The Hour Has Come for Cubans

at 1:16 AM Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Excerpt from the must-read "Nation Project" by Cuban pro-democracy leader, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet:

[O]ur people feel inspired by the internal examples of the peaceful opposition, and by the external examples of non-violent paradigms, provided by the peoples of North Africa and the Middle East. The Cuban people, under the direction of the democratic opposition movement, have consolidated behind non-violent civic struggle as the strategic and tactical method to obtain its liberty and create a State with democratic rights in our country.

According to Nathan Sharansky, dictatorial regimes such as that of the Castro brothers are fearful societies, and "they are characterized by an inexorable process of stagnation, regression, and subsidence that the only way to defeat them is with external help." For that reason I have, over the years, vehemently condemned those civilized and developed countries that continue to prop up the communist dictatorship.

According to Sharansky, the socialist system in Cuba is in its final stages. Fearful societies that are in the terminal stage are identified by the increase in state terror and the growing number of duplicitous individuals. If we add to this the lost ideology of the system, the regime is even weaker because of the fact it is a post-communist state whose ideology has failed in an emphatic way. This is the ideal moment to put an end to the Castro dictatorship through massive, non-violent political defiance and not offer it any support whatsoever, which might provide it with political legitimacy and with financial and economic resources both internally and externally.

Many ideas come to our minds, but they serve little purpose if we do not put them into practice on our own free will. The dictatorship, in order to avoid allowing liberating ideas to develop in our daily lives, blocks our will through fear and depersonalization, in the same way it eliminates our self-esteem in order to convert us into instruments of their design.

In order to get out of this apathetic and weak state, it is necessary to open the internal sources of our own free will. This is only possible through healthy and pure activism, as the Pope described to the young people when he said: "be protagonists of your own personal and social history." That is why I tell the Cuban people to resist those who are tired, who have failed, whose love of country is weak, who are devoid of hope and self-love, who are traitors, and to be protagonists of their own history in order to be a free people.

The hour has come for Cubans to topple the communist dictatorship that for more than fifty years has destroyed our economy, our educational and religious structure, our morality, and our ethic of civilized coexistence. Let us not allow ourselves to be deceived by the false proposal of change within the same government that has enslaved us for more than half a century regardless of the institution, group, or person who presents it. It is very difficult for the Communist Party to initiate profound changes when in the last five years it has purged from its ranks its most moderate thinkers. The communist orthodoxy persists at all levels of leadership, and they use democratic centrism, or better said the subordination of all its members with no respect for minorities.

Nevertheless, let us presume for a moment the utopia that the communist regime will voluntarily accede and grant profound transformations. What should they be?

- Ratify the international human rights pacts, especially those dealing with civil and political rights.
- Preemptively recognize and respect inalienable rights.
- Repeal Article Five of the Communist Constitution (which recognizes the Communist Party as the leading force of the state).
- Allow the entry, exit, and permanence of all Cubans on the island with a full guarantee of their rights.
- Guarantee the direct participation of every Cuban in exile in all the processes of democratic change in their country.
- The resignation of all current members of the Council of State and of the government, and those linked to crimes against humanity.

By putting into practice these indispensable requirements, they would become the preamble to recognizing, analyzing, and debating the process of change towards a transition of the country to a democracy and towards liberty. Without these requirements there is nothing to talk about.

Translation by Alberto de la Cruz.