Dissidents assure there is no opening in Cuba, instead there is a renewed repressive strategy
By Maite Rico

(L to R) Carlos Alberto Montaner, Natalia Bellusova, and Rafael Rubio in Madrid (EFE/Kiko Huesca)

MAITE RICO - Madrid - 02/13/2007
Published in El País

Fidel Castro’s exit from power, this past July, and the initiation of an interim government led by his brother Raúl, has not alleviated the human rights situation in Cuba, according to various resistance organizations. Repression continues, although the regime has changed its strategy, replacing long prison sentences for dissidents with more direct actions like short detentions, confiscation of publications and materials, violent mobs, or police intimidation.

According to the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission, led by Elizardo Sánchez, on December 31, 2006, Cuban jails held 283 political prisoners, the highest number in the Western hemisphere. The seven prisoners that were released this past year were countered by the imprisonment of 10 new dissidents. The prison system, made up of over 200 prisons and labor camps, remains intact, and the regime continues to impede scrutiny by International Red cross and other humanitarian organizations.

"Fidel’s policies continue to be followed," insists the Commission. In this sense, Sánchez as well as Oswaldo Payá, promoter of the Varela Project which calls for democratization, appealed to the international community, “to not be led on by inertia,” and to not “let down their guard before the continued totalitarianism.”

According to Carlos Alberto Montaner, a writer and member of the opposition, Fidel Castro is very affected by the successive operations. "Raúl says that Fidel continues to make decisions. In reality Fidel impedes decision making. The fact that he is breathing in a room, results in no one taking a step, in the sort of structure they have established.” This is despite the “circumstances that exist” to initiate change articulated by “reformers of the system and democrats of the opposition.”

With repression and social control intact, the capacity for Cuban society to pressure the government is reduced. However, “civic resistance actions” have doubled: in 2005, there were 3,322 acts of protest documented, including vigils for freedom of political prisoners, assemblies and demonstrations, according to the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Cases of public resistance along with the increase in laboral indiscipline, havde driven the government to express concern through official press, and in the past months there have been small rebellions against authorities. Such is the case of the human chain that impeded the eviction of a family in Madruga this past November, and dozens of episodes in which neighbors have refused to participate in government-organized mobs.

Translated by the Cuban Democratic Directorate

Send by E-mail | Printable Version

Directorio Democrático Cubano
P.O. Box 110235
Hialeah, Florida 33011
Tel. 305-220-2713
info@directorio.org

In Memory of Mario Manuel de la Peña