1. Repression against human rights activists and political prisoners in Cuba has increased considerably in recent months.

2. Raúl Castro’s regime is just as illegitimate as his brother Fidel’s was, and as of this writing the only effective measures he has taken have served to keep in power the totalitarian dictatorship that has oppressed the Cuban people for more than 49 years.

3. Any process leading to real changes in Cuba must begin with the immediate and unconditional liberation of all Cuban political prisoners, the legalization of the political and civil society organizations that exist in Cuba, and the calling of free, multi-party elections under international supervision.

The Cuban Democratic Directorate sent international press outlets and ODCA member political and civil society organizations the following clarification:

Clarification and Message from the Cuban Democratic Directorate to the signers of the ODCA Statement

The distribution in Europe, the United States, and Latin America of the final document of the Cuba Solidarity Forum held by the Christian Democrat Organization of America (ODCA) in Costa Rica on March 14, 2008 has created some confusion and we wish to clarify the following points:

1. The Cuban Democratic Directorate  did not sign, nor does it subscribe to or support the text of the San José ODCA Statement. At a time when thousands of Cubans are active in the civic resistance movement on the Island, when the regime itself recognizes the strike of Cuban workers who leave their arms at their sides, when Cuban students offer striking proof of their struggle for change in their country, when more than 1.4 million Cubans, according to the regime itself, did not cooperate with the electoral farce designed to enthrone General Raúl Castro, and when, accordingly, repression and physical violence against civic struggle activists increases, it is lamentable that ODCA is distancing itself from the international consensus that does not recognize the legitimacy of this dictatorship.

2. The Directorio was not consulted concerning the implementation of this strategy and is therefore not responsible for it.

3. In our opinion, the ODCA Statement as written, as well as its implementation process, suffers from conceptual problems and makes ideological concessions, distancing it from the struggle for human rights in Cuba of which ODCA has been a pillar and bulwark for nearly 50 years.

4. Sadly, this ODCA statement, on which the Cuban Democratic Directorate and the internal resistance organizations it represents were not consulted, associates ODCA with the policy of appeasing the dictatorship of General Raúl Castro driven by the government of Spanish president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

5. We salute and appreciate the effort made in Costa Rica, led by ODCA President Manuel Espino with whom we share ties of friendship. We also salute and appreciate all the participants in that conference who demonstrated their deep feelings and intense desire to support the Cuban people in their struggle against the dictatorship and signed the final declaration that was presented to them as a gesture through which they could demonstrate their determination to support the Cuban people so that they may achieve their freedom.

We attach below the Prague Memorandum, which constitutes the essence of the worldwide movement in support of democracy in Cuba, and a partial list of its signers.

Respectfully yours,

Javier de Céspedes                                                        Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat

President                                                                      National Secretary

