Cuban opposition is worried about post-Castro era

Posted on Saturday, 06.28.14

Cuban opposition is worried about post-Castro era
'What actually robs us of our sleep is . . . the reconstruction of our
national homeland,' a Cuban activist said.
BY NORA GAMEZ TORRES
NGAMEZ@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

The opposition in Cuba has a young leadership that fights for human
rights and is already thinking about the reconstruction of the country
in the near future, according to Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz, president
of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation in
Havana.

"Our own [Vaclav] Havel and [Lech] Walesa are there in Cuban society,"
Sánchez said during an interview in Miami with el Nuevo Herald.

"Their names are irrelevant because leaders emerge," he said. "There are
young leaders who are very charismatic in the opposition. I see them and
it's very encouraging."

Although the Cuban internal opposition has been extremely persecuted and
its accomplishments have been limited, Sánchez said that it is "working
to dismantle the regime and is making gradual progress. What actually
robs us of our sleep is the post-Castro era, the reconstruction of our
national homeland."

"We have made progress reaching consensus," he said, and cited as an
example the meeting held by several opposition leaders Feb. 26 in
Madrid, where they demanded the unconditional release of all political
prisoners by the Cuban government, a halt to repression against
human-rights activists and compliance with the agreements of the
International Labor Organization on workforce and union rights. They
also demanded that all international agreements signed by Havana — such
as the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights — be respected.

Another new element cited by Sánchez is the plurality within the
opposition, though he indicated that the mainstream is liberal. "I will
always vote socialist, but that current is very discredited in Cuba," he
said.

The Cuban government has always depicted the internal opposition in the
state media as "mercenary," accusing it of being funded by foreign
governments, and part of the population agrees with that. Sánchez said
it has been difficult for activists to defend themselves from such
"slander" since the government has a media monopoly.

Though the dissident acknowledged that the opposition received help from
"Europe, the United States and to a certain extent from South America,"
he said that this was normal and that the "Cuban government itself has
spent its whole life receiving foreign funds that it uses to make the
Cubans miserable."

Sánchez, who was a member of the former Popular Socialist Party and
identifies himself as a "leftist man," said that for years he has not
worked on "political issues" in order to focus on human rights issues.

Following the model of the civil movements that developed in the former
Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, the Cuban opposition has focused on
reclaiming human and civil rights "because it's a very important topic
now and in the transition that has already started," said Sánchez, who
also mentioned his efforts toward national reconciliation.

Sánchez also said that the arbitrary detentions that the Commission for
Human Rights and National Reconciliation, known by its Spanish-language
acronym CCDHRN, reports every month have increased because "the
repression has grown, together with people's discontent and
hopelessness. There is an iceberg of discontent whose visible part is
the growing movement of non-violent resistance."

According to Sánchez, "Thirty years ago the number of open, active
dissidents on the streets were barely 10; now we are thousands," but he
pointed out that those numbers are lower than potential migrants. "The
people are just thinking of leaving," he said.

The Commission also presents periodically a list of political prisoners,
which now contains 114 names, of which 80 are peaceful dissidents,
according to the report. Also on the list are former diplomats, state
security agents, and Alan Gross, an American sentenced for taking
technology to the Jewish community in Cuba to help it access the
Internet by satellite.

The list also contains eight inmates who attempted to bring weapons from
Florida to Cuba between 1991 and 2001. They received prison sentences of
25 to 30 years.

Sánchez said this was a controversial issue, since the Cuban government
considers them terrorists and some European governments question the use
of force. Yet "in the end, they are still political prisoners, armed
opposition activists. That's how Fidel Castro took power, and in Cuba,
using arms to topple governments is almost a tradition," he said.

In its report on human rights in Cuba for 2013, Amnesty International
corroborated the Commission's report on the practice of brief arrests
adopted by Cuban authorities to prevent opposition members from meeting
or attending a planned event. But only seven prisoners of conscience
were included that year on the organization's list.

Sánchez said he would continue to insist that Amnesty International
include more prisoners "who never used force or violence, especially
those who belong to the Patriotic Union of Cuba."

About the reform driven by Raúl Castro's government, Sánchez said the
changes are "limited, too late and too little." They are administrative
changes, not structural, merely designed to "buy time," he said.

"I don't believe there is a clear idea about a way out at the end of
Fidelism and Raulism," he concluded. "Castroism will not survive,
because when a caudillo [military-political leader] dies, the ideology
also dies."

Follow Nora Gámez Torres on Twitter @ngameztorres

Source: Cuban opposition is worried about post-Castro era - Miami-Dade -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/28/4207865/cuban-opposition-is-worried-about.html