn’t stop them from being political because those were the circumstances of the time. We lead a peaceful struggle but it it’s not untrue that in the first years of the Cuban Revolution, there was an armed struggle and there were many who were imprisoned for attacks and disputes with commanders that wouldn’t be protected under the Valera Project’s fifth point.
Well then, I agreed with the majority of the project [and the freedoms for which it advocated], and we collected signatures, and delivered them…around 11, 000…11,020 signatures… for the Varela Project.
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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