Janisset Rivero

            Adjunct National Secretary 

___________

Attachment

Partial list of signers of the Prague Memorandum

1.    Jose Maria Aznar, former President of Spain and the Centrist Democrat International

2.    Patricio Azócar Aylwin, former President of Chile

3.    Eduardo Frei, former President of Chile

4.    Luis Alberto Lacalle, former President of Uruguay

5.    Toomas Henrik Ilves, President of Estonia

6.    Vaclac Havel, former President of the Czech Republic

7.    Arpád Göncz, former President of Hungary

8.    Milan Kučan, former President of Slovenia

9.    Mart Laar, former Prime Minister of Estonia

10.   Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada

11.   Armando Calderon Sól, former President of El Salvador

12.   Vytautas Landsbergis, former Prime Minister of Lituania

13.   Rexhep Meidani, former President of the Republic of Albania

14.   Philip Dimitrov, former Prime Minister of Bulgaria

15.   Chang, Chun-Hsiung, former Prime Minister of Taiwan

16.   Luis Alberto Monge, former President of Costa Rica

17.   Violeta Chamorro, former President of Nicaragua

18.   Edward H. C. McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament

19.   Cecilia Malmström, member of the European Parliament

20.   Jose Ribeiro e Castro, member of the European Parliament

21.   Baroness Caroline Cox, member of the British Parliament

22.   Arnold Vaatz, member of the German Parliament

23.   Urban Ahlin, representative of the Swedish Social Democratic Party

24.   Adam Michnik, Polish writer

25.   Enrique Krause, Mexican writer

26.   Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer

27.   André Glucksmann, German philosopher

28.   Marcos Aguinis, Argentine writer and former Minister of Culture

29.   Dr. Elena Bonner, human rights activist and former Soviet dissident

THE PRAGUE MEMORANDUM

FINAL DECLARATION AND WORKING DOCUMENT

During the days of 17, 18 and 19 September we have met in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, to support the struggle for democratic change in Cuba. Former heads of state, current ministers and representatives from the European Union and Latin America, leaders from international and regional organizations, intellectuals, academics, human rights activists and members of non governmental organizations, members of parliaments from Europe and Latin America, and representatives of the Cuban civic movement have participated in this forum. Participants have included representatives from the full range of the ideological spectrum, among them social democrats, Christian democrats, liberals and conservatives.

It is inconceivable and unacceptable that people continue to be imprisoned in Cuba for their ideals and peaceful political activity. We know that the majority of Cubans desire non-violent democratic change in order to establish freedom and democracy in their land. Furthermore, all of us here are convinced of the necessity of this change due to the contact we maintain not just with the pro democracy movement, but also with the silent majority of citizens who are paralyzed by the fear of repression.

The true source of sovereignty lies in the exercise of their innate rights by the citizens of any given country. A people are not sovereign if they cannot exercise these rights, if they cannot freely elect their political representatives from different ideological options, if they cannot count on the existence of an independent judiciary to balance the power of the government. We defend Cuban sovereignty when we defend the right of the Cuban people to democracy and when we insist that the Cuban government comply with the international agreements on democracy and human rights that it has signed. Without a general amnesty for all political prisoners, recuperation of civil liberties and free general multiparty elections the Cuban people cannot fully exercise their sovereignty.

Our goal is to help create the conditions so that the Cuban people can bring about democracy through a non-violent transition. Our priority is to strengthen the civil society and civic movement that are bringing about that democracy. In order to accomplish this, we seek to set out common objectives for a general plan of support for democracy in Cuba that can be implemented in a coordinated manner at different levels and from different parts of the world. The task of general coordination and support for this plan will correspond to the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba.

The following mechanisms must be established in order to help create the conditions so that the Cuban people can freely choose the political and economic system they desire:

·         Creation of an international network of non-governmental organizations that have expressed solidarity with democracy in Cuba.

·         Creation of an international network of parliamentarians in support of democracy in Cuba.

·         Creation of a President’s Task Force in Support of Democracy in Cuba.

·         An international commission of experts that will pool resources from the transition experiences in Europe and Latin America to aid the Cuban people in their own transition to democracy.

These mechanisms will function according to a general work plan whose priorities will be:

To insist that the international community does not and will not tolerate any human rights violations in Cuba. This is vital in order to support the current victims and prevent future violations.

The following measures will be implemented in order to contribute to this goal:

• Coordination of the international adoption of political prisoners by MPs and NGOs.

• Preparation of a list of members of the Castro Regime directly linked to human rights violations and seek that they not be granted travel visas to democratic countries.

• Mobilization of youth, women and civil society from around the world in order to condemn human rights violations in Cuba, which can only be achieved through a general amnesty and recuperation of civil liberties.

To achieve greater international recognition and legitimacy for the Cuban civic movement through:

• Support for the current European Common Position on Cuba.
• Creation of a regional Latin American Working Group that will work to open the doors of the Latin American embassies in Havana to contact with the Cuban civic movement.
• Creation of a President’s Task Force in Support of Democracy in Cuba, which will offer itself as a mediating body to aid the Cuban opposition in establishing fundamental agreements on cooperation and coordination that will lead to a peaceful transition to democracy and rule of law.
• Furthermore, it will be a vital priority of this plan to aid the Cuban people in their transition to democracy through the creation of an international commission that will pool the experiences of transition in Europe and Latin America in order to aid the Cuban people in the construction of a democratic polity.

We acknowledge the ‘Manifesto for the Liberty of Prisoners of Conscience in Cuba’ presented by José María Aznar at this summit and share its objective of an international campaign for a general amnesty for Cuban political prisoners.