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Global Lawmakers Forum Recognizes National Front for Civic Resistance as a Legitimate Representative of the Cuban People's Freedom Struggle
By Assembly of the Resistance

Cuban-born US Congressman Mario Diaz Balart presents the resolution recognizing the National Front for Civic Resistance at the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Cuban-born US Congressman Mario Diaz Balart presents the resolution recognizing the National Front for Civic Resistance at the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Vilnius, Lithuania. June 30, 2011. Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. The struggle for freedom in Cuba has witnessed a historic diplomatic victory in Vilnius, Lithuania during the Community of Democracies summit held in this city.

During its plenary meeting, the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies extended recognition to the Cuban Resistance by adopting a resolution presented by Cuban-born US Congressman Mario Diaz- Balart in which the Forum “recognizes the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience as a legitimate representative of the struggle for the freedom of the Cuban people”.

Congressman Diaz-Balart presented took the floor to present the resolution before the international meeting of legislators in the same chamber of the Lithuanian Parliament where that country's independence from the Soviet Union was declared in 1991.

The Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience is a national grouping of regional coalitions of the Cuban opposition. Since its founding nearly two years ago, it has coordinated protests and nonviolent civil resistance actions throughout Cuba whose watchword has been “We all are the resistance”.

Among its leaders are former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" from Villa Clara in Central Cuba, Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina from Baracoa in Eastern Cuba, Sara Marta Fonseca Quevedo from Havana, Raúl Luis Risco Pérez from Pinar del Rio in Western Cuba, Eriberto Liranza Romero from Havana, and many others from across the Island.

This is the first time an intergovernmental organization has recognized the legitimacy of the Cuban people's resistance against the Castro regime, underlining its importance as a genuine expression of the people's democratic aspirations.

The resolution affirms the constant resistance of the Cuban people's resistance against the Communist regime since 1959, both on the Island and in exile, and emphasizes the martyrs and the political prisoners”, said Sylvia Iriondo, president of Mothers and Women against Repression (MAR por Cuba), and a member of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance's secretariat. "This is an extremely important step, and vital support for the path the Resistance has taken in Cuba, and to which we are committed.”

At the summit, the Parliamentary Forum was established as a permanent body in the Community of Democracies, which is currently presided by Lithuania.

"We are very pleased that, at a time when the Castro regime violently attacks those who are protesting in the streets of Cuba, an important international institution has gone beyond simply condemning repression in order to recognize the Resistance's struggle as legitimate and representative,” said Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat of the Cuban Democratic Directorate and a member of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance's Secretariat, who also attended the Parliamentary Forum.

Below  follows the full text of the resolution recognizing the National Front for Civic Resistance:


RESOLUTION PRESENTED BY U.S. CONGRESSMAN MARIO DIAZ-BALART

AND APPROVED BY THE

PARLIAMENTARY FORUM

OF THE COMMUNITY OF DEMOCRACIES (CoD)

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA

JUNE 30, 2011


WHEREAS the Cuban dictatorship over the past 52 years has erected a totalitarian power structure that systematically violates the fundamental human rights of all Cubans both in law and by its actions,

WHEREAS over the past 52 years this dictatorship has engaged in thousands of summary and extra-judicial executions;

WHEREAS hundreds of thousands of Cubans have been imprisoned for their political beliefs;

WHEREAS ever since 1959 there has been a constant resistance to the Communist regime throughout the island and in exile;

WHEREAS the human rights movement grew out of the prisons into a national movement capable of documenting human rights abuses, distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, educating Cubans on human rights, and organizing petition drives to attempt to empower Cubans;

WHEREAS the Regime has steadfastly refused to carry out any kind of political opening or democratic transition, increasing repression in order to tray and repress the freedom movement;

WHEREAS civic resistance is the means currently available to the Cuban people for them to regain their liberty;

WHEREAS Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet was one of the pioneering activists who took to the streets to distribute copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;


WHEREAS this civic resistance movement has embraced the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.;

WHEREAS Cuban political prisoners Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez and Ricardo Pupo Sierra, in the summer of 2006, issued a call for non-cooperation with the regime;

WHEREAS Cubans in the diaspora answered this call; first by organizing a non-cooperation campaign to spread their compatriots’ message, and secondly, on March 18, 2009, forming the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, on the sixth anniversary of the “Black Cuban Spring”, with over 50 civil society organizations;

WHEREAS Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez, imprisoned for 17 years and 34 days on the charge of “enemy propaganda” for calling for Eastern European style reforms in 1990, emerged from prison having served his full sentence on April 23, 2007;

WHEREAS Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez on November 3, 2009, along with other resistance leaders from throughout the island, established the National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front, a movement which has brought together opposition organizations in Cuba whose strategy is civic resistance and civil disobedience;

WHEREAS following the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo on February 23, 2010 at the hands of the dictatorship, the movement was renamed the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience;

WHEREAS the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience continues to carry out coordinated protests and civic actions throughout Cuba;

NOW, THEREFORE the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies recognizes the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience as a legitimate representative of the struggle for the freedom of the Cuban people;

FURTHERMORE, we support the nomination of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet for the Nobel Peace Prize, because of his pioneering work on human rights education in Cuba and the example he personifies as a non-violent leader in the struggle for human rights inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

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