Published November 15, 2011
EFE
Havana – The Catholic magazine Espacio Laical considers that any reform
in Cuba that seeks to be truly significant must start with the ruling
Communist Party, which it asked not to lose the chance at its next
national conference to create "substantial changes."
"In Cuba, any reform aspiring to be significant has to include political
innovation, and that will not happen if it doesn't start with the PCC
(as the party is known), the organization called to lead the way with
the changes all of us must carry out," Espacio Laical says in an
editorial appearing in this week's edition.
The magazine warns that no reform can be successful "without a political
force doing the work of building consensus based on the country as it
really is."
"We urge the First National Conference of the PCC, in this final phase
of the so-called historic generation that will outline substantial
changes and call on the people to make them a reality, not to waste this
opportunity," Espacio Laical said.
On Jan. 28 the PCC will hold its First National Conference to review the
organization's work and in which changes and guidelines are expected for
an eventual transfer of power to a new generation, as President Raul
Castro requested at April's party congress.
At that meeting, Cuba's only legal party approved the plan of economic
reforms promoted by Raul Castro, who was also elected as PCC first
secretary to replace his brother Fidel, who left office in 2006 because
of illness.
The PCC recently released the basic document for the upcoming First
National Conference, which includes, among other items, the proposal
that Gen. Castro made in April to gradually replace officials and limit
the terms of political and state offices to a maximum of 10 years.
But the Espacio Laical editorial criticizes the document for making no
mention of "countless subjects people were hoping for" and presents a
party "sticking to dogmas that have already failed and clinging to a
very vertical relationship with society."
The magazine, a publication of the Laity Council of the Archdiocese of
Havana, says that "in Cuba we need important economic, social,
political, spiritual and even symbolic changes," and that the most
important thing is "the reestablishment of citizenship."
"It is essential that all Cubans can - and want to - take part in
promoting ideas for national change in open debate, as well as in
approving those ideas for which a consensus is reached, and in the
execution of policies aimed at enacting them," the editorial says.
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