Civil and popular resistance forebodes the end of dictatorship from Cuba

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The dictatorship from Cuba, that has held power for over 62 years is disastrously crumbling and the transnational organized crime that is part of it and sustains it, knows this. For the shameful regime that sold itself as a “revolution” and that for decades, has blood-soaked its country, the region, and the world, there is no other recourse, other than violence against its own citizens. A society that has been taken to extremes of misery, oppression, humiliation, and violation of their human rights has now rebelled and history teaches us that its triumph is unavoidable. Civil and popular resistance of the Cuban people forebodes the end of Cuba’s dictatorship.

The message of the civil and popular resistance is summed up in the clip of young artists that contains the strategy for Cuba’s liberation: “It is over!” “No more lies. My people ask for freedom, not more doctrines. Let us not sing out “Homeland or Death” but “HOMELAND AND LIFE” and let us begin to build what we had dreamed for, that which was destroyed by their hands”. “Let not continue the blood to be dropped for wanting to think different. . .” “It is finished, it has run out of time, silence has been shattered. . . and we are not afraid, the deception has ended. . .”

Massive demonstrations, protests, non-violent resistance, complaints and identification of the dictatorship’s abuse and crimes, all types of acts of rejection and civil resistance, are the growing constant in Cuba that show a nation that has lost fear, a nation that has been subjected to hunger and has been a prisoner in its own homeland turned into a jail seeks to change its situation to achieve freedom that had been taken away for generations. A nation that now identifies the dictatorship as “a group of organized crime” and not a political group.

The regime uses violence and intimidation, represses, jails, lies, builds false narratives, assassinates the reputation of new leaders, broadcasts propaganda and uses the worn-out slogan of the imperialist enemy, but no one believes this any longer. The regime extorts its people with hunger and the needs it has created to obtain the total dependency of its victims, but they no longer believe it. The actions of the Cuban dictatorship only reaffirm the popular resistance and expedite its fall.

The decision of Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who is on a hunger strike for over a week and is at risk of dying, represents the wholesomeness of the young people, trained to defend the fallacious “revolution”, but who now claim “freedom”. Otero- Alcántara’s decision, risking to lose the only thing that he remains as owner of, his life, against Cuba’s dictatorship to achieve freedom is a heroic act of civil resistance, backed by and with the solidarity of millions in his country and the world.

Otero Alcántara is part of the San Isidro Movement, comprised by Cuban artists and intellectuals with the message “CULTURE AND FREEDOM” who, at the beginning of the year, opposed Decree 349 that “regulates and controls artistic activities and pretends to define, for the State, what is art”. Massive demonstrations grew, the regime increased arrests, the sentencing with its method of judicializing the repression, attacks and the whole range of infamy of the tyrannic State’s Security who, instead of placating it, make the civil and popular resistance grow.

The San Isidro Movement is not the only group of civil resistance, and is not alone. A few weeks ago, Cuba’s Patriotic Union (UNPACU in Spanish) conducted a massive hunger strike that was backed by Luis Almagro, the General Secretary of the Organization of American States avowing that “Havana’s dictatorship applies State-sponsored terrorism against its own citizens”. Several groups who practice civil resistance since many years back, are now again activating.

An important part of the Cuban resistance are young journalists who, under constant duress from the regime, use communications’ technologies, inform, produce news press releases and show the world, the Cuban peoples civil resistance.

The decision not to leave Cuba that members of the resistance have, is very important. Otero Alcántara declares “I would rather die this way in this State. . . I am not going to emigrate, to emigrate -for me- is not a solution.” Journalist Yoani Sánchez is a valuable example of this decision with persistence and resistance. This attitude, takes away one of the mechanisms of control and distension that Castroism used to force people into exile, replacing it with expatriation, persecution, and jailing, but wrecking internal pressure.

Citizens, the free press, the governments, and Americas’ and the world’s democratic leaders, must understand that the decision of the Cuban people is to recover its freedom and end the dictatorship, nothing less. The Cuban civil and popular resistance is underway, in the midst of a fight with the State and needs the backing of internal and international solidarity.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators Association, ATA # 234680.